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Cognition, Communication and Culture
- a research cluster at the University of Aarhus

Subtopic no. 3: COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS

The researchers involved are from eight departments within four institutes in the Faculty of Humanities:
English/SLK, Jutlandic/NOR, Classical & Romance Studies/SLK, Linguistics/AAL,
Scandinavian/NOR, Semiotics/NOR, Slavic & Hungarian/IHO and German/SLK.
Theme coordinator: Sten Vikner

1. General research goals

2. The individual project areas
     2.1 Bilingualism
     2.2 Second language acquisition and pedagogy
     2.3 Psycholinguistics and first language acquisition
     2.4 Neurolinguistics
     2.5 Communication
     2.6 Polyphony
     2.7 General and descriptive linguistics
     2.8 Linguistic theory: Formal linguistics
     2.9 Linguistic theory: Functional linguistics
     2.10 Modular linguistics
     2.11 Semiotics and semiotic grammar
     2.12 Historical linguistics and grammaticalisation

List of references

Footnote on the meaning of "comparative linguistics"

Researchers involved

The initial formulation of this subtopic (in Danish)

1. General research goals

This subtopic of the research cluster Cognition, Communication and Culture is concerned with linguistic diversity and variation and with language change. There are also certain connections to the research cluster Globalisation.

(Should you be under the impression that "comparative linguistics" is only about reconstructing extinct languages, please read this footnote.)

The two different research clusters (Danish: ’fokusområder’) each throw a different light on this subtheme: Language differences are a hindrance for globalisation, but are they also something that globalisation may change? How large are the linguistic differences actually? Are they insurmountable? Which parts of human language display variation and which do not? To which extent can differences and similarities be explained in terms of the cognitive architecture of the brain (the research cluster Cognition) vs. in terms of cultural differences and similarities of the societies involved (the research cluster Globalisation)? Comparative linguistics examines which types of linguistic variation exist and which are not found, and thus contributes to our knowledge of the powers and limitations of the human brain (Cognition) and to our knowledge of the diversity found on this planet (Globalisation).

Although we may not always realise this, comparative linguistics is in a way already rather central in our university. When Danes are taught Italian pronunciation or German word order, comparison with Danish pronunciation or Danish word order is obviously useful, indeed sometimes even necessary. An explicitly comparative angle also brings out more sharply the specific characteristics of each language than when each language is treated in isolation. And examinations of different languages based on Danish are not carried out anywhere elsein the world.

This point of view can be extended to comprise the role various foreign languages (Latin, German, French, English, Arabic) play and have played in Denmark, as an example of the influence that globalisation and dominating languages may exert on a given language, on language use, and on the view of humans and cultures in a given society. This perspective includes comparison between Danish and the languages of immigrants and other language contact situations.

The subtopic comparative linguistics thus also has a cultural political motivation, in that research and teaching in this light will contribute to increasing consciousness about a European linguistic and multilingual identity with more than one hundred different languages between the Acores and Siberia, more or less related and more or less different with respect to structural characteristics and to cultural and geographical conditions. Although it is clear that some of these language are more dominating than others, this picture is nevertheless different from the bleak picture that is sometimes painted in the name of globalisation where Europe functions more or less exclusively in English. Part of this cultural dimension is also an awareness of linguistic diversity on a global scale, including documentation of (and efforts towards) endangered languages.

A series of individual projects and research areas fall under this subtopic, both some that follow along and some that cut across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Below some of these will be briefly described, emphasising the relevance of the comparative point of view, with selected references.

2. The individual project areas

2.1 Bilingualism

A person is taken to be bilingual if she/he regularly uses two or more languages. The research into how two (or more) languages can coexist in the same brain (Bohn 2004b) sheds a very special light on the questions asked above, in that research in bilingualism may both focus on the brain's ability to acquire and employ different languages in parallel and on potential cultural influences on this process. The research in bilingual interaction (Steensig 2004) and into the connection between certain kinds of bilingualism and the development of mixed languages (Bakker & Matras 2003) contributes to a social and cultural perspective on the study of bilingualism.

2.2 Second language acquisition and pedagogy

Any attempt to improve the language proficiency of a pupil or a student clearly has to take into consideration the linguistic basis of the students and the distance of this basis from the target language (Andersen & Pors 2004, Caudery 1998), and it is therefore also relevant for and dependent on a comparative approach, with the special angle that it is also relevant to know which differences are easier to overcome and how this is most easily achieved. The "Language and Culture Network" discussed second language acquisition and pedagogy in the light of the demands made by globalisation for intercultural and interdisciplinary (Hansen 2004, e.g. Vinther et al. 2004).

