[Ltg] HAIL Seminar (8th February): Professor Dr Erich Steiner, Saarland University, Germany

[Andrew Lampert]

                      H.A.I.L. Seminar series
                          CSIRO ICT Centre
                   http://www.ict.csiro.au/HAIL/


Title:          Explicitness, density, directness of lexicogrammatical
                  encoding - some implications for situations of language
                  contact and multilinguality

Speaker:        Professor Dr Erich Steiner
                Chair of English Linguistics and Translation Studies
                Department of Applied Linguistics and Translation
                Saarland University
                Germany

Date:           Tuesday 8th February 2005 at 11am

Location:       CSIRO ICT Centre,
                Building E6B, Macquarie University.

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Abstract

In this presentation, I will outline an SFL-perspective on situations of language contact and multilinguality, exploring Systemically-based operationalizations of the notions of explicitness, density, and directness encoding as dimensions of variation.

In a first step towards a clarification of terms, our focus will be on the notions of "language contact" and of "multilinguality" as they have been studied in linguistics in general (cf. Oesterreicher 2001, Thomason and Kaufmann 1988).  This will be followed by an outline of what a specifically SFL-oriented perspective would imply in terms of methodology and of domain (cf. Halliday and Matthiessen 1999; 2004, Teich 2003, Matthiessen in press). Our main argument will be that such a perspective would give due consideration to systems alongside structures, to the instance alongside the system, and to more abstract (and at the same time, more empirical) types of contrast than have often been in the centre of theorizing (cf. Steiner 2004b, in press).

In a second step, the SFL-perspective outlined above will be exemplified and possible methods will be discussed. This perspective is characterized by a consideration of systems alongside structures, the instance alongside the system, relatively abstract and at the same time empirically accessible types of contrast, and by the metafunctional modularization of meaning in the model. It will be argued that language contact along the channels of system, instance and contrast is the process through which ultimately socio-cultural motivations drive language change.

We shall finally try to identify relevant examples of language contact phenomena, both in terms of critical situations in which we believe such phenomena become visible, and in terms of the kinds of phenomena we would expect. By way of illustration, we shall finally make a number of methodological suggestions for identifying degrees of explicitness, directness and density in texts. We shall use a contrastive analysis of register-comparable texts in English and German, in the course of which we shall modularize the dependent variables along metafunctions and along stratum.


Short resume

Professor Dr Erich Steiner was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1954. From 1973-1980, he studied English and German Philology in Freiburg and Saarbruecken, including qualification for Secondary School Teaching in English and German. He completed a PhD in English Philology (Linguistics) at Saarbruecken in 1983.

Professor Steiner has been deeply involved in research in the fields of Linguistics, Computational Linguistics and Translation over many years. He has held numerous positions, including Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College London and Polytechnic of Wales, and Visiting Professor at Rice University in Houston/Texas. From 1985-1989, Professor Steiner worked for the Eurotra Machine Translation Project in the Linguistic Specification Group, in collaboration with Cecile Paris, and John Bateman at ISI, Los Angeles.  Professor Steiner was also the Head of the Division of Natural Language Processing at GMD/IPSI in Darmstadt from 1989-1990.

Since 1990, Professor Steiner has been Chair in English Linguistics and Translation Studies at University of Saarland in Saarbruecken, Germany.  Professor Steiner has also been a regular visitor to both the University of Technology, Sydney and Macquarie University. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Linguistics Department at Macquarie University.


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