Project Details

Description

How do we acquire and process language? What are the premises and potentials of our language capacity? Although there is a large body of research on and knowledge about these issues, the vast majority of studies are situated in Western, monolingual contexts, so-called WEIRD contexts (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic; Henrich et al., 2010). These only encompass 12 % of the world’s population, and barely 1% of the world’s languages. It is therefore urgent to broaden the knowledge base to include contexts where multilingualism is the norm and not the exception. South Africa is such a context, a country with 11 official languages and widespread multilingualism. This project brings together scholars from Lund University and Stellenbosch University to investigate the impact of everyday use of more than two languages. Ultimately, the project can shed new light on the human capacity for language. The network will also contribute to resource building to create the first psycholinguistic lab in Africa.

Popular science description

How do we acquire and process language? What are the premises and potentials of our language capacity? Although there is a large body of research on and knowledge about these issues, the vast majority of studies are situated in Western, monolingual contexts, so-called WEIRD contexts (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic; Henrich et al., 2010). These only encompass 12 % of the world’s population, and barely 1% of the world’s languages. It is therefore urgent to broaden the knowledge base to include contexts where multilingualism is the norm and not the exception. South Africa is such a context, a country with 11 official languages and widespread multilingualism. This project brings together scholars from Lund University and Stellenbosch University to investigate the impact of everyday use of more than two languages. Ultimately, the project can shed new light on the human capacity for language. The network will also contribute to resource building to create the first psycholinguistic lab in Africa.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date2017/03/222021/12/31

Collaborative partners

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Comparative Language Studies and Linguistics

Free keywords

  • bilingualism
  • multilingualism
  • Africa
  • code-switching
  • psycholinguistics
  • 13th International Symposium on Bilingualism

    Berghoff, R. (Presenter), Gullberg, M. (Presenter) & Kootstra, G. J. (Presenter)

    2021 Jul 92021 Jul 14

    Activity: Participating in or organising an eventParticipation in conference

  • EuroSLA 30, 2021

    Berghoff, R. (Presenter), Gullberg, M. (Presenter) & Kootstra, G. J. (Presenter)

    2021 Jun 302021 Jul 3

    Activity: Participating in or organising an eventParticipation in conference

  • Conference on Multilingualism 2021

    Berghoff, R. (Presenter), Gullberg, M. (Presenter) & Kootstra, G. J. (Presenter)

    2021 Jun 232021 Jun 25

    Activity: Participating in or organising an eventParticipation in conference