Transient Multilingual Communities and the Formation of Social and Linguistic Norms (TraMulCom)

Abstract:

A key assumption in socio linguistics is that interaction within communities tends to proceed on the basis of some degree of shared understanding of social and linguistic norms. However, in transient multilingual communities, defined as communities where people from diverse socio cultural and linguistic backgrounds come together for a limited period of time to work on a common project, such shared assumptions cannot be assumed to be in place a priori. This presents a challenge to the participants. How to collaborate successfully across socio cultural and linguistic boundaries in settings characterised by transience constitutes one of the biggest challenges of late modernity. Transient communities also offer a challenge to socio linguistic theory, which – by and large – has been developed on the basis of conditions found in more stable communities, whether mono- or multilingual. This research project has been designed in order to address these gaps.