Linguistic colloquium on new varieties in the Americas

On December 16th, Postcolonial Language Studies organized a linguistic colloquium with focus on new varieties in the Americas. These are varieties born out of the contact situations of colonial, indigenous, and African languages, such as for example the Afro-Hispanic varieties spoken in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. In the colloquium, we had presentations by local and international scholars about degrees of contact and restructuring in these cases. Many thanks to all the participants!

Programm:
Linguistisches Kolloquium: New Varieties in the Americas
Freitag, 16. Dezember 2016
Gästehaus der Universität Bremen
Auf dem Teerhof 58
Kontakt: Danae Perez Email: danae.perez@es.uzh.ch, Eeva Sippola Email: sippola@uni-bremen.de

09:00 - 09: 15 Eeva Sippola (Universität Bremen)
Begrüßung und Einführung

09:15 - 10:00 Maria Mazzoli (Universität Bremen)
Michif - a mixed language as a new variety

10:00 - 10:45 Sandro Sessarego (University of Texas at Austin und Universität Freiburg FRIAS)
A new look at the Spanish creole debate: The Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis

10:45 - 11:00 Kaffeepause

11:00 - 11:45 Laura Álvarez (Stockholms Universitet)
Cupópia: the Afro-Brazilian speech of Cafundó

11:45 - 12:30 Ana Paulla Braga Mattos (Aarhus Universitet)
The speech variety of Kalunga: an Afro-Brazilian community in Goiás

12:30 - 14:00 Mittagspause

14:00 - 14:45 Albert Wall (Universität Zürich)
What's new about Differential Object Marking in new varieties of Spanish and Portuguese?

14:45 - 15:30 Danae Perez (Universität Bremen und Universität Zürich)
Old and new language varieties in the Central Andes

15:30 - 15:45 Kaffeepause

15:45 - 16:30 Maja Robbers (Universität Bremen)
Contact-induced change in young people's Totonac

16:30 - 17:15 Ana Kondic (MPI SHH Jena)
Spanish influences on Huastec

 Sandro Sessarego, Laura Álvarez

 Albert Wall, Danae Perez

photo on the right: (from left to right) Eeva Sippola, Albert Wall, Ana Paulla Braga Mattos, Maja Robbers, Sandro Sessarego, Maria Mazzoli, Danae Perez, Laura Álvarez

Joanna Chojnicka on ethics in science

On December 15th, Joanna Chojnicka (Postcolonial Language Studies) and Denise Müller-Dum (Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen) are giving a talk entitled "Ethics and Science - a Transdisciplinary Discussion". The talk takes place within the BYIC (Bremen Young Investigators' Circle) Brown Bag lunch program.

Here's the abstract of the talk:

We would like to invite you to discuss scientific practice and ethical challenges with us. We will introduce the topic with a brief presentation covering the following fundamental and basic questions: What is science? What kinds of values are there in science? What is ethics, and ethics in science in particular? We will also give a short overview of the topics that ethics in science is concerned with beyond good scientific practice.

After that, we will have ample time for discussion. What is your view on ethics in science?  What constitutes good research? What kinds of responsibilities do we bear as researchers?

We are especially interested in discussing researchers’ underlying values that are rarely taken up, that go unnoticed in the business-as-usual of the academic world. In the rush for more challenging, more innovative, more ground-breaking scientific discoveries, do we ever pause to wonder: (Why) do we need to know everything? And are there things that should not be studied? For example, some people think research on climate engineering, deep sea mining or research for military purposes should not be conducted. And similarly: When we speak about animal testing or embryonic stem cell research, this raises the question how we conduct our research and where we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable means.

You are invited to share your own beliefs and experiences, as well as questions or doubts that you may have encountered in your work. We are looking forward to an exciting, active discussion!

Denise and Joanna

A new publication by Tendai Mangena

A book co-edited by Tendai Mangena has recently come out!

Oliver Nyambi, Tendai Mangena and Charles Pfukwa (editors), The Postcolonial Condition of Names and Naming Practices in Southern Africa, Cambridge Scholars Publishers, (2016), ISBN 978-1-4438-9691-7, 410pp.

Book Description
The Postcolonial Condition of Names and Naming Practices in Southern Africa represents a milestone in southern African onomastic studies. The contributors here are all members of, and speakers of, the cultures and languages they write about, and, together, they speak with an authentic African voice on naming issues in the southern part of the African continent. The volume’s overarching thesis is that names are important yet often underestimated socio-politico-cultural sites on which some of the most significant events and processes in the post-colony can be read. The onomastic topics covered in the book range from the names of traditional healers and male aphrodisiacs to urban landscapes and street naming, from the interface between Chinese and African naming practices to the names of bands of musicians and mini-bus taxis. There is a strong section on literary onomastics which explores how names have been variously deployed by southern African fiction writers for certain semantic, aesthetic and ideological effects. The cultures and languages covered in this volume are equally wide-ranging, and, while some authors focus on single languages and cultures (for example Thembu, Xhosa, Shona), others look at inter-cultural influences such as the influence of the Portuguese and Chinese languages on Shona naming.

