Francesca Di Garbo

Aix-Marseille University

Francesca Di Garbo (PhD in General Linguistics, Stockholm University 2014) is an Associate Professor at Aix-Marseille University and the Laboratoire Parole et Langage. She is a language typologist, investigating the distribution of linguistic diversity in space and time. Her research seeks to understand the synchronic distribution and evolutionary dynamics of morphosyntactic structures of the world’s languages in light of the interplay between general human cognitive abilities and processes of cultural evolution. Francesca specializes in morphosyntactic typology, nominal classification systems, number systems, Bantu languages, and the comparative study of contact-induced language change. At the Department of Language Sciences at Aix-Marseille University, she teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in morphosyntax, language typology, research methods, and epistemology of linguistic research. She is the Director of the Master Program in the Language Sciences.

Abstract

The dynamics of human linguistic diversity: developments and challenges

Over the past decades, the focus of Linguistic Typology, the comparative study of linguistic diversity, has shifted from attempting to establish what constitutes a possible human language to unraveling the factors that may help explain the distribution of linguistic features in space and time. By now, it is known that these explanatory factors lie at the intersection between general human cognitive abilities, learning and transmission biases, population history, and the broader ecology of speech communities. Yet a full grasp of the interplay between these grounding features of linguistic diversity is hard to achieve, both when working on individual languages and when comparing languages with one another. Recent typological investigations have sought to understand the dynamics of linguistic variation by focusing on how languages change in contact situations, adapting (or not) to the broader contexts in which they are learned, used and transmitted. In this talk, I present two such studies, focusing on nominal morphosyntax and, more specifically, on number marking and grammatical gender marking. I illustrate contact-induced convergences and divergences in these domains based on a world-wide sample of contact scenarios, for number systems, and a sample of genealogically related languages (the Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa) for grammatical gender. After discussing the challenges and advantages of researching language contact phenomena to gain insight into the general mechanisms behind human linguistic diversity, I conclude with a roadmap for the future of research on linguistic variation. This roadmap integrates large-scale comparative crosslinguistic research, in-depth studies of variability within speech communities, laboratory experiments and computational modelling. Together, these approaches promise to significantly deepen our understanding of human linguistic behavior, both at the individual and the community level.

Bernadette O’Rourke

University of Glasgow

Bernadette O’Rourke is Professor of Sociolinguistics and Hispanic Studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Glasgow. Her research sits within the broad area of sociolinguistics and the sociology of language and focuses on the political and social meanings of language and their influence on society. She is particularly interested in the dynamics of multilingual societies and language revitalization. She has examined these dynamics across a range of fieldwork sites and language contexts including Galician (northern Spain), Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Faroese. She was Chair of the EU COST Action IS1306 entitled New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges (2013 – 2017). Co-authored publications include New Speakers of Irish in the Global Context: New revival? (Routledge 2020) and the Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities (Palgrave 2019). She is Co-I on the Horizon Europe MultiLX project and leads the Work Package on Languaging in Europe. She also leads interdisciplinary collaborations which bring together language-based researchers, urban analysts, engineers and software developers to explore the geospatial dynamics of urban multilingualism and the integration of AI and geospatial technologies to support this.

Abstract

The New Speaker Phenomenon

While it is often accepted that globalization can be a factor in the dissolution and extinction of minority languages, this complex process does not result solely in language loss. Languages and linguistic varieties are often taken up and used by new speakers, for new purposes and in new spaces, initiating what I refer to here as a process of language gain. In this talk I will trace the early development of the new speaker phenomenon, particularly in the context of European minoritized languages, where we have seen a growing interest amongst researchers, practitioners, and policy makers over the past decade. As I will show, the term has not however been restricted to Europe’s historically minoritized languages but has also included multilingual citizens more broadly in the context of migration and transnational working, who “engage in languages other than their ‘native’ or ‘national’ language(s) [. . . ] and find themselves crossing existing social boundaries, re-evaluating their own levels of linguistic competence and having to creatively (re)structure their social practices to adapt to new and overlapping linguistic spaces” (O’Rourke et al. 2019: 10). Drawing on this broader definition, I will examine the potential of the term not simply to define a category of speaker but as a theoretical lens through which new speakerness can be used to interrogate three inter-related assumptions which have for long shaped the field of linguistics and related strands. These include (1) languages as bounded, discrete, and named entities; (2) territorialized notions of language within bounded communities of place; (3) the native speaker ideology. While making a case for the merits of the new speaker concept and new speakerness, I would also like to explore a number of challenges and dilemmas presented by these notions which I believe also require critical engagement. As I will show, these dilemmas can be very visible for scholars in the fields of minority language sociolinguistics and language revitalization studies, who often work closely with language advocates and policy makers to bring about positive change. I will reflect on how some of the critical thinking in which we as researchers engage around language, territory and nativeness, can sometimes be at odds with the social realities of speakers and communities on the ground, who may resist newer understandings of what a language is and what it means to be a speaker.

