PD Dr. Nikolas Koch

Titel: Sprachgemischte Äußerungen im Zweitspracherwerb und bei Heritage-Sprechenden: Gebrauchsbasierte Korpusstudien zu Struktur und Funktion von Code-Mixing

Projektleiter: Nikolas Koch (LMU), Claudia M. Riehl (LMU), Stefan Hartmann (Universität Düsseldorf), Antje Endesfelder Quick (Universität Leipzig)

Gefördert von: Center for Advanced Studies (CAS, LMU)

Zeitraum: 2025

Kurzbeschreibung: Das Projekt untersucht, wie Sprecherinnen und Sprecher von Herkunftssprachen sogenannte frame-and-slot patterns – also feste sprachliche Rahmen mit variablen Füllstellen – zwischen ihren Sprachen übertragen. Während frühere Forschung vor allem morphologische und syntaktische Veränderungen in den Blick nahm, steht hier die Übertragung komplexer Mehrwortstrukturen im Zentrum.Anhand zweier deutschsprachiger Gemeinschaften in Blumenau (Südbrasilien) und Natal (Südafrika) wird erforscht, wie neue Form-Bedeutungs-Paare entstehen und welche sprachlichen, kognitiven und soziolinguistischen Faktoren diese Prozesse beeinflussen. Dabei werden insbesondere Unterschiede in Sprachdominanz, Strukturähnlichkeit und Zugang zur Schriftlichkeit berücksichtigt.

Publikationen:

Riehl, Claudia Maria (forthc.)
German as a Heritage Language: Attrition – Maintenance – Change
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hartmann, Stefan; Koch, Nikolas; Quick, Antje; Riehl, Claudia Maria (2025)
sieht man schon die leuten an, wer deutsch spricht. Eine quantitative Analyse des Dativabbaus im Blumenau-Deutschen
In: Murelli, Adriano (Hrsg.): Gesprochenes Deutsch heute : Variation, Wandel, Sprachkontakt. Reihe Germanistische Linguistik, Bd. 334. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter. S. 195-213

Title: Constructional patterns in child bilingual code-mixing: A usage-based corpus approach

Principal Investigators: Nikoas Koch (LMU), Antje Endesfelder Quick (Universität Leipzig), Stefan Hartmann (Universität Düsseldorf)

Further Project Members: Nina Julich-Warpakowski (LMU)

Cooperation partners: Brian MacWhinney (Carnegie Mellon University)

Funded by: German Research Foundation (DFG) (project number: 504095269)

Duration: 2023-2026

Short Description: This project investigates how bilingual children combine elements from two languages within a single utterance (code-mixing), using a usage-based construction grammar approach. While this framework has been highly influential in monolingual acquisition research, its potential for explaining multilingual development is only beginning to be explored. We analyze longitudinal corpus data from German–English bilingual children (ages 2–4) and their caregivers to identify recurring constructional patterns, such as fixed multiword chunks and flexible frame-and-slot structures. By modeling these patterns with computational and network-based methods, we aim to understand how bilingual children abstract, combine, and extend constructions from their linguistic input. The project also contributes to open science by enriching and publishing uniquely dense corpora of bilingual child language data. Overall, it offers new insights into how multilingual children build their grammatical systems and why they mix languages in systematic ways.

Publications:

Koch, Nikolas; Endesfelder Quick, Antje; Hartmann, Stefan (2025)
Recycling constructional patterns: The role of chunks in early bilingual acquisition
In: International Journal of Bilingualism. S. 1-21

Ibbotson, Paul; Hartmann, Stefan; Koch, Nikolas; Endesfelder Quick, Antje (2024)
Frequency, redundancy, and context in bilingual acquisition
In: Journal of Child Language.

Koch, Nikolas; Hartmann, Stefan; Endesfelder Quick, Antje (2022)
Traceback and Chunk-Based Learning. Comparing Usage-Based Computational Approaches to Child Code-Mixing
In: Languages. Bd. 7, Nr. 4: 271

Hartmann, Stefan; Koch, Nikolas; Endesfelder Quick, Antje (2022)
Cognitive Linguistics meets multilingual language acquisition. What pattern identification can tell us
In: Hampe, Beate; Binanzer, Anja (Hrsg.): Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association. Bd. 10. Berlin ; Boston: de Gruyter Mouton. S. 239-258

Hartmann, Stefan; Koch, Nikolas; Endesfelder Quick, Antje (2021)
The Traceback method in child language acquisition research: Identifying patterns in early speech
In: Language and Cognition. Bd. 13, Nr. 2: S. 227-253

Koch, Nikolas; Hartmann, Stefan; Endesfelder Quick, Antje (2020)
The traceback method and the early constructicon: theoretical and methodological considerations
In: Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. S. 1-28

Title: Language Contact Phenomena in Multilingual First Language Acquisition: Theory, data, methods

Principal Investigators: Nikolas Koch (LMU), Stefan Hartmann (Universität Düsseldorf), Antje Endesfelder Quick (Universität Leipzig)

Further Project Members: Ad Backus (Tilburg University), Ewa Dąbrowska (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Helen Engemann (University of Mannheim), Maria Frick (University of Oulu), Dorota Gaskins (King’s College London), Steffen Höder (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel), Paul Ibbotson (The Open University), Elena Lieven (University of Manchester), Elina Palola (University of Oulu), Anna Verschik (Tallinn University), Philipp Wasserscheidt (Humboldt University of Berlin), Till Woerfel (PH Zürich)

Funded by: German Research Foundation (DFG) (DFG-Network)

Duration: 2022-2025

Short Description: This network brings together researchers working on multilingual first language acquisition from a usage-based perspective. Its main goals are to refine and expand theoretical models originally developed for monolingual acquisition and to advance methodological and corpus-based approaches for studying multilingual data. The network explores how children acquire linguistic patterns from their input, how patterns from different languages interact, and how these interactions shape multilingual development. A key focus lies on data-driven methods for identifying such patterns, including the refinement of established computational approaches. Over three years, members collaborate in joint projects and workshops to address theoretical and methodological challenges in multilingual acquisition and to promote open exchange of data, methods, and expertise.

Details zum Projekt