REGISTRATION FEE: There are no registration fees for speakers or listeners, whether in person or online. Linguistics students and teachers wishing to attend the conference online are requested to send an email to gerosla@sciencesconf.org

The organizing team will send you a Webex link the day before the conference!

GALA DINNER: A payment of 35 euros will be required for participants wishing to attend the gala dinner to be held on Thursday 29 September. Payment will be made in cash before the conference opening. You can directly contact the organizing committee, present on site.

The conference program is available HERE

The department of Romance languages (Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg, Austria) is pleased to host the 1^st edition of the conference GeRoSLA.

The general theme of the conference is L2 acquisition of non-equivalent linguistic and cognitive categories in Romance and Germanic languages: Transfer revisited.

You are kindly invited to submit abstracts for papers related to this theme in any Romance language (or English). The conference will take place in Salzburg from 29^th to 30^th September 2022. Participation is also possible online.

Session 1: Tense & aspect

• Kevin McManus (Penn State University)
• Paz González González (Leiden University)
  

Session 2: Space & motion

• Simona Anastasio (Université de Lille)
  
• Monique Flecken (University of Amsterdam)

30 Mai 2022: 15 July 2022: Abstract submission deadline

30 June 2022: 31 July 2022: Notification of acceptance

1 July 2022: 1 August 2022: Conference registration starts

31 August 2022: End of registration

Germanic and Romance languages differ in the conceptualization and verbalization of various cognitive categories (e.g. time, perspective, space, motion). These typological differences have been pointed out as an explicative factor for L2 conceptual transfer (Jarvis & Pavlenko 2010, Jarvis 2015). As for motion conceptualizations, evidence has been given on the influence of verb-framed languages’ specificities in L2 German figure-oriented conceptualizations, rather than manner-oriented ones (Flecken et al. 2015c). Conversely, learners from languages enabling the expression of motion by satellite elements (such as Italian) show an earlier use of satellite particles in L2 English compared to learners whose L1 lacks satellite adjuncts (Anastasio 2019). Concerning aspectual conceptualizations, it has been shown that the lack of grammatical devices encoding progressive aspect in German and the existence of V-ing in English entails significant differences in the allocation of attentional resources: native speakers of German focusing on the agent of the action performed, whereas native speakers of English focus on the action itself (Flecken et al. 2015b).

Apart from conceptual differences, dissimilarities between the L1 and the L2 with respect to the linguistic means used for the expression of the above-mentioned categories (or the lack of certain devices on the whole) often pose a challenge to L2 learners. In the field of tense-aspect studies, for example, it has been shown that the L1 exerts an important influence on the acquisition of tense and aspect in an L2 (cf. Salaberry 2008 or Bardovi-Harlig & Comajoan-Colomé 2020 for an overview). In this context, several studies illustrate that learners whose L1 lacks grammatical aspect (e.g. German) or whose L1 expresses aspectual notions differently from the target language (i.e. non-equivalent form-meaning mappings), have difficulties acquiring a Romance L2 (cf. e.g. McManus 2015, Diaubalick & Guijarro-Fuentes 2019, González & Quintana Hernández 2018, Salaberry 2011).

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the multiple factors having an impact on the acquisition of non-equivalent linguistic and cognitive categories in an L2, we would like to discuss the results of different theoretical frameworks as outlined above (linguistic relativity, conceptual transfer and linguistic transfer). Additionally, the use of psycho- and neurolinguistic methods (such as eye-tracking, self-paced reading, ERPs etc.) has proven particularly valuable (cf. e.g. Flecken et al. 2015a, Flecken et al. 2015b, Roberts/Liszka 2021, Papafragou et al. 2008), offering insights from online reception and production processes which are often not accessible by mere offline methodologies. While such methods have already been applied to studies on space and motion, they have hardly been used in the field of tense and aspect. However, the application of these methods to other frameworks as well as the triangulation of perspectives and data retrieved from various theoretical and methodological approaches seems to offer a promising avenue towards a more complete picture of the complex processes underlying the conceptualization and verbalization of (potentially) non-equivalent cognitive categories and their linguistic representations.

