The 20th conference of the ACBLPE (http://www.acblpe.com/) will be held at the University of Augsburg in Augsburg, Germany, from September 8 – 10, 2022.

Abstracts addressing any aspect of language contact involving Spanish and/or Portuguese are invited, including, but not limited to, structural, variational, and ecolinguistic issues. We especially welcome contributions to one of these research areas:

Firstly, as the conference name suggests, we invite you to discuss the continuity between the different results of contact-induced language restructuring (ranging from second language acquisition and interlanguage fossilization processes to creolization, and from code-switching phenomena and different types of lexical borrowing to the formation of mixed languages). Similarly, we would like to address the continuity between contact linguistics and related domains (anthropology, sociology, and population genetics). A further area of interest is the historical configuration of (Ibero-)creolistics as a linguistic (sub)discipline, one which can be regarded as more or less autonomous and is generally situated at a crossroads between different research areas like Romance, African and Austronesian studies.

Secondly, we invite you to explore issues that could be associated, directly or indirectly, with the spirit of the host city, which is famous for two historical traditions. On the one hand, Augsburg has led a centuries-old quest for peaceful encounters across ideas and traditionally opposed confessions (This city is known, for good reason, as the “city of peace” (Ger. “Friedensstadt”) between Protestants and Catholics). On the other hand, Augsburg has also played a central role —above all, through the Fugger and Welser families in the 16th century— in the formation of transcontinental trade networks, including, sadly, a prominent participation in the slave trade. With this in mind, we also welcome work on social and linguistic conflicts and their possible resolutions (including aspects of language policy and multilingual education, among others). This may also include pieces focused on the linguistic consequences of the emergence of globalization and capitalism as of the Early Modern period.

Thirdly, we would like to encourage the participation of colleagues whose expertise is in line with the research areas of the organizer of this event, the Chair of Applied Linguistics (Romance Studies), particularly Bantu-Romance and Guarani-Romance language contact, migrant varieties in Latin America, and linguistic geography in multilingual environments.

The abstracts, which should not exceed the limit of 400 words, can be submitted through ConfTool (https://acblpe.philhist.uni-augsburg.de/registration/) from January 1 to March 15, 2022. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by April 15.

As usual, abstracts will be assessed on the basis of the following three criteria:

1) The relevance and significance of the proposed topic within the framework of the conference and the ACBLPE research areas.
2) Clarity of argument, methodology and theoretical framework.
3) The possible contribution the paper can make in the context of previous and current research in the same field.

The languages of the conference are Portuguese, Spanish, German, and English.

Keynote speakers:

a) Peter Bakker (Aarhus University)
b) Azucena Palacios (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
c) Nicolas Quint (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

In addition to it:

a) Hende kumo suto (‘people like us / one of ours’): last lecture by Armin Schwegler on the topic “A century of (socio)linguistic changes in Palenque, Colombia: a reassessment with a view towards the future”, with introduction speeches by John Lipski and Miguel Gutiérrez Maté
b) John Lipski’s talk at the BayMis-Meeting (see further below)

The ACBLPE annual meeting (September 8-10) will be one of the events devoted to language contact during a week that will also include the workshop “Creole studies in motion” (September 7), which will be mostly devoted to non-Iberian Creole studies, and the 2nd Meeting of the International Network BayMis (September 10) about language contact in the province of Misiones, Argentina (https://redbaymis.net/). All ACBLPE-participants are invited to attend the latter two workshops and take part in the scientific discussions.

For any question related to the organization of this conference, contact: acblpe2022@philhist.uni-augsburg.de

Looking forward to meeting you in Augsburg,

The organizing committee:

Dr. Miguel Gutiérrez Maté (Augsburg)
Prof. Dr. Joachim Steffen (Augsburg)
Prof. Dr. Evelyn Wiesinger (Tübingen)
Dr. Eduardo Tobar Delgado (Vigo)
Leonie Ette (Augsburg)
Christian Wilson (Augsburg)
Niklas Schmidt (Augsburg)