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<div style="text-align:center"><b>Call for Papers, Special Issue: “Towards a neurodiverse sociocultural linguistics”</b><br>Editors Ayden Parish and Kira Hall<br></div><div><br></div><div>Neurodiversity,
understood as the range of human cognitive and neurological variance,
has been classically marginalized as only of interest through a
medicalized, pathologizing lens. The neurodiversity movement, however,
advocates that these differences should not be seen as biomedical
entities to be first and foremost cured, but as variation to be
accommodated and as lived experiences whose perspectives should be
recognized and valued. Across the social sciences,
neurodiversity-affirming approaches have come to demonstrate that a
sociocultural angle is necessary, both in order to improve theorization
of neurodiverse conditions and also to bring a new critical eye to
current theories that only account for normative relationships with
language and sociality. Crucially, these critiques make important steps
in asserting the agency of neurodivergent individuals. We hope to
further enrich these discussions with specific attention to
sociocultural linguistics as a site for neurodiverse intervention.</div><div><br></div><div>We invite papers for a special topics issue on neurodiversity to be submitted to <i>Language in Society</i>.
Our aim is to demonstrate the necessity of incorporating neurodiversity
into the study of language in social life and to showcase the
productive new directions engendered by such approaches. We welcome a
broad vision of neurodiversity that includes not only neurodevelopmental
disabilities such as autism, ADHD, and Tourette syndrome, but also
other neurological conditions like dementia and aphasia, as well as
mental illnesses, including but not limited to schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder, and OCD.</div><div><br></div>We are interested in papers from a
diversity of disciplinary viewpoints, including linguistic
anthropology, sociolinguistics, socially-oriented discourse analysis,
crip linguistics and related perspectives, among others. Possible topics
include:<br><ul><li>Analyses of interactions amongst neurodiverse speakers</li><li>Ethnographic approaches to language and embodiment in neurodiverse communities</li><li>Discourse analytical approaches to the construction of neurodiversity and neurotypicality</li><li>Critical reframings of traditionally pathologized linguistic behaviors such as echolalia or “disorganized” speech</li><li>Other creative, socially-oriented approaches to the intersection of neurodiversity and linguistics</li></ul><div></div><div>We
are especially interested in hearing from early career scholars and
those examining neurodiversity’s intersections with race, gender,
sexuality, and other disabilities. <br></div><div><br></div>If you are
interested in submitting a paper to the special issue, please email an
abstract of up to 500 words by <b>January 8th </b>to the editors. Full drafts
of selected papers will be due in May of 2024. Please feel free to write
the editors with any inquiries: Ayden Parish (<a href="mailto:ayden.parish@colorado.edu" target="_blank">ayden.parish@colorado.edu</a>) and Kira Hall (<a href="mailto:kira.hall@colorado.edu" target="_blank">kira.hall@colorado.edu</a>).
<div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>--<br></div><div><b>Ayden Parish</b> (they/them)</div><div>Ph.D. Candidate</div><div>Department of Linguistics<br></div><div>University of Colorado Boulder<br></div></div></div></div></div>