The event will be held via Zoom: ubc.zoom.us/j/64763345823.The passcode is 635410. (The meeting ID is 647 6334 5823.)
Barbara Bullock & Jacqueline Almeida Toribio (The University of Texas) will present a colloquium entitled, “Linguists and speech-scientists collaboratively advancing research on multilingual mixing”
Abstract: A considerable body of research has explored the linguistic properties and functions of language mixing and the individual and social factors that condition the emergence and dispersion of multilingual phenomena such as code-switching, borrowing, calquing, and convergence. Yet, discrepancies in data sources and annotations have led to incommensurate findings that sustain disputes; and the profiles offered by divergent analytical lenses have perpetuated questions on the nature and limits of integration of linguistic systems across speakers and communities. In this presentation, we demonstrate that collaboration of linguists with computational- and speech-scientists allows us to leverage substantial sources of knowledge and methods in increasing our understanding of multilingual speech, to mutual advantage. Specifically, we attend to code-switching and borrowing in diverse data sets (e.g., sociolinguistic interviews, film subtitles, and prose fiction) to exemplify the benefits of unifying linguistic-theoretical constructs, corpora with rich meta-data, and computational tools in achieving reliable and replicable findings. Foundational data on language mixing can, in turn, inform development of technologies for increasingly multilingual market.