2.3 Psycholinguistics and first language acquisition

Given that all humans have the same cognitively and biologically based ability to acquire language, it has to be possible to derive linguistic variation from the data that the language acquiring child is exposed to (Drozd 2004). One example is Ocke-Schwen Bohn's SHF/FKK-project on vowelperception, which examines to which extent children are able to distinguish between different vowels and how this ability to distinguish is lost as they grow up. This project includes not just children acquiring Danish but also chioldren in other linguistic surroundings, so that knowledge is obtained about what is specific to one language and what is more universal (Bohn & Polka 2003).

2.4 Neurolinguistics

Neurolinguistics is concerned with the mechanisms in the human brain that underlie the native speaker's understanding, production and abstract knowledge of language (Saleemi et al. 2005). This interface area between linguistics, psychology and neurology examines how the brain processes language. This is done by means e.g. of positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which gives detailed pictures of the energy used in different parts of the brain. In this way it is possible to test linguistic hypotheses about connections between different properties in the same language or related properties in different languages, e.g. by examining whether the same parts of the brain are involved. Such linguistic distinctions may have a structural nature, e.g. different phonological, morphological and/or syntactic phenomena, or they may have a more functional character, e.g. semantic and pragmatic phenomena like presupposition and relevance.

Neurolinguistic research at the University of Aarhus is concerned with the question of which processes and which areas in the brain are language specific and which ones are not, and has shown that language processing involves more than the "classic" language centres in the left hemisphere. Wallentin, Lund, Østergaard, Østergaard & Roepstorff (2005) and Wallentin, Østergaard, Lund, Østergaard & Roepstorff (2005) show that the processing of sentences describing physical motion activates areas of the brain that are also activated during actual physical motion. Christensen (2005) shows that processing of sentences with and without displaced elements (.e.g an object occurring in a position different from the normal object position) involves a distributed network across both the left and the right hemisphere.

2.5 Communication

The fundamental role of language in any kind of communication is the base of many different forms of research. Such research includes text linguistics, which is concerned with entire texts (rather than just sentences) as the unit of communication, and the subdisciplines: argumentation theory, rhetorics and stylistics, which examine, what characterises texts that communicate efficiently (Kratschmer 2002, 2005, Nielsen 2002, Nølke 1998). Another kind of research in communication is conversational analysis and interactional linguistics, which in particular focuses on the role of interaction in communication (Asmuß & Steensig 2003, Steensig 2001, 2004). Jakob Steensig heads a project on the social organisation of affiliative and disaffiliative activities in institutional and non-institutional interaction, which is part of a larger European project, Language as Social Action, financed by the European Science Foundation (ESF). This project focuses on the comparative as it compares linguistic activities across languages and across different situations.

2.6 Polyphony

Polyphony is closely related to text linguistics and involves researchers from both literature studies and linguistics (Nølke 2004, Nølke et al. 2001), as it examines how different points of view or "voices" are coded in the linguistic form or implied by the utterance. The focus is on the connection between the form of a language and its use in different communication situations, and it is necessary to take the differences between languages into consideration, which yields yet another angle on linguistic diversity and variation.

2.7 General and descriptive linguistics

The many different theoretical approaches to linguistics (two major ones of which are discussed below: formal linguistics and functional linguistics) have in common that they try to give linguistic phenomena a theoretical foundation, in particular those phenomena that vary between languages. Such theoretical research would be rather uninteresting if it lacked solid empirical foundation, based on a series of different languages (Bach 1997, 2002, Bakker et al. 1997, Becker-Christiansen & Widell 2003, Bohn 2004a, Bærentzen 1992, McGregor 2002, Rijkhoff 2003, 2004, Vikner 2005). Such empirical investigations, i.e. research in linguistic typology, make up the back bone of comparative linguistics, as they attempt to establish which types of languages exist and why some are more widespread than others.

2.8 Linguistic theory: Formal linguistics

The explicit theoretical approaches may be grouped into formal and functional linguistics. In formal linguistics, it is assumed that only part of the linguistic knowledge of human beings are acquired and that another part of this knowledge is innate. In other words, certain aspects of language are the way they are because the human brain is the way it is. Therefore such theories also have an interesting explanation to offer as to why certain characteristics do not vary between languages: Universal features and lack of variation may be derived from the innate part of the linguistic knowledge of human beings (Vikner 2001, 2004).

