Speaker: Quỳnh-Giang Đặng

Title: Differentiating SELF in Vietnamese

Abstract: In Vietnamese, the quantifier tự is morphologically distinct from the adnominal intensifier chính and the reflexive pronoun bản thân. While the morphological similarity between SELF and reflexives in many languages might make it desirable to unify them, I demonstrate that they are syntactically and semantically distinguished in Vietnamese. I propose that the adnominal intensifier chính is adjoined to a focused NP, while the quantifier tự quantifies over agents of an event.

Speaker: Le Xuan Chan

Title: Gradient Effects of Variation in Language Contact: Crosslinguistic Stop Voicing in Malaysia

Abstract: In variationist sociolinguistics, much attention has been paid to how social factors such as ethnicity, identity, and social class condition patterns of variation in society. At the same time, evidence from multilingual literature shows us the importance of language dominance and exposure in multilingual speech. In language contact communities, these factors can work together to reinforce speakers’ linguistic profiles. In this talk, I present crosslinguistic stop voicing productions by multilingual speakers of Malay, English, and Mandarin in Malaysia, and show how overlapping effects of ethnicity, language dominance, spoken languages, and schooling background allow us to predict gradient effects of phonetic variation in a complex multilingual society.