nd LINEE Conference: Multilingualism in the Public Sphere <br>
<br>
Date: 04-May-2012 - 06-May-2012 <br>
Location: Dubrovnik, Croatia <br>
Contact Person: Josip Lah<br>
Meeting Email: <a>< click here to access email > </a><br>
Web Site: <a href="http://www.amiando.com/lineeconference2012">http://www.amiando.com/lineeconference2012</a> <br>
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Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics<br><br>
Call Deadline: 01-Dec-2011 <br><br>
Meeting Description:<br><br>
LINEE (Languages in a Network of European Excellence) is a scientific
network aimed at investigating linguistic diversity in Europe in a
coherent and interdisciplinary way. Following on a very successful
international conference on New Challenges for Multilingualism organized
by LINEE in 2010 in Dubrovnik, it has been decided to organise the
second international conference in 2012 again in Dubrovnik to continue
to critically examine the concept of multilingualism in the context of
complex cultural and linguistic diversity characterized by mobility,
migration and minorities, and to propose further theoretical and
research perspectives. <br> <br>The objective of this second
international conference is to provide a forum for researchers studying
multilingualism as social practice in various public spaces in order to
rethink both the concept of 'language', its role in fostering social
cohesion, and the concept of the public sphere. Instead of the dominant
understanding of the public sphere in political and social theory
associated with the capacity for reasoned public choice attained through
free and open public debates of citizens, we propose a broader
anthropologically grounded concept of the sphere of public communication
associated to the sociability and the potential of the encounters and
communication between strangers. It refers to multiple inherently
unstable and fluid publics as socially constituted by difference, and
citizens communicating across linguistic and cultural boundaries within
an interactive public space. The wealth of such multilingual contexts
and uses of plurilingual resources in the process of intercultural
communication is often neglected in public and academic domains. <br> <br>The
conference will gather 100-120 researchers who investigate plurilingual
communication from a perspective that seeks to critically address power
relations and includes different types of public spaces as concrete
empirical settings, each with their specific contribution to
communication across linguistic and cultural boundaries, such as: public
places (shops, markets, tourist sites); field of economy and
work-organizations; functional/sectoral public arenas of differentiated
service-provision (such as education, health-care, administration etc.)
and media. <br> <br>Venue: Inter-University Centre - Dubrovnik, Frana Bulica 4: <a href="http://www.iuc.hr/">http://www.iuc.hr</a> <br> <br>The
centre has nice internet facilities and a number of rooms for lectures
and limited possibilities for accommodation in the building itself. It
is located very close to the famous late medieval city of Dubrovnik,
i.e. about 300 meters in the direction North-West to the central
medieval gate. Accommodation can be found in one of the many hotels in
Dubrovnik (Hotel Imperial is the closest to the centre, but expensive,
Hotel Lero is cheaper, and about 1½ kilometre from the Centre) or in one
of many private accommodations (Room or 'Sobe') which are very
reasonable and can be found everywhere.<br><br>
Call for Papers: <br> <br>While the public sphere as a communicative
space has been mostly studied through the mass media discourse, we
suggest a 'bottom up' perspective, which takes all levels of the public
sphere as relevant by also studying non-mediated public arenas. We would
like to explore these themes in terms of the relationships between
conventional notions of the institutional public sphere, alongside
informal, everyday linguistic and cultural practices through which the
public is negotiated. The organizers invite interdisciplinary
contributions which investigate plurilingual communication from a
perspective that seeks to critically address asymmetries in knowledge
and power relations and includes different types of public spaces as
concrete empirical settings of functional plurilingualism, each with
their specific contribution to shared intercultural communication. <br> <br>Session Topics: <br> <br>1) Multilingual Practices in Public Places and Linguistic Landscape <br> <br>The
session will look at freely accessible public places (streets, parks,
shops, bars, markets, clubs, tourist resorts as well as unrooted places
marked by mobility and travel) as sites of social communicative
interactions between strangers. Such public spaces with high level of
heterogeneous co-presence as loci of power and politics are the most
important places for studying the 'right to a communicative city'. The
primary interest is on place sociability, its capacity to encourage and
generate spontaneous encounters and activities with the 'Other', and all
imperfect linguistic practices, and creative uses of multilingual
resources (like poly-lingualism or languaging that challenge the notion
of bounded, and clearly defined languages) on which people draw while
striving to create meaning. Such multilingual practices are not
restricted to oral communication, but can be found in different signs of
linguistic landscape. <br> <br>2) Multilingualism in Institutional Settings <br> <br>The
focus of this session is on theoretical and empirical research of
institutional challenges posed by mobility and linguistic diversity. It
strives to examine intercultural communication in various
functional/sectoral public arenas of differentiated service-provision
(such as education, health and social care, bureaucratic administration,
law etc.) through institutional ideologies and processes of social
exclusion/inclusion as reflected in linguistic and interactional
routines and practices. Empirical settings of less-studied institutional
sites that challenge powerful language ideologies, control and
authority that often support 'monolingual multilingualism' through the
compartmentalization of languages and the privileging of particular sets
of linguistic resources over others are particularly welcome, as well
as issues connected to intercultural communication and competence. <br> <br>3) Multilingualism in Economy <br> <br>The
session will explore different aspects of the relationship between
language and economy in an interdisciplinary way such as, management of
human resources under conditions of linguistic diversity; knowledge
transfer through multilingual practices; multilingual communication and
interaction in the realization of economic production processes (e.g.
marketing), and language as commodity at the linguistic market and
language industries. <br> <br>4) Historical Perspectives of Multilingualism <br> <br>Critical,
comparative transnational approach to historical multilingualism can
illuminate its legacy and linguistic and social challenges stemming from
the historical basis for the present linguistic and cultural diversity
in Europe and elsewhere. We can particularly benefit from historical
socio-political overviews and specific case studies of multilingual
states in the past that reveal ideologies of official language policies,
the interaction between national and imperial/colonial policies and
their effects. Alternative perspectives that consider language use and
ideologies circulating from below, e.g. in popular press and literature,
might reveal the social impact of such policies and different
manifestations of historical multilingualism. <br> <br>5) General Session <br> <br>Empirical and theoretical papers on other topics related to language as social practice and intercultural communication. <br> <br>Abstract Submission: <br>
<br>The
abstract submission deadline for individual papers is 1 December 2011.
Notification of acceptance will be on 15 January 2012. Further details
regarding abstract submission and registration are available on the
conference website: <br> <br><a href="http://www.amiando.com/lineeconference2012.html">http://www.amiando.com/lineeconference2012.html</a> <br> <br>Scientific Committee: <br> <br>Anna Fennyvesi (University of Szeged) <br>
Tamah Sherman (Charles University Prague) <br>Rita Franceschini (Free University of Bozen) <br>Anita Sujoldžić (Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb) <br>Vesna Muhvić-Dimanovski (University of Zagreb) <br>Dick Vigers (University of Southampton) <br>
Jiri Nekvapil (Charles University Prague) <br>Peter Weber (University of Applied Languages, Munich) <br>Rosita Schjerve-Rindler (University of Vienna) <br>Iwar Werlen (University of Bern) <br> <br>Organizing Committee: <br>
<br>Anita Sujoldžić (president) <br>Pavao Rudan <br>Mirna Jernej <br>Lucija Šimičić <br>Anja Iveković-Martinis <br>Josip Lah <br>Olga Orlić<br><br><a href="http://linguistlist.org/issues/22/22-4305.html">http://linguistlist.org/issues/22/22-4305.html</a><br clear="all">
<br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br>
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