<font color="#000000">Dear</font> all,
<br>the second <span>call</span> <span>for</span> <span>papers</span> <span>for</span> the Sociolinguistics Symposium in Berlin in August 2012 has now been announced. Full details are on the conference website:
<a href="http://www.sociolinguistics-symposium-2012.de/" target="_blank">http://www.sociolinguistics-symposium-2012.de/</a>
.<br> A large number of thematic sessions have been selected by the
organisers,including the thematic session I organise, devoted to “Taking over
the squares: the role of linguistic practices in contesting public
spaces” (Session ID: 131) at the <a href="http://www.sociolinguistics-symposium-2012.de/" target="_blank">19th Sociolinguistics Symposium</a> in Berlin in August 2012. <br>Let me know if you would like to contribute to the following:
<p><b>Abstract</b></p>
<p>The first sparks started to fly in Arab countries, where thousands of
people took to the streets, squares and other public spaces making use
of multilingual banners and signs to challenge government economic
policies, and demand higher citizen participation in political life. <span></span>This
was soon followed in Iceland, and soon after in Spain. In spite of the
differences in terms of the contexts, demands and motivations, these
grassroots movements are characterised by diversity in terms of class
and gender. They are primarily being led and constituted by people, who
in different ways suffer the consequences of basic service cuts, and/or
reject the economic system behind the current financial crisis, and
behind their political regimes.</p>
<p><a href="http://takethesquare.net/" target="_blank">The
conviction that only global actions can confront global problems
explains the strong international focus of these movements, and the
attempts to spread the flame of protest throughout the world</a>. Other
principles which define these movements are leaderless and horizontal
forms of organisation; open assemblies as the main forums whereby
consensus is reached on actions to be taken, and the movements’ demands;
the central role of online social networks and of public spaces as
places of intervention, communication and reunion. It is precisely
within the context of all these new political practices that new
linguistic practices may emerge. The focus of this panel is to assess
the innovative nature of these practices.</p>
<p>Specifically, their labels and slogans (<i>Dégagez</i>, <i>Indignados</i>, <i>From Tahrir to Sol</i>)
and the languages used by the demonstrators circulate through the
Internet and the media, and pass from one country to another, thus
interconnecting movements. These struggles share a global outlook, and
make a particular use of multilingualism to address both global and
local interlocutors, to create chains of interconnected discourse in
order to join forces and build up new communities. Thus, the first aim
of this panel will be to analyse the forms taken by this mobilisation of
resources from different languages.</p>
<p>Besides this pervasive multilingualism, other transformations in the
modes of production and circulation of discourses can be attested. In
fact, the introduction of new political practices seems to require
correlative discursive changes. In particular, the principles of
horizontality and collective intelligence result in collectively
produced discourses, deliberately anonymous, which challenge traditional
authorship patterns. Other political practices also seem to have an
impact in the production and circulation of discourses. In particular,
it would be worth analysing the impact of the use of several online
tools, and of the constantly monitoring of how the movements are
portrayed in the media. Thus, the second aim of this panel will be to
analyse the potential transformation of discursive practices in
connection with some ideological features of these movements.</p>
<p>Finally, this panel will also analyse the implications and
contradictions, which could emerge, or the tensions and inconsistences
derived from the articulation between the local and the global. Some of
the questions to be addressed will be:</p>
<ol start="1"><li>Are there any new linguistic practices at play in this context? And
if so, is this novelty rooted in the particular features and objectives
of these new social struggles?</li><li>What are the new modes and sites of production and circulation of these discourses?</li><li>How is multilingualism enacted in the context of social struggle? Is
it a merely rhetorical phenomenon or is it an effective means to
articulate global and local dimensions, and in that case, what could be
the impact of these multilingual practices on previous local forms of
multilingualism?</li><li>Can the commodification of multilingualism be at play here?</li></ol>
<div><b>How to contribute</b></div>
<div>So far, I have received potential contributions analysing data from
Madrid, Athens, Cairo, Tunisia, Tel Aviv, and also some comparative
analysis of the languages and discourses used by the movements in Europe
and EEUU. If you would be interested in contributing to this panel,
too, please contact me at <a href="mailto:luisa.rojo@uam.es" target="_blank">luisa.rojo@uam.es</a> before you submit your abstract directly on the Sociolinguistics Symposium website:</div>
<div>
<ul><li>All submissions have to be made through the Sociolinguistics Symposium’s online <a title="Abstract Submission" href="https://www.conftool.pro/sociolinguistics-symposium-2012/" target="_blank">submission tool (ConfTool)</a>.</li>
<li>Your abstracts should not exceed the length of 500 words (incl. references).</li><li>Each abstract will be reviewed anonymously by at least two peers.</li><li>Each paper will be given a time slot of 20 minutes for the presentation plus 5 minutes for discussion.</li>
<li>Each participant may have at most two contributions at the conference, one as author and one as co-author.</li></ul>
</div>
<div>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><pre cols="72"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Luisa Martin Rojo
Depto. de Lingüística General, Lenguas Modernas, Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia, Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Ciudad Universitaria de Cantoblanco
28049 Madrid
tel. <a href="tel:%2B34%2091%20497%2066%2094" value="+34914976694" target="_blank">+34 91 497 66 94</a>
fax.: <a href="tel:%2B34%2091%20497%2044%2098" value="+34914974498" target="_blank">+34 91 497 44 98</a>
</span><a style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif" href="http://www.ffil.uam.es/mirco/luisa-martin-rojo.php" target="_blank">http://www.ffil.uam.es/mirco/luisa-martin-rojo.php</a><span style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">
</span><a style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif" href="http://uam.academia.edu/LuisaMartinRojo" target="_blank">http://uam.academia.edu/LuisaMartinRojo</a><span style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">
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