We wanted to explore cartographic and analytical challenges in the study of multilingualism in spatial dimension and, therefore, we developed a multidisciplinary project in collaboration with the Department of Geography of the University at Buffalo (PI’s Jeff Good and Ling Bian) entitled “Social spatial networks and language use in a rural and multilingual Africa context”. We applied for an IMPACT grant (University at Buffalo internal grant) and received funding in 2017 to begin these explorations.
Project team members
- PI’s: prof. Jeff Good (Linguistics) and prof. Ling Bian (Geography)
- Coordinator: Pierpaolo Di Carlo
- Students: Yujia Pan and Penghang Liu
Output
- Poster presented at COSIT2017 (L’Aquila, 30 August – 4 September 2017) (4MB)
- Article published in the COSIT2017 Proceedings (Pre-print). Abstract: A GIS spatial perspective can provide important insights into many poorly understood sociolinguistic phenomena such as multilingualism in rural Africa. By relying on ethnographic and individual-based sociolinguistic information as well as on high spatial-temporal resolution data, our interdisciplinary team composed of linguists and geographers aims to (i) make original contributions to the cartographic representation of multilingualism and (ii) develop spatial-analytical models able to capture a complex array of linguistic, cultural, and spatial variables for a compact rural area of Cameroon.
- Sample of a “Family-based linguistic repertoire” map. SUMMARIZE.