Exploring the Language of the Popular CALL FOR PAPERS AHRC Research Network

[Clare Teresa Burke]

Dear All,

we are currently calling for abstract submissions for our forthcoming 
seminar 'The social semiotics of popular journalism: a long
view'. This seminar will be held in Cardiff on 28 March 2012 and we aim 
to publish the papers in Social Semiotics.

Please see full details below.

AHRC RESEARCH NETWORK
Exploring the language of the popular in Anglo-American Newspapers
1833-1988

University of Cardiff 28 March 2012

As part of the series of research seminars which will contribute to the
Research Network we are inviting interested scholars to submit proposals
of 300 words for a seminar to be held at the University of Cardiff on 28
March 2012 entitled ‘The social semiotics of popular journalism: a long
view’. It aims to bring together scholars from media and journalism
studies, social sciences, linguistics and English to consider the
important of semiotics as a tool for exploring the content and context
of Anglo-American newspapers between 1833 and 1988. There is no charge
for the event and there will be a number of keynote speakers to be
announced at a later date.

The dates 1833-1988 frame the research network project as they are key
dates in the development of popular discourse within Anglo-American
newspapers. 1833 sees the first development of the Penny Press and 1988
witnesses the peak in circulation of Murdoch’s British-based Sun. This
long view will reinforce how important historical context is to the
understanding of contemporary newspapers.

Although this project will certainly seek to address some of the wider 
implications of the discourse of newspaper language it will proceed from 
a thorough textual exploration in the first instance. Proposals are 
invited which explore the ways in which popular newspapers during this 
period in either the USA or Britain have attempted to structure the 
language of their product to match particular aspects of the social 
experience of their readers: how these newspapers have functioned as 
social semiotic. This might include the structuring (within the confines 
of commercial appeal) of themes such as, for example, social class, 
national identity, political partisanship, gender, domestic duty, 
recreational identities, conflicts between group identifications such as 
trade union membership and individualist consumerist aspirations.

Explorations of the sociopolitical significance of representations of 
the everyday will also be particularly welcome.

The proposals should be empirically-grounded and might draw upon textual 
analysis, discourse analysis, the political economy of newspapers, 
ethnography or combinations of these and/or other methods, to say 
something concrete about the nature of life in the societies represented 
by popular newspapers during this period.

We plan to publish the best of the papers presented on the day in a
special edition of the international, peer-reviewed journal Social
Semiotics.

Please send your proposals or any questions you may have by the 30
November 2011 to the Research Assistant for the project Clare Burke:
Clare.Burke at sheffield.ac.uk

Seminar organizers:
Professor Martin Conboy, University of Sheffield and Dr David Machin,
University of Cardiff

For further details of the project please visit the website of the
Centre for the Study of Journalism and History:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/journalismhistory

Best wishes
Clare

-- 
Clare Burke Davies
Journalism Studies
University of Sheffield
18-22 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 3NJ

Please note my normal working day is Wednesday