Written by Professor Adrian Koopman
Emeritus Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Reviews of the book can be found here (Cambridge Scholars website).

New colleague in Postcolonial Language Studies

Danae M. Perez joined the Postcolonial Language Studies team in September 2016 funded by a Swiss National Science Foundation PostDoc Mobility grant. She received her PhD in Linguistics and Anthropology at the University of Zurich in 2015 on language shift in a former English-speaking colony in Paraguay and is currently carrying out research into Afro-Iberian speech varieties. Her research interests are contact linguistics, creole studies, and linguistic anthropology.

More information on Danae's work can be found here (University of Zurich website).

Welcome to Bremen, Danae!

Fieldwork on Nalik and Tok Pisin

In September 2016, Lidia Federica Mazzitelli (Postcolonial Language Studies) conducted fieldwork on Nalik, an Austronesian Language, and Tok Pisin, an English-based creole, in the village Laraibina, New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.

Lidia’s research focuses on the semantics of landscape and orientation systems. She has investigated the lexical and morphosyntactic means used to express landscape semantics in Nalik and Tok Pisin: words that describe landscape entities (‘sea’, ‘mountain’), deictics, directional particles (in Nalik a North-to-West directional system is found), movement verbs. The aim of the project is to understand how the two languages categorize and define landscape objects and how they encode landscape semantics in their grammars. Lidia also began a documentation project on the so far undescribed and undocumented language Lakurumau, spoken in only one village in New Ireland. Lidia’s fieldtrip was part of the cooperation activities of the Oceania theme semester (http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/schwerpunkt/ozeanien/default.aspx) supported by the Internationalization Funds of the University of Bremen. In New Ireland, Lidia worked in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Craig Volker (http://www.poco.uni-bremen.de/people.html) who was a visiting lecturer at Postcolonial Language Studies in April/May 2016.

Amerika-Semester

Aztekisch, Brasilianisches Portugiesisch, Michif, Papiamentu, Afro-Yungueño, Yukatekisches Maya, Amerikanisches Englisch, und mehr… 

Die Sprachen und Kulturen Amerikas, ihre Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft, ihre Strukturen und Anwendungsbereiche und ihre Bedeutung für aktuelle wissenschaftliche Diskurse und Forschung. Die Postcolonial Language Studies des Fachbereichs 10 der Universität Bremen bieten gemeinsam mit den Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies, der CU Koloniallinguistik, den Studiengängen English-Speaking Cultures und Romanische Sprachwissenschaft sowie nationalen und internationalen Gästen im Wintersemester 2016/2017 einen interdisziplinären Themenschwerpunkt an, der Studierende in Seminaren, Gastvorträgen und einem Workshop zu den Sprachen und Kulturen Amerikas – von Kanada bis Bolivien – die Vielfalt dieses faszinierenden Doppelkontinents näherbringen und dessen zentrale Bedeutung in (post)kolonialen Theorien verdeutlichen soll.

Mehr Informationen: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/schwerpunkt/amerika/default.aspx

Postcolonial movie nights

All welcome!

Two new publications by Eeva Sippola

Two new book chapters by Eeva Sippola (Postcolonial Language Studies) have just come out!

Carsten Levisen, Eeva Sippola, Karime Aragon. 2016. Color and visuality in Iberoromance Creoles: towards a postcolonial semantic analysis. In Geda Paulsen, Mari Uusküla, Jonathan Brindle (eds.), Color Language and Color Categorization. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 270-301.
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/color-language-and-color-categorization

Abstract: This chapter is an innovative contribution on visual-semantic systems in Iberoromance creoles lexified by Spanish and Portuguese. Inspired by recent developments in visual semantics, postcolonial linguistics, and cognitive creolistics, we aim to provide new evidence about ‘color’ and visuality from creoles, and to relate these findings to the ongoing, multidisciplinary study of visual meanings across languages, cultures, and epochs. The research promotes the under-explored study of visual-semantic systems in contact languages, by means of a discussion of Iberoromance creole data. We argue for the need to separate the more recent effects on semantic systems caused by globalization and colonization from older, traditional visual systems. We also emphasize the need for a neutral metalanguage for comparing visual-semantic systems.

