Call for Papers -- Toulouse Conference on Copntemporary English

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:32 PM -0800 11/28/06, James A. Landau wrote:
>I looked at the website http://iclce.toulouse.free.fr and found it
>interesting that the authors of the website keep referring to "the
>linguistic phenomenon (or phenomena) known as English".
>
>I'm probably reading a good deal into this that isn't there, but to
>me the word "phenonemon" has the connotation of "something
>extraordinary impressive" rather than "something ordinary that
>happens", e.g. the sportwriters' use of "phenom" to describe an
>extraordinary athlete. Under the influence of this connotation, I am
>hearing the authors imply that the English language (and not the
>socio-cultural-political influence of English speakers) is somehow
>extraordinary among languages.
>
>This strikes me as an unusual attitude from the organizers of a
>conference to be held in France, a country whose natives are, shall
>we say well-known, for their chauvinistic pride in their own tongue.
>(It might be noted that the English word "chauvinistic" comes from
>French).
>
P.S.  On ESPN SportsCenter a minute ago, a segment on Fantasy
Football referred back to it as "the phenomenon"--basically just a
relatively empty filler = "the thing (we're talking about)".

LH

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