Marina Cantarutti

University of York

Marina (she/her) is a Research and Innovation Associate on the AHRC-DFG funded project “Breathing behaviour and non-lexical vocalisations in talk-in-interaction” at the University of York. Marina is a multimodal and interactional linguist who combines the qualitative methods of Conversation Analysis, the Phonetics of Talk-in-Interaction and Gesture Studies and conducts empirical video studies to research different social practices in interaction, including collaborative productions and co-animation, laughter, self-deprecation, and gossip. Marina has been a lecturer in (Applied) Linguistics at York and Liverpool, a postdoctoral researcher and PhD supervisor at the Open University in the UK, and for over a decade also a teaching fellow in Applied Phonetics and Discourse Analysis for English Language Teaching at several HE institutions in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Abstract

Practical participant problems and multimodal practices for the coordination of action in interaction

Talk-in-interaction is a coordinated achievement (Goodwin, 1981) between separate individuals who, in their singularity, are more often than not successfully seen to manage, concurrently, a number of generic practical problems (Schegloff, 2006). These “problems” include turn-taking and sequence organisation, the constant maintenance or repair of intersubjective understanding, the management of epistemic territories (Heritage, 2012) and (dis)alignment and (dis)affiliation (e.g. Stivers, 2008). These routine practical problems impact greatly on the local design of turns and sequences, which always unfold in real time and impose conditional restrictions on the timing and form of responses. This is especially the case with collaborative turn practices (Lerner, 2002) where participants may associate through turn-sharing, temporarily building a collectivity (Lerner, 1993; Cantarutti, 2020). Such practices include choral productions (Lerner, 2002; Pfänder & Couper-Kuhlen, 2019), anticipatory completions (e.g. Lerner, 1996; Calabria, 2026), co-animation (Cantarutti, 2020, 2021, 2022; cfr. co-enactments, Andries, 2025), and joint laughter (Ogden, Cantarutti, & Trouvain, 2025). In these moments of association, interactional “success” -as confirmed endogenously by participants’ subsequent behaviour- relies on the possibility of projection of both linguistic and interactional trajectories, and of a timely entry into the interactional space and turn-transition for coordination purposes. This presentation will provide an overview of recent Multimodal Interactional Linguistic and Conversation Analytic research on collaborative productions and joint laughter. It will articulate the practical problems that participants manage before, during, and just after these moments of coordination, that is, how they enter, maintain, and exit those moments of association. The talk will focus on both the structures and multimodal resources that enable these collaborative productions. It will showcase the role of phonetic detail, gesture, interactional semantics and syntax in the local creation of structures that enable projectability and entrainment (Ogden & Hawkins, 2015). It will also zoom in on participants’ orientation to the design of prior turns through recycling, continuing, upgrading and/or downgrading these multimodal linguistic features (e.g. Szczepek Reed, 2006; Ogden, 2006; Afshari Saleh, 2022). The presentation will provide empirical evidence collected from data in English and Spanish from interactional video- and audio-recorded corpora of everyday natural interaction between friends, co-workers, and family members.

Chiara Cantiani

IRCCS E. Medea

Chiara Cantiani is a psychologist and researcher at the Child Psychopathology Unit of the IRCCS E. Medea – Associazione La Nostra Famiglia (Italy). She obtained her PhD in Experimental Psychology, Linguistics, and Cognitive Neuroscience in 2011 at the University of Milano-Bicocca, under the supervision of Prof. Maria Teresa Guasti and Dr. Maria Luisa Lorusso. Her dissertation focused on ERP correlates of morphosyntactic processing in developmental dyslexia. Following research experiences at the Max Planck Institute (Leipzig, Germany) and Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA), she is currently the principal scientist at the “BABYLAB” of IRCCS E. Medea, leading a decade-long project investigating very early neurocognitive markers of language and learning disorders. The project aims to identify early neural markers that can predict language and learning difficulties, ultimately guiding the development of timely and effective interventions.

Abstract

Early Neural Signatures of Language and Learning Impairment: Long-Term Developmental Trajectories and Impact of Early Training

In this presentation, I will report findings from a large Italian longitudinal study. Approximately 250 infants, with and without familial risk for language and learning impairment (defined as having a first-degree relative affected), were assessed between 6 and 12 months of age using a range of electrophysiological paradigms tapping auditory processing skills (Cantiani et al., 2016) and neural entrainment to speech and non-speech stimuli (Cantiani et al., 2022). As part of the longitudinal design, participants underwent language assessments at 20, 24, and 36 months of age; a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation (including pre-reading skills) at 4.5 and 5.5 years; and standardized measures of reading and writing at 8 years of age. A subgroup of typically developing infants (n = 30) also participated, between 7 and 9 months of age, in an early rhythmic training program involving exposure to and active synchronization with complex musical rhythms (Dondena et al., 2021). The main findings of the study include: (1) the characterization of typical and atypical electrophysiological patterns and the identification of early risk markers for language and learning impairment; (2) the delineation of typical and atypical developmental trajectories, as well as the associations between early electrophysiological patterns and concurrent and later language and neuropsychological outcomes; and (3) a preliminary evaluation of the impact of early rhythmic training on electrophysiological patterns and early language skills. These findings provide important theoretical insights into the mechanisms underlying typical and atypical language development and have potential clinical implications for the design of more targeted and effective early interventions.