2.9 Linguistic theory: Functional linguistics

Functional linguistics attaches crucial importance to the communicative function of language. The function of linguistic entities is to communicate a content (which does not necessarily exclude that they also have non-communicative functions). The fundamental idea is therefore that language research must be carried out in the light of what we know about how consciousness handles other kinds of impressions from the outside world and that considerations for the possibilities of others to understand what is said plays a crucial role for linguistic form. In other words, functional linguistics is concerned with the connection between linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive processes and with the communicative function of language (Jørgensen 2000, McGregor 1997, Rijkhoff 2002, Togeby 2003).

Cooperation across the divide between these theoretical differences (something which is unusual also from an international point of view) takes place both within Sprogvidenskabelig Forskerskole Nord (SFN, the linguistic ph.d. school, headed by Ole Togeby) and in Henrik Jørgensen's og Sten Vikner's SHF/FKK-project on object positions.

2.10 Modular linguistics

Modular linguistics presents an alternative to unitary theories and offer a theoretical model that makes it possible to exploit insights from very different theories (Nølke 1999). A modular model consists of a series of mini-theories (modules) each of which deal with a closely defined and delimited area by means of a limited number of well-defined notions and rules. The modules are tied together by meta-rules which express the connections and differences. The modular approach is subject to a number of strict methodological demands, and a fundamental principle expresses the dialectic relationship between empirical data and the construction of a model. The modular nature of the theory allows for hypotheses concerning the modular nature of cognitive systems, and also makes possible interesting comparative studies.

2.11 Semiotics and semiotic grammar

[under construction, should be available by late April 2006.]

2.12 Historical linguistics and grammaticalisation

Historical linguistics is necessarily comparative, as it compares different stages of the same language(s) (Krogh 2001, Schoonderbeek 2003, Wood 2002). It is thus also highly relevant for the question about the cognitive foundation of language, as it is concerned with what is (and what is not) a possible language change and with questions about the causes of change, whether they are language internal (and thus cognitive) or language external (and thus social). The study of how language develops in language contact situations (pidgin and creole languages, Bakker 2003) contributes new methods and perspectives on historical linguistics.

A particular kind of language change crucial to the cognitive foundation of language is grammaticalisation (McGregor 2002, Rijkhoff 2004), i.e. how lexical elements with a complete semantics develops (often over a longer period of time) into a grammatical morphemes with limited semantics. Examples are the Danish and French prepositions hos and chez (’in someone's home’), which are derived from the nouns hus and casa (’house’), the future tense endings in French which derive from forms of the verb avoir (’have’), or the English negative marker not which derives from the phrase not a soul.

List of references

Andersen, Hanne Leth & Harald Pors (2004): "Vejen ad hvilken ...", Magasinet Humaniora 2004.2, 28-32.

Asmuß, Birte & Jakob Steensig (2003): Samtalen på arbejde - konversationsanalyse og kompetenceudvikling. Samfundslitteratur, Frederiksberg.

Bach, Svend (1997): "Capitoli per una grammatica contrastiva di quattro lingue romanze: Morfosintassi del verbo, le preposizioni, le congiunzioni", (Pré)publications 158-159, 3-123.

Bach, Svend (2002): "Materiali per una grammatica contrastiva di quattro lingue romanze: Ortografia e pronuncia", (Pré)publications 188, 3-61.

Bakker, Peter (2003): “Scandinavians and their pidgins and creoles”, Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 35, 95-114.

Bakker, Peter & Yaron Matras (red.)(2003): The Mixed Language Debate, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.

Bakker, Peter, Yaron Matras & Hristo Kyuchukov (eds.)(1997): The Typology and Dialectology of Romani, Benjamins, Amsterdam.

Becker-Christistensen, Christian & Peter Widell (2003): Politikens Nudansk Grammatik, Politikens Forlag, København.

Bohn, Ocke-Schwen (2004a): ”How to organize a fairly large vowel inventory: The vowels of Fering (North Frisian)”, Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34, 161-173.

Bohn, Ocke-Schwen (2004b):"Tosprogethed", Magasinet Humaniora 2004.2, 17-22.

Bohn, Ocke-Schwen & Linda Polka (2003): "Asymmetries in vowel perception", Speech Communication 41, 221-231.