Eeva Sippola. 2016. Rap and Resistance in Chabacano. In Pütz, Martin & Mundt, Neele (eds.), Vanishing Languages in Context: Ideological, attitudinal and social identity perspectives. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 157-176. [Duisburger Arbeiten zur Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft – Volume 114.]
https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/24780

Abstract: This paper examines responses to language endangerment in the Chabacano-speaking community of Ternate, Philippines. Focusing on the use of Chabacano in rap music, I analyse how young speakers are actively reshaping this creole language through their linguistic practices as a reaction to changes in the national and global context. Based on a corpus of rap lyrics, sociolinguistic interviews, and participant observation, the analysis reveals how Chabacano can be used in rap music as a means of empowerment in a language endangerment situation. Rap empowers young Chabacano speakers as competent users of the language and is also widely accepted as a new domain for the language in the community in general. This study sheds light on these complex processes of negotiation of linguistic practices and the realignment of endangered linguistic and cultural identities in a multilingual environment.

Two new publications by Joanna Chojnicka

Two journal publications by Joanna Chojnicka (Postcolonial Language Studies) have recently come out:

Chojnicka, J. 2016. Activist Online Journalism and the Gender Controversy. Investigating Polish LGBTQ blogs. Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung (Journal for Discourse Studies) 4.Jg. H.2, 154-177. (image)

Abstract: This article investigates a corpus of blog entries dealing with gender issues published on selected Polish LGBTQ blogs. It focuses in particular on texts which could be considered examples of activist online journalism – a hybrid genre combining social activism and alternative journalism – interacting with, building upon, and re-appropriating mainstream frames and news reporting genre conventions. The article employs the framework of positive discourse analysis (PDA) and specifically a revised typology of counter-strategies developed by Felicitas Macgilchrist (2007), showing the use of strategies of non-ironic and ironic inversion, complexification, partial reframing and radical reframing to contest the ways the topic of gender is dealt with in mainstream media.


Chojnicka, J. 2015. Stance and politeness in spoken Latvian. Lingua Posnaniensis 57 (1), 25-40. Link: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/linpo.2015.57.issue-1/linpo-2015-0002/linpo-2015-0002.xml?format=INT

Abstract: The present article is concerned with the concept of stance and its relationship to face, face work and politeness applied to Latvian spoken discourse. It offers an extensive review of relevant literature on stance and politeness theories, followed by an illustrative analysis of politeness strategies and stance markers found in a radio interview. On this basis, the article argues that stance markers - epistemic, evidential, mirative and hedging devices - may be considered a negative politeness strategy, responding to the speaker’s and hearer’s desire for autonomy. In conclusion, it suggests a hypothesis that could explain differing use of stance markers and politeness strategies by speakers fulfilling varying conversational roles and of various social standing.

New publication by Birte Heidemann

Birte Heidemann's monograph Post-Agreement Northern Irish Literature: Lost in a Liminal Space? has just been published with Palgrave Macmillan!

About the book:
This book uncovers a new genre of 'post-Agreement literature', consisting of a body of texts – fiction, poetry and drama – by Northern Irish writers who grew up during the Troubles and published their work in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. In an attempt to demarcate the literary-aesthetic parameters of the genre, the book proposes a selective revision of postcolonial theories on 'liminality' through a subset of concepts such as 'negative liminality', 'liminal suspension' and 'liminal permanence'. These conceptual interventions, as the readings demonstrate, help articulate how the Agreement’s rhetorical negation of the sectarian past and its aggressive neoliberal campaign towards a 'progressive' future breed new forms of violence that produce liminally suspended subject positions.

Endorsements: 
"Post-Agreement Northern Irish Literature offers one of the comprehensive accounts of the field, drawing on a sophisticated version of postcolonial theory and an original use of the notion of liminality. The book’s theoretical investigation discusses, with poise, clarity and intelligence, literature produced in Northern Ireland since the end of the Troubles."
Colin Graham, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, NUI Maynooth

"This is an outstanding work of cultural and literary criticism. It astutely theorises the post-Agreement situation of Northern Ireland; and it reveals the intricate diagnostic powers of recent fiction, poetry and drama to challenge the status quo. A must-read for those interested in Northern Irish literatures and debates."
Lars Eckstein, Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, University of Potsdam

"Intellectually engaging and thoroughly well-researched, Post-Agreement Northern Irish Literature is an original intervention in a hotly contested field. Birte Heidemann focuses welcome critical attention on an emergent generation of Northern Irish writers who are responding to history and its legacies in provocative and challenging ways."

