Social configurations where people from diverse sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds come together (physically or otherwise) for a limited period of time to work on a shared activity. Some TMCs are project-based with participants coming together to solve very specific tasks, for instance setting up a play at a theatre with an international cast or establishing sustainable water supply in a remote village through collaboration between the local population and outside experts. Other TMCs will be organized more loosely around shared activities, for instance participating as a student in an international university programme.
Transient multilingual communities and the formation of social and linguistic norms
RECENT EVENTS
- 13 December 2019. TMC project member Katherine Kappa defends her PhD dissertation, Emergence in a Transient Social Configuration: A linguistic enthnographic study of how strangers establish practices for working together within international development. More information available here.
- Open workshop: How to collaborate in culturally and linguistically diverse projects. TMC project final seminar at University of Copenhagen, 29 November 2019.
- Spencer Hazel & Adam Brandt. Intercultural Communication and different ‘normals. ESRC Festival of Social Science, Newcastle University, UK, 7 November 2019.
- Janus Mortensen (with Martha S. Karrebæk, Marie Maegaard & Janus S. Møller). Sociolinguistic change in the (post)national era. Centre for the study of Nationalism roundtable, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 25 October 2019.
For past activities, please see here.
SPECIAL ISSUE IN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
18/12/2017
This special issue ('Transience: Emerging norms on language use') explores the concept of transience and how it foregrounds the temporality of norm formation, located within the practices of people on the move. Transience, in spite of being ubiquitous, is not always salient for members or analysts, but to identify, fixate and theorize it as an object of study invites new ways of conceptualizing the interdependence of language and social structure.