[EDLING:2229] CFP: International Society for Ethnology and Folklore

[Tamara Warhol]

via the Linguist List . . .

Full Title: International Society for Ethnology and Folklore
Short Title: SIEF

Date: 16-Jun-2008 - 20-Jun-2008
Location: Derry, Ulster, United Kingdom
Contact Person: Joan Beal
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >
Web Site: http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/sief2008/home.htm

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): English

Call Deadline: 16-Feb-2007

Meeting Description:

SIEF is the major international society for folklore and ethnology, and 
will be meeting at the University of Ulster's Magee Campus in 2008. 
There will be a panel on 'Ethnology &(Socio)Linguistics: the 
commodification of dialects and construction of identities', convened by 
Joan Beal and Leonie Cornips, the aim of which is to explore the ways in 
which ethnologists, anthropologists, folklorists and linguists might 
learn from each other’s practices and methodologies to arrive at a 
fuller understanding of the relationship between language/dialect and 
the construction of (local) identities.


Until relatively recently, much research in sociolinguistics had moved 
away from the ethnological and anthropological approaches of the early 
20th century in which a view of the role of language in culture meant 
that linguistic systems could be studied as guides to cultural systems 
(Duranti 1997:53). Since then, sociolinguistics became dominated by 
quantitative and correlational methodologies introduced by Labov (1966), 
whereby speakers are categorized according to social class, gender, age, 
ethnicity, etc. More recently, a new emphasis on community-based 
research, pioneered by Eckert (2000) has sought to put the 'socio-' back 
into sociolinguistics, employing ethnographic fieldwork methods to study 
communities of practice and the role of speech styles in the 
construction of identity. Other scholars (e.g. Milroy 2000) have 
investigated links between language and identity (cf. Silverstein 1976, 
Bucholtz 1999, Irvine & Gall 2000).

In this panel, we aim to explore ways in which ethnologists, 
anthropologists, folklorists and linguists might learn from each other's 
practices and methodologies to arrive at a fuller understanding of the 
relationship between language/dialect and the construction of (local) 
identities. Questions to be addressed might include:

- What is the role of overt representations of dialect/non-standard such 
as proverbs, rhymes, jokes, nicknames i.e. blason populaire and 
stereotypes that (might) indicate high levels of salience/awareness in 
the process of language change?
- What is the role of overt representations of dialect/non-standard, 
performances of dialect and extralinguistic practices and/ or symbols in 
the construction of local identities?
- How might the study of communities of practice (Eckert 2000) be useful 
to ethnological/ folklore research?