Sound change in interacting human systems: A conference on sound change in May, 2014 at U.C.-Berkeley

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The project (a three-day conference) addresses the question of language change, and in particular, how the pronunciation of words changes over generations. Pronunciation is associated with social identity and group membership but the factors that underlie changes in pronunciation may be general cognitive and phonetic mechanisms that are not under direct control of speakers. This topic relates to general questions of how social organization emerges from individual behavior that are relevant to many different types of social organization (including political and economic systems). The linguistic system, as compared with other types of social organization, is more directly tied to sensory and motor systems and thus the factors that shape the system are more directly observable. The conference brings together researchers in linguistics, sociology, cognitive science, and computer science to exchange results and refine methods.