DIALECT ACQUISITION AND DIALECT LEARNING. A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE PROPOSAL

Georgios S. Ypsilantis (Ypsilandis)
Department of Italian Language and Literature
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

PROGRAM | REGISTRATION required by November 4, 2024

November 8, 2024, 4 p.m.
Seminarraum 1, ÖAW-Campus
Bäckerstraße 13, 1010 Vienna

While many dialects are endangered, it is clear that others are dying out. This talk investigates dialect education management by making recourse to the two known pathways, namely those of learning and acquisition. The lecture will initially discuss briefly the two approaches to dialect transmission and maintenance, in a pragmatic mode rather than in their theoretical perspective, and pinpoint differences. While natural dialect acquisition has been occurring successfully for a long period of time whether in dialect-friendly surroundings or not, it is apparent that dialect learning via the implementation of systematic teaching is fraught with various difficulties.
Therefore, this talk will concentrate on a proposal for the development of an online Community of Practice (CoP) among dialect users, and further, on the design and creation of an internet host database which can be used as a platform for: a) communication among the members who wish to maintain their dialect and/or those who wish to acquire it in a natural way, and further as b) a source containing multimedia, text and audio materials related to the various dialects in question. Finally, this database will provide an open-source internet space where members could also upload materials themselves, in doing so enriching its content.