28.4105, Calls: Anthro Ling, Disc Analysis, Philosophy of Lang, Pragmatics, Socioling/Egypt

Fri Oct 6 17:06:01 UTC 2017

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4105. Fri Oct 06 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4105, Calls: Anthro Ling, Disc Analysis, Philosophy of Lang, Pragmatics, Socioling/Egypt

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Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2017 13:05:52
From: Nermine Wanas [nwanas at aucegypt.edu]
Subject: Talk and Silence: Language in Colonial Contexts

Full Title: Talk and Silence: Language in Colonial Contexts 

Date: 28-Feb-2018 - 01-Mar-2018
Location: Cairo, Egypt 
Contact Person: Anne Storch
Meeting Email: anne.storch at uni-koeln.de

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Philosophy of Language; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics 

Call Deadline: 15-Oct-2017 

Meeting Description:

There are many ways in which language can be conceptualized in different
contexts, societies, and cultural settings. One that has yet received little
attention by linguists, but at the same time is one of the most powerful is
the concept of language as silence: the idea of language as hidden, obscure
and even secret, and the notion of the unspeakable as the most powerful that
can be said. This implies that silence in communication reveals the agency of
language, and also the agency of those who claim power over language, by
silencing others or by falling silent themselves.

Even though silence appears to be trivial experience, the notion of language
as silence is highly relevant for critical debates on theory making in
linguistics. A central concern of postcolonial linguistics is to open up new
spaces for a discussion of concepts and models of language. Colonial and
postcolonial resources on the world’s languages were based – and often still
are – on a particular model of language that follows Western
conceptualisations of bounded, individual codes and structures. These are
constructed with descriptive concepts and tools, such as strings of sounds and
words, word lists, paradigms, idealized morphosyntactic structures and
compositional semantics etc. However, the speakers of the languages described
with the help of such conceptualizations often see them not as individual
codes with boundaries around them but as parts of repertoires in their social
context including diverse signs, looks, gestures, and even silence.

We are interested in examining language as silence and talk about talk in the
framework of colonial linguistics. What has been omitted in linguistics, what
is not being talked about? How do colonial linguistics represent talk? This
will allow us to look critically at conceptualizations of language in colonial
linguistics and to contribute a historical and critical perspective to these
epistemologically marginalized practices in language and communication.

Plenary Speakers: 

Dr. Amira Agameya 
Professor and Chair, The American University in Cairo 
Tentative title: Silence as Talk and Talk as Silence in the Egyptian Media

Dr. Rizwan Ahmed 
Associate Professor of Linguistics, Department of English Literature and
Linguistics, Qatar University
Tentative title: Indexicality, identity, and language change: Colonial and
postcolonial imaginaries

Call for Papers:

We welcome original contributions from linguistics, postcolonial studies,
history, creative arts, and related disciplines. More particularly, papers may
address the following thematic areas:

- Omissions and silence in colonial linguistics: Do colonial contributions to
linguistics include omission, silence, taboo, and soliloquy in their
descriptions and theorizing?
Has silence in speech acts and as non-verbal communication been negated in
descriptive linguistics? If so, how and why?
- Colonial contributions on forbidden words: How colonial players, e.g.
missionaries, constructed forbidden words
- Alternative perspectives: Are other expressions, such as gazes, silences,
and noise salient and important in linguistic theory making and concepts of
language among players who, in a more traditional and binary perspective, are
seen as the objects of colonialism and labelled in linguistic works as the
'speakers', 'informants', etc.?
- Feminist approaches: The participation and/or silencing of women in colonial
linguistics, early feminist contributions, etc.

This is the final call for paper for our coming conference:

Talk and Silence: Language in Colonial Contexts 
Location: Cairo, Egypt The American University in Cairo 

Please submit your abstracts by October, 15 2017 via email to either
reembassiouney at hotmail.com, sippola at uni-bremen.de or astorch at uni-koeln.de –
give a title, name(s) of the author(s), and affiliation in the beginning of
the abstract. The Abstracts should not exceed 500 words. Papers should not
exceed 20 minutes plus 10 minutes discussion time. Notification of acceptance
can be expected around November 2017. The main conference language will be
English, but contributions in other languages present in academia (e.g.
Arabic, French, etc.) are also welcome.

Dr. Reem Bassiouney
Professor
Department of Applied Linguistics
American University in Cairo

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