Liam Harte, Senior Lecturer in Irish and Modern Literature, University of Manchester

Gender, Nation and Diaspora: Post-Conflict Sri Lankan Women’s Writing by Birte Heidemann

On 28 June 2016, Birte Heidemann-Malreddy (Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies) gave a talk on "Gender, Nation and Diaspora: Post-Conflict Sri Lankan Women's Writing" at the Sri Lanka Working Group of the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg. The poster below offers an abstract of the lecture.

Institute of Collaborative Language Research - University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)

link: http://www.alaska.edu/colang2016

In June 2016 Maria Mazzoli participated in the Institute of Collaborative Language Research (CoLang) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), as part of her postdoctoral research project on Michif, the mixed Plains Cree-French language spoken by few Metis communities in Canada and the US. Michif is severely endangered. Today it is spoken by (at most) an estimated 500 Metis speakers. At present, intergenerational transmission of Michif has ceased and no children or people of childbearing age speak the language. All fluent Michif speakers are in their late 60s or older.

In attendance to the CoLang Institute this year were language activists, learners, linguists, speakers, students, teachers, elders, wiki bloggers, archivists, and publishers interested in collaborative research on endangered languages.

CoLang meets every other summer in even-numbered years. The Institute consists of two weeks of workshops followed by a 3 or 4 week long language documentation practicum.

The goals and principles of the Institute are to provide training in documentation, maintenance, revitalization and advocacy for endangered languages, facilitating ethical collaborations between academic and community linguists. CoLang fosters effective practices for in situ language research and resource creation and the maintenance of language diversity, by promoting the creation of lasting resources on under-described languages and assisting community-based language activists in skills development. 

Social media: #colang2016 #languagewarriors #letourgrandparentslanguagelive #rebelsforlanguage

CoLang participants at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, July 1, 2016.    

June 22, 2016, Eliza Jones and Susan Paskvan explain distance delivery of Koyukon language activities in the Yukon-Koyukuk schools.    

Iñupiat danced at Colang’s opening night, June 20, 2016.

Workshop on Discourse Analysis

The workshop "Fostering Interdisciplinary Communication - Discussing Approaches to Discourse" is going to be held on 30 June 2016 from 9:00-19:30 in GW2 at the University of Bremen. It is organized by Joanna Chojnicka (Postcolonial Language Studies) in cooperation with Worlds of Contradiction.

The workshop brings together doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from the fields of linguistics, history, and cultural and social sciences, who will share their experiences and discuss advantages and disadvantages of applying the method within and across their respective disciplines. Participants will have the unique opportunity to express their concerns, work on possible solutions, learn from each other’s practice, and develop a positive approach to communication across fields in humanities and social sciences, with the overarching goal of establishing new and fostering already existing networks, links and connections. 

The workshop format of the meeting supports intensive collaborative work, while the small size of the group (max. 10 participants) and informal atmosphere guarantee an honest and open discussion. More information on the workshop's website.

INPUTS Writer In Residence Dr. Amatoritsero Ede

Together with INPUTS Bremen, Postcolonial Studies hosted its first “Writer-in-Residence” from March through May 2016, the Nigerian-Canadian author and poet Dr. Amatoritsero Ede. The Foundation of the University of Bremen has supported Dr. Ede’s stay, and we thank them very much for this financial support. 

Dr. Ede was strongly influenced by Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate for Literature. Ede’s A Writer’s Pains & Caribbean Blues won the 1998 All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Literature, while Globetrotter & Hitler’s Children was nominated for the 2013 Nigerian Literature Prize. His work has appeared in 11 poetry anthologies, and it was placed second in the first May Ayim Literary Award in 2004 and in the 1993 Association of Nigerian Authors poetry prize. He publishes the Maple Tree Literary Supplement at www.mtls.ca.

During his stay at the University of Bremen, he collaborated with his host, Professor Dr. Kerstin Knopf. At the BCLL#3, he delivered a paper and gave a poetry reading. He also produced new poetry in the wonderful ambience of the Teerhof peninsula in the Weser River, taught a 5-week creative writing course, and delivered a lecture and performed alongside student-writers as part of Faculty 10’s Guest Lecture Series. 

You can see the energy-laden performance of Dr. Ede’s poem „Teardrops in the Weser" as well as of the poems and short stories written by students in his creative writing class here.
More information on Ede's stay here.

Lecture Series In Literary Histor(Ies) And Literary Criticism

The first two lectures in the Lecture Series "Key Developments in Literary Histor(ies) and Literary Criticism in English" are offered by Postcolonial Studies members: "Talk & Poetry Reading by Writer-in-Residence and Poetry and Short Story Readings by Creative Writing Students" by Amatoritsero Ede on May 10th and "Post-Agreeement Northern Irish Literature" by Birte-Heidemann-Malreddy on May 24th.

All welcome!