[Somean] Fwd: Contribution workshop 'Implicitness and experimental methods in language variation research' at Methods in Dialectology XVI

[Kathryn Campbell-Kibler]

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Laura Rosseel <laura.rosseel at kuleuven.be>
> Subject: Contribution workshop 'Implicitness and experimental methods in language variation research' at Methods in Dialectology XVI
> Date: November 10, 2016 at 11:44:16 AM EST
> To: "kbck at ling.osu.edu" <kbck at ling.osu.edu>
> Cc: "Grondelaers, S.A." <s.grondelaers at let.ru.nl>
>  
>  
> CALL FOR PAPERS: Workshop at Methods in Dialectology XVI
>  
> Implicitness and experimental methods in language variation research
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> Implicitness, whether it is used in the context of language attitude research (Garrett 2010), work on language regard (Preston 2010) or studies focussing of the social meaning of language variation (Campbell-Kibler 2010), is a problematic concept in linguistics. Few researchers have taken up the challenge of reflecting on and defining its nature, specifying its theoretical significance or how exactly we can measure it.
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> Firstly, from a conceptual point of view, several definitions and interpretations of implicitness have been put forward, but in linguistics the focus tends to be on awareness/level of consciousness: implicit language attitudes are most often defined as attitudes a speaker is unaware of or holds subconsciously (e.g. Labov 1972; Kristiansen 2009; Garrett 2010; Grondelaers & Kristiansen 2013; Preston 2013; Preston 2015 – note that not all studies use the term ‘implicit’. But see Pantos 2015 for a different interpretation). In social psychology, by contrast, the concept of implicitness has been questioned extensively and researchers have proposed elaborate definitions that recognize more facets to implicitness than just awareness, which are not usually considered in linguistic research. Implicitness in this field is usually understood in terms of automaticity which comprises multiple features (unintentionality, resource-independence, uncontrollability as well as unconsciousness) that need not all be present, but can qualify the way in which the outcome of an attitude measure is implicit (De Houwer et al. 2009; De Houwer & Moors 2010; Gawronski & De Houwer 2014). Such definitions of implicitness seem to allow for a conceptualization in terms of gradience or a continuum between implicitness and explicitness. To give an example, Grondelaers & Speelman (2015) argue that their use of a free response technique to elicit evaluations of language varieties and variants can assess a form of ‘deeper’ evaluations (yet maybe not the ‘deepest’), even though participants are directly asked and hence well aware of the fact they are evaluating language. The speed with which participants are prompted to respond in such tasks may ensure that more spontaneous, less controlled and hence more implicit attitudes are tapped than in other direct measures such as questionnaires. Studies like Grondelaers & Speelman (2015) invite reflection on the relation between (in)direct methods and implicit/explicit attitudes as well as the nature of these attitudes: are they separate constructs or two ends of a continuum?
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> Secondly, when it comes to the theoretical importance of implicitness, it has been claimed that implicit evaluation can provide important insights to understand language variation and change (e.g. Kristiansen 2010; Preston 2013). However, studies like Soukup (2013) who showcases that the use of an open guise technique (where participants are aware of the fact that a speaker uses different language varieties) does a fine job explaining language variation in certain contexts. This may raise questions like: do we always need implicit measures? What is the theoretical significance of implicitness in the study of language variation and change? Should it occupy a privileged position when it comes to explaining the driving force behind language change as suggested by Kristiansen (2010) contrary to for instance Labov’s (2001) current more anti-subjective position?
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> Finally, challenging the linguistic conception of implicitness has important methodological consequences. If we ask the question of what exactly we mean by implicitness and if a potential answer is that it is a multifaceted concept, we should also ask ourselves which aspects of implicitness we are measuring using certain methods and tools. This goes for methods traditionally used in sociolinguistic research, but the question is especially relevant in the context of the recent upsurge of social psychological measures to study implicit associations. Linguists are gradually starting to use methods originally developed in social psychology (e.g. Campbell-Kibler 2012; Redinger 2010; Babel 2010; Pantos & Perkins 2012; Lee 2015; Rosseel et al. 2015; Loudermilk 2015; Watt & Llamas 2015), but do not always question what it is exactly that these tools measure, how these methods fits in with sociolinguistic conceptions of attitudes and social meaning, and how the measurements compare to the ones obtained from more traditional sociolinguistic tools (e.g. matched/verbal guise experiments). One of these measures that seems to be catching on in sociolinguistic research is the Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald 1998). While in traditional methods, researchers often go through great lengths to conceal the purpose of the experiment, it is fair to assume that participants performing a linguistic IAT will usually realize they are part of a study on the evaluation language. Despite this awareness, social psychologists still qualify the IAT as producing implicit measurements, based on a number of other traits these measurements have. As linguists we should take on the challenge to critically reflect on what we do with these measures, and how that reflection fits in with our traditional methods and with sociolinguistic interpretations of concepts like ‘attitudes’ and ‘indexicality’.
>  
> This workshop aims to bring together experimental research into  language regard and into the social meaning of language variation, which approaches and reflects on implicitness from different angles: conceptual, theoretical or methodological. Contributions to the workshop may deal with questions such as (but are not limited to):
> - What aspects of implicitness play a crucial role for linguistic attitude research and research into language variation and change?
> - How do different interpretations of implicitness relate to different methods to capture language regard/attitudes/social meaning of language variation?
> - What is the relationship between implicit and explicit attitudes? Are they discrete entities or are they the extreme ends of a continuum?
> - What is the link between concepts like implicitness, salience and awareness?
> - Which research questions require measuring implicit attitudes/associations and which ones are better studied using explicit measures or a combination of both?