Bærentzen, Per (1992): "Die deutsche Wortstellung in kontrastiver Sicht", Deutsche Sprache 20, 111-126.

Caudery, Tim (1998): "Portfolio-bedømmelse - en mulighed i Danmark?", Sprogforum 11.4, 51-54.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2005): "Interfaces: Negation – Syntax – Brain", Ph.D. dissertation, University of Aarhus.

Drozd, Kenneth F. (2004): "Learnability and linguistic performance", Journal of Child Language 31, 1-27.

Hansen, Hans Lauge (red.)(2004): Disciplines and Interdisciplinarity in Foreign Language Studies. Museum Tusculanum, København.

Jørgensen, Henrik (2000): Studien zur Morphologie und Syntax der festlandskandinavischen Personalpronomina, Aarhus Universitetsforlag, Århus.

Kratschmer, Alexandra (2002): "Le déplacement d'énonciateur. Mécanisme sémantique et effets rhétoriques". Hanne Jansen, Paola Polito, Lene, Schøsler & Erling Strudsholm (red.): L'infinito & oltre. Omaggio a Gunver Skytte. Odense University Press, Odense, 227-239.

Kratschmer, Alexandra (2005): Erklärungsstrategien, semantische Felder und Makrostrukturen: eine Fallstudie zur semantischen Architektur von explikativen Texten. Aarhus Universitetsforlag, Århus.

Krogh, Steffen (2001): Das Ostjiddische im Sprachkontakt. Deutsch im Spannungsfeld zwischen Semitisch und Slavisch, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen.

McGregor, William (1997): Semiotic grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

McGregor, William (2002): Verb classification in Australian languages, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.

Nielsen, Karsten Hvidtfelt (2002): "Cicero und Wittgenstein. Zur Verortung des rhetorischen Sprechens", Rhetorik. Ein internationales Jahrbuch 21, 102-118.

Nølke, Henning (1998): "Argumentationsanalyse. Grundtræk af en modulær sprogvidenskabelig tilgang". Hermes 21, 15-38.

Nølke, Henning (1999): "Linguistique modulaire: principes méthodologiques et applications ". Henning Nølke & Jean-Michel Adam (red.) : Approches modulaires en linguistique : de la phrase au discours. Delachaux & Niestlé, Lausanne, 17-73.

Nølke, Henning (2004): "Flere stemmer - om sproglig polyfoni", Magasinet Humaniora 2004.2, 23-27.

Nølke, Henning, Kjersti Fløttum & Coco Norén (2004): ScaPoLine, la théorie scandinave de la polyphonie, Kimé, Paris.

Rijkhoff, Jan (2002): “On the interaction of Linguistic Typology and Functional Grammar”. Functions of Language 9.2, 209–237.

Rijkhoff, Jan (2003): “When can a language have nouns and verbs?”. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 35, 7-38.

Rijkhoff, Jan (2004): The Noun Phrase (Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory), Oxford University Press, Oxford (ny og udvidet udgave).

Saleemi, Anjum, Ocke-Schwen Bohn & Albert Gjedde (red.)(2005): In search of a language for the mind-brain: Can the multiple perspectives be unified? (The Dolphin 33), Aarhus University Press, Århus.

Schoonderbeek. Inger (2003): "Rigssprogstendenser kontra dialektalt præg i retstekster fra 1600-tallet". In Mette Kunøe & Peter Widell (red.): 9. Møde om Udforskningen af Dansk Sprog, Nordisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 181-187.

Steensig, Jakob (2001): Sprog i virkeligheden: Bidrag til en interaktionel linguistics. Aarhus University Press, Århus.

Steensig, Jakob (2004): "Conversation Analysis and the study of bilingual interaction". Nordlyd 51.5, 796-818. (Proceedings of the Scandinavian Conference on Linguistics: Bilingualism. Red.: Jens Normann Jørgensen, Anne Dahl & Peter Svenonius).

Togeby, Ole (2003): Fungerer denne sætning? Funktionel dansk sproglære, Gads Forlag, Copenhagen.

Wallentin, Mikkel, Torben Ellegaard Lund, Svend Østergaard, Leif Østergaard & Andreas Roepstorff (2005): "Motion verb sentences activate left posterior middle temporal cortex despite static context". NeuroReport 16.6, 649-652

Wallentin, Mikkel, Svend Østergaard, Torben Ellegaard Lund, Leif Østergaard & Andreas Roepstorff (2005): "Concrete spatial language: See what I mean?". Brain and Language 92.3, 221-233.

