Language variation and language change

A language is not a monolithic entity, but exhibits regional and social variation at different linguistic levels. Synchronous variability, which is based on both internal and external factors, causes diachronic minor and major shifts, which can ultimately lead to language change. Linguistic variation and language change can be viewed from a language-internal (phonological change, grammaticalisation) and sociolinguistic perspective. The sociolinguistic perspective includes regional (dialectal) variation, as well as social conditions (age, gender, social class, prestige, ethnicity, social network, community of practice) and the influence of language contact in bi- or multilingual settings.

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©PHAISITSAWAN - stock.adobe.com

Svitlana Antonyuk (Institute for German Studies; Institute for Slavic Studies):

contact-related language change

Zuzana Bodnárová (Research Area Plurilingualism):

  • Language contact Romani-Hungarian
  • Para-Romani varieties

Jennifer Brunner (Institute for Linguistics):

  • Language contact/multilingualism/language change in the West Highlands Kivu languages in Rwanda, Burundi and western Tanzania with different contact languages (English, French, Swahili)
  • ATAM in the languages of the Comoros

Dina El Zarka (Institute for Linguistics):

Language contact Arabic/Persian and language change

Johanna Fanta-Jende (Institute for German Studies):

Variation and Change of German in Austria

Katharina Gerhalter (Institute for Romance Studies):

Emergence of discourse markers and pragmatic functions (grammaticalisation, pragmaticalisation, cooptation)

Sabine Heinemann (Institute for Romance Studies):

  • diachronic verbal morphology
  • diatopic variation (especially Italo-Romance)
  • language contact

Martin Hummel (Institute for Romance Studies):

  • Comparative study of dialects in Romance languages
  • Adverbs in the Latin-Romance transition
  • Diachronic reconstruction

Gunther Kaltenböck (Institute for English Studies):

  • Emergence of discourse markers and pragmatic functions (grammaticalisation, pragmaticalisation, cooptation)
  • information packaging constructions

Ozan Mustafa (Institute for English Studies):

Fragments

Daphne Reitinger (Research Area Plurilingualism):

Language contact Romani-German

Johann Ulrich Reubold (Institute for English Studies):

Sound change

Daria Seres (Institute for Slavic Studies):

  • Grammaticalisation
  • bare and non-bare NPs

Marko Simonovic (Institute for Slavic Studies):

  • Microvariation
  • Language change in small and minority languages
  • Language contact

Jelena Stojkovic (Institute for Slavic Studies):

  • Microvariation
  • factorial typology
  • Contact between Slavic and non-Slavic languages

Joeri Vinke (Institute for Slavic Studies):

  • Microvariation
  • Dutch
  • Heritage languages
  • Differential object marking in Contact

Anna Volodina (Institute for Linguistics):

  • Diachronic development of referential zero pronouns
  • Grammaticalisation tendencies in spoken German

Elnora ten Wolde (Institute for English Studies):

  • Changes in the Nominal Phrase
  • historical development of modifiers
  • Creation of subjunctions

Jelena Živojinović (Institute for Slavic Studies):

  • Language contact
  • language change
  • Grammaticalisation
  • Diachrony of non-finite verb forms