Arabic-L:LING:Arabic Script in Africa CFP

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 27 Dec 2012
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Arabic Script in Africa CFP

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1)
Date: 27 Dec 2012
From:reposted from LINGUIST
Subject:Arabic Script in Africa CFP

Full Title: Arabic Script in Africa: Synergies Resulting from the Study of
a Writing System
Short Title: TASIA2

Date: 25-Apr-2013 - 27-Apr-2013
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Contact Person: Meikal Mumin
Meeting Email: tasia2 at tasia.org
Web Site: http://www.tasia.org/

Linguistic Field(s): Writing Systems

Call Deadline: 30-Jan-2013

Meeting Description:

Following up on a scientific workshop originally hosted at the Institut für
Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln, Germany (April 6-7, 2010), TASIA2 will
be hosted by the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). The workshop will
continue to explore different aspects of the use of Arabic based script for
the writing of languages in Africa, apart from Arabic, which is also known
as Ajami.

Please note: There will be no conference fee. The organizers will offer two
lunches during the conference, as well as an ending cocktail. Costs of
accommodation & travel must be covered by the participants themselves, but
the organizers will try to assist in finding transport & accommodation to
the venue.

Call for Papers:

We invite papers in English or French which discuss the use of such scripts
and orthographies within their socio-cultural context with a focus on
linguistic, socio-linguistic, or psycholinguistic aspects, of both current
and past use.

We particularly welcome any papers with a comparative approach as well as
papers, which point to or summarize tentative sub-fields of research, which
could produce synergetic effects through collaborative research on
different writing traditions. Specific questions could include:

New Insights into the Use and Spread of Arabic-based Scripts:

- How many languages use or have used Arabic-based script and how?
- When and for how long was Arabic-based script used for which languages,
and which languages employ it today or have started re-employing it?
- How many documents were produced?
- What are the contents and genres of such documents?
- How did these literacies come into being? Were those writing traditions
created on the basis of Arabic or another Arabic-based script tradition, or
were they created artificially?

Grammatological Properties of Arabic-based Scripts:

- How and why do these Arabic-based scripts deviate from the Arabic script
as used for Arabic?
- How does African use of Arabic-based script deviate from the use of
Arabic-based script for other languages beyond Arabic, such as in Europe,
the Americas, or Asia?
- Are any adaptations arbitrary or motivated?
- Are there areal trends or features among the adaptations and are these
possibly inspired by common regional, pan-African, Arabic, or other uses of
Arabic-based script?
- Can we pinpoint such areal features to common origins?
- Have these orthographies ever been standardized?
- If not, could the non-standardization possibly be motivated?
- How well do Arabic script-based orthographies represent their respective
language(s)?
- Can all phonemes be represented and how ambiguous are these
representations?

Sociolinguistic Properties of Arabic-based Scripts:

- What is the relationship between written and spoken language?
- Do the written varieties differ from the spoken ones?
- Are any such possible differences between written and spoken varieties
stable across writers?
- How should we classify any possible differing written varieties?
- What is the relationship between actively competing writing systems?
- How does the competition between writing systems interact with the
language varieties of the written texts?
- To what extent are or have such writing traditions been used within
specific contexts or domains of communication? Have these writing systems
been used beyond the individual or religious domain, such as at
state-level, in political contexts, for advertising, in book publishing or
newspapers, on mobile phones or using computer interfaces?

Aspects of Applied Linguistics of Arabic-based Script:

- What is the relationship between literacy in Arabic-based scripts and
Islamic Educational Systems?
- What is the relevance of literacy in Arabic-based script in the context
of general literacy in Africa?
- What is the relevance of literacy in Arabic-based script in the context
of language strengthening & language revitalization?
- How do current high-level regional language development policies and
strategies deal with and affect the use of Arabic-based script?
- What is the role of religious institutions (Islamic, Christian and
others) on the use and spread of Arabic-based script?
- What is the role of technology in the context of Arabic-based script? Is
it being represented in handwriting only, or are texts also typeset
manually or represented in digital media, such as using computers, in text
messaging, or on the Internet?

Identifying Areas of Future Research in the Context of Arabic-based Script:

- What can we learn from the study of Arabic-based script, beyond the
intrinsic data?
- Should certain writing traditions be prioritized over others due to
cultural change?
- In which fields of research could we expect synergetic effects from
collaborative research?

In the concluding discussions, we would like to discuss in particular the
scope, range, timeframe, and possibilities of funding for possible
collaborative research between participants as well as further colleagues
in the field.

The symposium will be accompanied by an exhibition of some exemplary
manuscripts, which should demonstrate the range and scope of these writing
systems for general audiences. For this we would welcome any submissions of
digital copies of manuscripts, which are free for rights and whose quality
would suffice for reproduction in larger formats, together with brief
comment about the contents. For any further questions, please contact the
organizers at tasia2 at tasia.org.

Kindly submit summaries for suggested papers by email as Word (.doc /
.docx) or as PDF file totasia2 at tasia.org by January 30, 2013. The file
should contain your name, position at or affiliation with a university or
research team, as well as an abstract for the talk itself. The entire text
of the file including references must not exceed 250 words. Results of the
selection process will be announced by email by February 20, 2013.

A copy of this call is available online at http://www.tasia.org/cfptasia2.

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