Vikner, Sten (2001): "Verb Movement Variation in Germanic and Optimality Theory". Habilitationschrift, Universität Tübingen.

Vikner, Sten (2004): "Nødvendigheden af en formel tilgang til sprogvidenskab", Magasinet Humaniora 2004.2, 12-16.

Vikner, Sten (2005): "Immobile Complex Verbs in Germanic ". Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 8.1-2, 83-115.

Vinther, Thora, Hanne Leth Andersen & Merete Birkelund (2004): "Traditional and new approaches to theoretical grammar teaching". In Hansen (2004).

Wood, Johanna (2002): "Negative Contraction, Dialect and the AB Language". Journal of Germanic Linguistics 14.4, 357-368.

Footnote on the meaning of "comparative linguistics"

Comparative linguistics is here taken to cover any kind of linguistic analysis involving either more than one language or more than one stage of a language. This is completely compatible with the definitions offered by two major dictionaries of linguistics (Crystal 1997 & Matthews 1997, the relevant part of the definitions in red and boldface below). Comparative linguistics thus comprises much more than the comparison of genetically related languages in order to reconstruct their common ancestor language.

From p. 62 of Peter Matthews (1997): Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, Oxford University Press, Oxford:
comparative linguistics
1. The comparison of languages by the comparative method.
2. The comparison of languages for whatever purpose, whether e.g. for genetic classification or for typological classification.

From p. 73 of David Crystal (1997): A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 4th edition, Blackwell, Oxford:
comparative
A term used to characterize a major branch of linguistics, in which the primary concern is to make statements comparing the characteristics of different languages (dialects, varieties, etc.), or different historical states of a language.
During the nineteenth century, the concern for comparative analysis was exclusively historical, as scholars investigated the relationships between such families of languages as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, their hypothetical antecedents (i.e. the proto-languages from which such families developed), and the subsequent process which led to the formation of the language groups of the present day. This study became known as comparative philology (or simply philology) - sometimes as comparative grammar. The phrase comparative method refers to the standard comparative philological technique of comparing a set of forms taken from cognate languages in order to determine whether a historical relationship connects them. If there were such a relationship, this analysis would then be used to deduce the characteristics of the ancestor languages from which they were assumed to have derived (a process of 'comparative' or 'internal' reconstruction).
Early twentieth-century linguistics switched from a diachronic to a synchronic emphasis in language analysis, and, while not excluding historical studies, comparative linguistics these days is generally taken up with the theoretical and practical analysis of the structural correspondences between living languages, regardless of their history, with the aim of establishing general types of language ('typological comparison', or 'typological linguistics') and ultimately the universal characteristics of human language.

Researchers involved

Researcher	Department	Institute
Anette Nissen Bill McGregor Jakob Steensig Jan Rijkhoff Kamila Ewa Sip Lina Melgaard Jensen Peter Bakker	Linguistics	Institute of Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics (AAL)
Judit Horváth	Slavic & Hungarian	Institute for History and Area Studies (IHO)
Elisabeth Willadsen Eva Engels Johanna Wood Johannes Kizach Ken Ramshøj Christensen Kenneth Drozd Laura Kragsnæs Balling Ocke-Schwen Bohn Robert Lee Revier Sten Vikner Tim Caudery	English	Institute for Language, Literature and Culture (SLK)
Alexandra Kratschmer Henning Nølke Jette Larsen Persiani Lise Hedevang Nielsen Merete Birkelund Svend Bach	Classical & Romance Studies
Harald Pors Per Bærentzen Steffen Krogh	German
Inger Schoonderbeek Hansen	Centre for Jutlandic	Scandinavian Institute (NOR)
Mikkel Wallentin Svend Østergaard	Centre for Semiotics
Erik Vive Larsen Henrik Jørgensen Jens Cramer Mette Kunøe Mette Vedsgaard Christensen Ole Togeby Peter Widell Simon Borchmann Sune Vork Steffensen Tavs Bjerre Ulf Dalvad Bertelsen	Scandinavian

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First posted: February 2006   -   Last modified: April 16, 2006
Comments and suggestions to Sten Vikner

TOP OF PAGE - CCC HOME PAGE	This page is http://www.hum.au.dk/engelsk/engsv/ccc/

First posted: February 2006 - Last modified: April 16, 2006 Comments and suggestions to Sten Vikner

Cognition, Communication and Culture - a research cluster at the University of Aarhus