English Department
English Department

Culture in Language:

 Language in Media,

 Variation in Research

 July 13-15, 2012

Venue

Altes Heizhaus

 Accommodation Information Questionnaire and Registration 2011 Conference

This small international conference combines three perspectives:

  • Chemnitz students present their BA and MA projects to a wider audience,
  • international ERASMUS partners add their own specific approaches to widen the perspective, and
  • partners from an EU project on "Languages and Cultures in Contact / in Contrast"  will try out "Open Space", a new format of research exchange on Sunday.

Together we would like to show that empirical studies in language variation are a fascinating topic when they emphasize cultural dimensions of English around the world. We try to combine socio-, corpus- and cognitive-linguistic perspectives and stress multiple methodological approaches to current research and applications, especially in English language teaching and academic writing.

Programme

Friday, 13 July

13:00

Welcome & Conference Opening

Prof. Dr. Heinrich Lang (Deputy CV/Vice-President Research)

13:15

Exploring Language Variation/Teaching & Culture World-Wide
(Chair: Michael Hinner, Freiberg)

Introduction
Josef Schmied (Chemnitz)

13:30

Raymond Hickey (Duisburg-Essen):
The Development of Standards of English

14:20

 

Leyla Marti (Boğaziçi, Istanbul)
Cross-Cultural Differences in Speech Act Production: The Case of Turkish EFL Students' Cross-Cultural Communication

 

 

Yasemin Bayyurt (Boğaziçi, Istanbul)
Boğaziçi University Written Corpora of Learner/User English: a New Resource for English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Research

 

Thorsten Brato (Giessen/Chemnitz)
Student Fieldwork in Ghana
15:30 Coffee Break

16:00

BA Student Workshop
(Chair: Yasemin Bayyurt, Boğaziçi, Istanbul)

Jessica Küchler:
Usages of shall/should in German School Books and 'real' English - a Corpus-Based Comparison

Nadja Raddatz:
"May I have some candy, please? " Vs. Gimme some candy! - a Case Study of the Use and Understanding of Politeness in Children´s Language

Susanne Paul:
Acquisition of Language Variation: the Case of Scots

Sarah Schubert:
The Influence of Accent on Employment Policies - a Comparative Study on Companies in Glasgow and Edinburgh

Diana Gerhardt:
"We don't have that much debt to repay? Which is good for us?" - the High Rise Terminal in New Zealand English- A Question of Solidarity?

Sven Albrecht:
"Probably it is only a matter of time" - Connecting Clauses in Timed and Untimed Academic Writing. An Empirical Comparison of German Student Essays and BA Theses

Sara Triebler:
"For God's sake have you lost your marbels?" An online Study of Swear Word Usage between German Men and Women

Eugen Wegmann:
"*le me derping around with my Bychelor thesis" - Rage Comics and reddit.com's F7u12 subreddit as Speech Community

Vanessa Drexler:
"I don’t translate , I create!"  An on-line Survey on Uniformity vs. Creativity in Professional Translations

Anne Bonneschky:
Anglicisms in Automotive Texts from Status Updates to Advertising. Questionning Usage and Intelligibility among Different User Groups

19:00 Buffet Dinner

 

Saturday, 14 July
9:00

MA Student Workshop
(Chair: Leyla Marti, Boğaziçi, Istanbul)

Jennifer Hofmann:
Applying Forensic Linguistics: Author Identification - the Case of Heat Wave

Marie Drescher:
The Regularisation of Irregular Verbs in American English. An Investigation of the Use of Regularised Past Tense Forms by Native Speakers of American English

Maria-Joanna Ermlich:
The Linguistic Assimilation of German Immigrants in Alberta-Canada: an Analysis of Mother Tongue Use Currently and Shortly after Arrival

Michaela Bräuer:
Degree Adverbs in Written Academic English. A Corpus-Based Comparison of Native and Non-Native Usage

Marlen Abraham:
Usages of should in Academic Writing: a Comparison of Specialised & Popular and Native & Non-Native Englishes

Christina Schwerdtfeger:
The Frequency of Modal Verbs in Written and Spoken English: a Corpus-Based Study on shall

Andreas Uhlig:
Teaching English to Senior Citizens: the Case of Prepositions

 

END OF STUDENT CONFERENCE
12:00 Departure for lunch and Karlovy Vary

 

Sunday, 15 July SILCC project discussion
10:00

Input presentations for workgroups

1) Language, Culture & Film: Monika Kopytowska, Matthias Hofmann, Sascha Schmidt, Michaela Brüll, Annabel Haseloff, Lisann Hartmann, İlknur Gürses

2) Language, Culture & Newspapers: Susanne Wagner, Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Jerzy Tomaszczyk, Maciej Buczek, Dunlop Ochieng

3) Language, Culture & Internet: Josef Schmied, John Osborne, Łukasz Dróżdż, Thorsten Brato, Sven Albrecht, Cornelia Neubert
13:00 Lunch Break - Syrian Buffet

 

14:00

Open Space Meeting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-space_meeting)

in 3 work group perspectives on Language & Media: from teaching to student research

1) Language, Culture & Film

2) Language, Culture & Newspapers

3) Language, Culture & Internet
16:00 Presentation/discussion of work group results
  Project discussion: publication(s), further cooperation
17:00 Finis