This cluster focusses on the continuous change of language and its speakers. The dynamics of these changes are particularly reflected in multilingual practices and their continuous transformations. In the area of speakers, the characteristics of fluid linguistic identities and the role of language in everyday historical realities are analysed. The focus of our research is on understanding the complexity of interactions between language, migration and cultural transformation in different temporal contexts.
Our research spans both diachrony and synchrony in order to shed light on the development of language patterns over the course of history as well as their contemporary manifestations. A key aim of our work is to reflect current research approaches on historical contexts in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the interactions between language, migration and cultural transformation. One example of such a method is the digital visualisation of language change. This approach does not only enable the presentation of already established findings, but rather serves to provide an alternative view of changes and developments. The use of such methods contributes to gaining diverse insights into the complex nature of linguistic identities and their changes over time.
Time
The temporal localisation of linguistic actions is not only evident in a historical context, but also reveals the dynamic character of such actions: a) changes in language over the course of individual speakers' lives b) the projection and use of deliberately historicising or historical language varieties c) the existence of supposedly short-lived linguistic phenomena. Through diachronic and synchronic perspectives, language change, migration and the handling of multilingualism become visible as processual elements and are no longer only perceived as (historically) rigid entities.