>  
> We invite researchers to submit a title for 20 minute talks with a 10 minute discussion slot to laura.rosseel[at]kuleuven.be <http://kuleuven.be/> by November 24, 2016. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by November 29, 2016.
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> The workshop is organised by Laura Rosseel (QLVL, University of Leuven, Belgium; FWO, Research Foundation Flanders) and Stefan Grondelaers (CLS, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands).
>  
> References
> Babel, M. (2010). Dialect divergence and convergence in New Zealand English. Language in Society, 39(4), 437–456.
> 
> Campbell-Kibler, K. (2007). Accent, (ING), and the social logic of listener perceptions. American Speech, 82(1), 32–64.
> 
> Campbell-Kibler, K. (2012). The Implicit Association Test and sociolinguistic meaning. Lingua, 122(7), 753–763.
> 
> De Houwer, J., & Moors, A. (2010). Implicit measures: Similarities and differences. In B. Gawronski & B. K. Payne (Eds.), Handbook of Implicit Social Cognition: Measurement, Theory and Applications. New York: Guilford Press.
> 
> De Houwer, J., Teige-Mocigemba, S., Spruyt, A., & Moors, A. (2009). Implicit measures: A normative analysis and review. Psychological Bulletin, 135(3), 347–68.
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> Garrett, P. (2010). Attitudes to Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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> Gawronski, B., & De Houwer, J. (2014). Implicit measures in social and personality psychology. In H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology (2nd ed., pp. 283–310). New York: Cambridge University Press.
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> Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464–1480.
> 
> Grondelaers, S., & Kristiansen, T. (2013). On the need to access deep evaluations when searching for the motor of standard language change. In T. Kristiansen & S. Grondelaers (Eds.),Language (De)standardisations in Late Modern Europe: Experimental Studies (pp. 9–52). Oslo: Novus Press.
> 
> Grondelaers, S., & Speelman, D. (2015). A quantitative analysis of qualitative free response data. Paradox or new paradigm? In J. Daems, E. Zenner, K. Heylen, D. Speelman, & H. C. Eds (Eds.), Change of Paradigms – New Paradoxes: Recontextualizing Language and Linguistics (pp. 361–384). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
> 
> Kristiansen, Tore. (2009). The macro level social meaning of late modern Danish accents. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 41(1), 167–192.
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> Kristiansen, T. (2010). Attitudes, ideology and awareness. In R. Wodak, B. Johnston, & P. Kerswill (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Sociolinguistics (pp. 265–278). Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC: Sage.
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> Levon, E., & Buchstaller, I. (2015). Perception, cognition, and linguistic structure: The effect of linguistic modularity and cognitive style on sociolinguistic processing. Language Variation and Change, 27(3), 319–348.
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> Labov, W. (1972.) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.
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> Labov, W. (2001.) Principles of Linguistic Change. Social Factors (Vol. 2). Oxford: Blackwell.
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> Lee, R. (2015). Implicit associations with Welsh in two educational contexts. York Papers in Linguistics, 2(14), 81–105.
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> Loudermilk, B. C. (2015). Implicit attitudes and the perception of sociolinguistic variation. In A. Prikhodkine & D. Preston (Eds.), Responses to Language Varieties. Variability, Processes and Outcomes (pp. 137-156). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Bejamins.
> 
> Pantos, A. J., & Perkins, A. W. (2012). Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Foreign Accented Speech. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 32(1), 3–20.
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> Pantos, A. J. (2015). Applying the Implicit Association Test to langauge attitudes research. In A. Prikhodkine & D. Preston (Eds.), Responses to Language Varieties. Variability, Processes and Outcomes (pp. 117-136). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Bejamins.
> 
> Preston, Dennis R. (2010). Variation in language regard. In E. Zeigler, P. Gilles, & J. Scharloth (Eds.),Variatio delectat : empirische Evidenzen und theoretische Passungen sprachlicher Variation(pp. 7-27). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
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> Preston, D. R. (2013). The influence of regard on language variation and change. Journal of Pragmatics, 52, 93–104.
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> Preston, D. R. (2015). Does language regard vary? In A. Prikhodkine & D. Preston (Eds.),Responses to Language Varieties. Variability, Processes and Outcomes (pp. 3-36). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Bejamins.
> 
> Redinger, D. (2010). Language Attitudes and Code-switching Behaviour in a Multilingual Educational Context : The Case of Luxembourg. The University of York.
> 
> Rosseel, L., Speelman, D., & Geeraerts, D. (2015). Can social psychological attitude measures be used to study language attitudes? A case study exploring the Personalized Implicit Association Test. In Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics.
> 
> Soukup, B. (2013). On matching speaker (dis)guises - revisiting a methodological tradition. In T. Kristiansen & S. Grondelaers (Eds.), Language (De)standardisation in Late Modern Europe: Experimental Studies (pp. 267–285). Oslo: Novus Press.
> 
> Staum Casasanto, L., Grondelaers S. & Van Hout, R. (2015). In A. Prikhodkine & D. Preston (Eds.),Responses to Language Varieties. Variability, Processes and Outcomes (pp. 159-173). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Bejamins.
> 
> Watson, K., & Clark, L. (2014). Exploring listeners’ real-time reactions to regional accents. Language Awareness, 1–22.
> 
> Watt, D., & Llamas, C. (2015). Perception of difference: Socioindexical forms in the Scottish/English border region. Talk presented at ICLaVE 8, Leipzig.
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>  
>  
> Laura Rosseel
> KU Leuven – University of Leuven
> Research unit Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics (QLVL)
> Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 (PO Box 3308)
> B-3000 Leuven
> Tel: +32 16 37 79 96 <tel:+32%2016%2037%2079%2096>
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