To this end, the present workshop aims at addressing the following (non-exhaustive) topics:

• L1 transfer effects at different stages of L2 acquisition (e.g. the influence of nonequivalent form-meaning mappings between the L1 and the L2)
  
  
• L1/L2 differences regarding the attentional resources used for the conceptualization and verbalization of temporal and aspectual notions
  
  
• The role of the L1 in the conceptualization and verbalization of dynamic events by L2 learners (e.g. as to motion and spatial relations)
  
  
• The correlation between linguistic encodings and attentional resources allocated to particular aspects of a process in L1 vs. L2 (e.g. endpoints, ongoingness, frequency)
  
  
• Pedagogical implications (e.g. the evaluation of specific teaching methods focusing on awareness-raising strategiesin the domain of non-equivalent cognitive categories and their linguistic representations)

IMPORTANT: Although the call for proposals explicitly mentions the categories of aspect and space, proposals presenting original results on other categories are also welcome.

Anastasio, Simona (2019): “L’expression du déplacement en italien L2: Perspectives typologiques et psycholinguistiques”, in: Language, Interaction and Acquisition 10 (2), 204-228.

Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen / Comajoan-Colomé, Llorenç (2020): “The aspect hypothesis and the acquisition of L2 past morphology in the last 20 years”, in: Studies in Second Language Acquisition 42, 1137-1167.

Diaubalick, Tim / Guijarro-Fuentes, Pedro (2019): “The strength of L1 effects on tense and aspect: How German learners of L2 Spanish deal with acquisitional problems”, in: Language Acquisition 26 (3), 282-301.

Flecken, Monique / Athanasopoulos, Panos / Kuipers, Jan / Thierry, Guillaume (2015a): “On the road to somewhere: Brain potentials reflect language effects on motion event perception”, in: Cognition 141, 41-51.

Flecken, Monique / Gerwien, Johannes / Carroll, Mary / von Stutterheim, Christiane (2015b): “Analyzing gaze allocation during language planning: A cross-linguistic study on dynamic events”, in: Language and Cognition 7, 138-166.

Flecken, Monique / Weimar, Katja / Carroll, Mary / von Stutterheim, Christiane (2015c): “Driving along the road or heading for the village? Conceptual differences underlying motion event encoding in French, German, and French-German L2 users”, in: The Modern Language Journal 99, 100-122.

González, Paz / Quintana Hernández, Lucía (2018): “Inherent aspect and L1 transfer in the L2 acquisition of Spanish grammatical aspect”, in: The Modern Language Journal 102 (3), 611-625.

Jarvis, Scott (2015): “Conceptual review article: Clarifying the scope of conceptual transfer“, in: Language Learning 66 (3), 608-635.

Jarvis, Scott / Pavlenko, Aneta (2010): Crosslinguistic Influence in Language and Cognition. New York: Routledge.

McManus, Kevin (2015): “L1-L2 differences in the acquisition of form-meaning pairings: A comparison of English and German learners of French”, in: Canadian Modern Language Review 71 (2), 51-77.

Papafragou, Anna / Hulbert, Justin / Trueswell, John (2008): “Does language guide event perception? Evidence from eye movements”, in: Cognition 108, 155-184.

Roberts, Leah / Liszka, Sarah (2021): “Grammatical aspect and L2 learners’ online processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences in English: A self-paced reading study with German, Dutch and French L2 learners”, in: Second Language Research 37 (4), 619-647.

Salaberry, Rafael (2008): Marking Past Tense in Second Language Acquisition. A Theoretical Model. London: Continuum.

Salaberry, Rafael (2011): “Assessing the effect of lexical aspect and grounding on the acquisition of L2 Spanish past tense morphology among L1 English speaker“, in: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14 (2), 184-202.