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Here's the Nov. SLA AN column plugging the invited sessions and listing
the others<br><br>
<br>
Technology, nonsense and racism are the topics of the three invited
sessions sponsored this month by the SLA. <br><br>
The first invited session, "Talk, technology, and social
transformation," (Thursday, Nov. 18, 4-5:45 PM) focuses on the
relations between such new communicative technologies as television,
cellular phones, e-mail and text-messaging, and the communities in which
they are embedded and which they make possible. The aim of this
panel is to approach technologically-mediated "talk" as
something that cannot be analyzed purely as text independent of its means
of production, but which also insists that technological mediation of
talk means conceiving communication technologies as more than
"channels". The panel includes papers on Interkom slang
in Indonesia, mediated futures in East Germany, electronic mediation of
devotional singing in Mauritius, virtual American Sign Language,
Pentecostal radio in Guatemala, adaptation of VHF radio in Bequia,
Grenadines, and the metapragmatics of radio talk in Mali.<br><br>
The second seesion, "Meaningful nonsense in ritual language,"
(Friday, Nov. 19, 8-9:45 a.m., and 10:15-noon) examines the meaning of
nonsense in ritual speech. Limited intelligibility is a widespread
characteristic of ritual language, whether in magical, religious, or
scientific rituals. However, anthropologists have too often taken
esoteric, archaic, xenoglossic, occult, or glossolalic codes as
self-evident categories, or considered them in isolation from other
modalities of semiosis in ritual performance. This session will
examine the production, meanings, and functions of unintelligible ritual
speech in such wide-ranging contexts as medical discourse in U.S.
hospitals, public reprimands in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, divine
communication in Cuban Santerķa, healing encounters in Senegal,
Indonesian ritual speech, Middle Eastern ululation, African prophetic
glossolalia, American contemplative dance, Mesoamerican ritual language,
and Indonesian healing magic. <br><br>
The third session, "Language, discourse and racism" (Saturday,
Nov. 20, 8-9:45 a.m.) addresses aspects of the relationship between
language(s), discourse(s), and racism in multiple contexts. Racism
as a lived reality has been analyzed as linguistically and semiotically
construed, constructed, and contested through discourse. Everyday
speech is often organized into discourses that are voiced, called upon,
contested or silenced; multiple discourses can themselves be
interconnected and form part of speakersmeta-discursive practices.
Ideologies of language and society surface in this interplay of micro and
meta-discourses. Panel participants will consider discursivity and
identity stigmatization, linguistic stereotyping, and how power and
agency operate, as well as racializing discourses, and reactions to
institutional discourses. Topics include iconicity in everyday
interaction, ideological multiplicity in Mexican discourse, the
racialization of language in Brazil, linguistic profiling, discourses of
diversity in higher education, and the Whitey voice.<br><br>
Other SLA sponsored
panels include:<br><br>
<b> Nov. 17:</b> The
Gendering of Contracting Languages and Their Uses (2-3:45 PM); Reframing
Framing: New Approaches to Interaction across Cultures (4-5:45 PM); New
Writing Systems 6-7:45 PM); Studies in Indigenous American Languages
(8-9:45 p.m.).<br><br>
<b> Nov. 18</b>:
Narrative and Identity in Changing Cultural Contexts (8-9:45 AM); Deaf
Studies' Critical Challenge to Social Theory (8-11:45 AM); The Leaky
Boundaries of Language Ideologies: Code-Switching among Speakers of East
Asian Languages (10:15 AM-noon); Establishing Social Distinction through
Linguistic Innovation (4-5:45 PM).<br><br>
<b>Nov. 19</b>:
Ethnographies of communication in multilingual spaces (1:45-3:30 PM);
Discourse, War, and Terrorism (1:45-5:30 PM); Poster Session (4-5:45
PM).<br><br>
<b>Nov. 20</b>: Placing
Linguistics: Linguistics as Area Studies (10:15-12:00 PM);
Conventionalization and Creativity in Discourse Genres (1:45-5:30 PM);
Embodied Language, Participation, and Learning in the Inhabited Lifeworld
(8:00-9:45 AM); French Language Ideology and the Notion of La
Francophonie (10:15 AM-Noon).<br><br>
Members of SLA may also wish to attend the Committee for Human
Rights'open forum on language and social justice Thursday, 12-2 p.m.,
which will explore the proposition that language rights constitute a
basic human right. The forum will consider debates over language
rights that are hotly contested both in the United States and
internationally: "Ebonics" and "English-Only"
legislation; minority language rights; questions of refugees' linguistic
rights; and the broader question of linguistic diversity as a basic human
right. <br><br>
<br>
At 04:32 PM 10/4/2004 -0700, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Hey AAA folks,<br><br>
Howzabout we start plugging language-oriented sessions at AAA in
November? If you would, please identify the day, date, times, &
places whenever possible. Fun events also encouraged, especially if
they don't appear in the program! ;-)<br><br>
-Richard<br>
-- <br>
======================================================================<br>
Richard J. Senghas, Assoc. Professor | Sonoma
State University<br>
Chair, Dept. of Anthropology/Linguistics | 1801 East Cotati Avenue<br>
Coordinator, Linguistics
Program | Rohnert Park,
CA 94928-3609<br>
Richard.Senghas@sonoma.edu
| 707-664-3920 (fax)</blockquote></body>
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