CFP: "Sots-Speak: Regimes of Language under Socialism" (May 20-22)

[Petre Petrov]

Dear all,

please note the new dates for the conference: May 20-22, 2011. The originally 
appointed dates (May 13-15) needed to be changed due a scheduling conflict 
with another event at Princeton. The submission deadlines have been adjusted 
accordingly.


*************
CALL FOR PAPERS

SOTS-SPEAK: REGIMES OF LANGUAGE UNDER SOCIALISM
May 20-22, 2011

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

The attempt to build communism in Eastern Europe was accompanied by the 
development of a distinctive language paradigm, first in the Soviet Union, then
—by a process of cultural translation and local adaptation—in the satellite 
states of the Socialist Bloc. The official discourse possessed its own “speech 
genres” (tied to specific communicative contexts, social roles, and political 
tasks), easily recognizable rhetorical patterns and lexical peculiarities. It is 
intuitively obvious that this discourse, which we provisionally label “sots-
speak,” was instrumental in legitimizing and perpetuating the political system, in 
shaping individual psychologies and cultural expressions. However, our 
knowledge of its exact nature and practical existence remains sketchy, as the 
topic still awaits systematic research. The aim of this conference is to bring 
together scholars whose work helps shed light on the politico-ideological 
idiom(s) of state socialism, so that we can begin to develop a sophisticated, 
multi-layered picture of this special universe of discourse. A deeper 
understanding of its constitutive linguistic features and the tendencies that 
define its evolution represents a major desideratum on its own; yet we see this 
understanding as prerequisite for engaging in questions of broader cultural 
significance and soliciting a range of (inter)disciplinary inquiries (sociolinguistics, 
social psychology, anthropology, philosophy, cultural and literary studies, 
political science, etc.). The following questions merely suggest a few general 
ways in which to frame our investigation; each of the areas can be illuminated 
through analysis of specific topics:

* What is the relation between the linguistic theories and utopias of the 
cultural avant-garde and the linguistic regimes of state socialism?

* Can we isolate and analyze expressive features uniquely native to these 
regimes? What are the stable rhetorical patterns and lexical inventories of sots-
speak? What communicative functions do they serve?

* What was the social reception of the ideological “tongues” of socialism in the 
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe? How can we study the dynamic between 
inherited mentalities and the novel linguistic paradigms? 
 
* What is the relationship between language and political power? What powers 
are invested or (assumed to reside) in language? How effective was official 
language in fulfilling the functions with which it was charged? How do we know? 
What determines this efficacy?

* What is the relationship between signified and signifier in sots-speak, 
between ideological meaning and its material carrier? How does it change over 
time (the fading of meaning, the public’s de-sensitization toward the appeal of 
ideologically charged language, etc.)?
* How are social roles and identities concretely played and claimed in the use 
of official idiom (the performance Stephen Kotkin has called “speaking 
Bolshevik”)?

* Does sots-speak presuppose a distinctive kind of relay between 
speaker/author and recipient/audience? What is the dynamic of stated and 
implied meaning in this discourse? How are unstated meanings coded and 
deciphered in specific discursive genres and situations?

* What values (representational, stylistic, semantic) does sots-speak assume 
when it is taken up into artistic discourse? 

* What constitutes linguistic dissidence under state socialism? What are the 
subversive appropriations of the official idiom in everyday life, unofficial folklore, 
and artistic texts?

* What has been the “posthumous” fate of sots-speak? With what new 
value(s) has it been invested after the end of state socialism in Russia and 
Eastern Europe? 

We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a short CV, to 
be submitted by February 17, 2011 to fried at ujc.cas.cz

Inquiries regarding the conference’s topic, organization, or submission process 
should be directed to ppetrov at princeton.edu

Those selected to give presentations will be contacted in early March, 2011. 

All participants must submit a full version of their paper by April 22, 2011; the 
papers will be posted on the conference's website and remain available for the 
duration of the event. 

We expect to be able to offer a limited number of travel subsidies to 
participants from abroad. 

Program committee: 
   Petre Petrov (Princeton)
   Mirjam Fried (Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
   Eliot Borenstein (NYU)
   Serguei Oushakine (Princeton)
   Kevin Platt (University of Pennsylvania)

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