30.4203, FYI: Edited Volume CFP - New Englishes New Methods

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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-4203. Wed Nov 06 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.4203, FYI: Edited Volume CFP - New Englishes New Methods

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Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2019 08:54:30
From: Michael Westphal [michael.westphal at wwu.de]
Subject: Edited Volume CFP - New Englishes New Methods

 
Call for Papers for an edited volume - New Englishes, New Methods:
Methodological considerations for the study of New Englishes

Editors: Guyanne Wilson and Michael Westphal

Although the methods used in research on New Englishes are rooted firmly in
linguistic practice, they need to be re-evaluated and revamped if the
description and analysis of New Englishes are to be accurate and
representative. The aims of this edited volume are to critically assess the
current methods being used in New Englishes research, to consider how these
methods may be improved or combined with one another, and to highlight new
methodologies.
The volume extends Smakman & Heinrich’s (2015) Globalising Sociolinguistics
programme to include research methods. They criticize the Western dominance in
sociolinguistic theory making and state that, although “[t]he incompatibility
of several dominant sociolinguistic theories with those outside their Western
domain is obvious and undisputed” (pp. xvi), they are nevertheless applied to,
for example, New Englishes contexts.
These theoretical biases are reflected in the mismatch between the methods
used in New Englishes studies and the contexts to which they are applied. At
the level of phonology, descriptions of New Englishes are typically based on
lexical sets or standard texts. Simo Bobda (2008), however, argues that these
do not capture the full phonemic inventories of New Englishes. There is also a
dearth of instrumental analyses of phonetic features of New Englishes.
Furthermore, there is a lack of representativeness among the informants used
in such studies, particularly in corpora. For example, the ICE corpora favour
educated language users, so that standard forms are given precedence over
vernacular forms and grassroots Englishes (Schneider, 2016) are largely
overlooked. The turn towards big-data corpora is also problematic since
computer-mediated language of the kind included in GloWbE, for instance, is
not part of the everyday linguistic repertoire of several speakers from the
countries featured, especially in African countries (Mohr, 2016).
In terms of language attitudes, studies often fail to make use of varied,
contextualized, and authentic stimuli for listening tasks and frequently rely
on abstract variety labels. These approaches work well in Western speech
communities but are less productive in New Englishes speech communities where
the labels used are often not established, leading to differences in the
understanding and application of descriptive terms by researchers and
informants (Westphal, 2017). New Englishes research has also largely focused
on morpho-syntax and phonology while pragmatic phenomena and other levels of
variation have been under-researched.

The volume brings together work which engages in New Englishes research,
particularly that which involves critical interrogation of the methods used in
this field. We invite abstracts of papers which address any methodological
concerns surrounding work, especially those addressing:

- Mixed methods approaches used in the study of New Englishes
- How authentic spoken data in New Englishes contexts can be elicited
- The description of grassroots Englishes
- Applications of instrumental analyses of phonetic features of New Englishes
- Issues surrounding the creation of New Englishes corpora and multi lingual
corpora
- Problems in the design and implementation of attitude and acceptability
studies in New Englishes
- The application of pragmatic principles to New Englishes data

Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words long (excluding references;
please use APA citation style), and should clearly highlight methodological
problems of previous/current approaches, as well as how the author’s analysis
offers new ways of addressing these issues. Papers should include an
application of the ‘new’ methodological approach. Abstracts should be sent to
Guyanne.Wilson at rub.de no later than 30th December, 2019. Notifications of
acceptance will be sent on 30th January, 2020.

References:

Mohr, S. (2016). From Accra to Nairobi: The use of pluralized mass nouns in
East and West African Postcolonial Englishes. In D. Schmidt-Brücken, S.
Schuster & M. Wienberg (Eds.) Aspects of (Post)colonial Linguistics (pp.
157-187). Berlin: de Gruyter.

Simo Bobda, A. (2008). Cameroon English: Phonology. In Mesthrie, R. (Ed.)
Varieties of English Vol. 4: Africa, South and Southeast Asia (pp. 115-132).
Berlin: de Gruyter.

Smakman, D. & Heinrich, P. (Eds.) (2015). Globalising Sociolinguistics:
Challenging and Expanding Theory. London: Routledge.

Schneider, E. W. (2016). Grassroots Englishes in Tourism Interactions. English
Today 32(3), 2-10.

Westphal, M. (2017). Language Variation on Jamaican Radio. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.
 



Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)





 



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