CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT: GURT 2008 ON NARRATIVE

[Anna De Fina]

Dear Colleague,

We invite you to consider submitting an abstract or panel for the following conference.  Please also circulate the following Call for Papers to other potentially interested participants.  For more information, please go to the following link: 

www8.georgetown.edu/college/gurt/2008 
 
Anna De Fina and Deborah Schiffirn
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
 
 
CALL FOR PAPERS
 
Telling Stories: Building bridges among Language, Narrative, Identity, Interaction, Society and Culture.

March 14- 16, 2008 
 
Narratives have been studied in many different disciplines: linguistics, literary theory, clinical psychology, cognitive and developmental psychology, folklore, anthropology, sociology and history.

 The primary focus of GURT 2008 is the linguistic study of narrative, especially as it has developed within discourse analysis and sociolinguistics.
As our theme suggests, however, studying the language of narrative can take us far afield to other concerns: the construction of self and identity; the differences among spoken, written and computer-mediated discourse; the role that small and big (e.g. life) stories play in everyday social interactions; the contribution of narrative to social status, roles and meanings within institutional settings as varied as therapeutic and medical encounters, education, politics, media, marketing and public relations.

Thus GURT 2008 will be a forum for building interconnections among language, narrative and social life.


 Featured Speakers: William Labov, Jerome Bruner, Richard Bauman
 
We invite proposals for presentations related to the conference themes:
•the language of narratives: form, meaning and use
•narrative modalities: spoken, written, computer-mediated
•small/short stories in everyday social interaction
•large/long stories in life stories and oral histories 
•narrative in and of social institutions, e.g. clinical practice (therapy, medicine), education, politics, media, marketing, public relations
•narratives of displacement, resistance and social change

Proposal submission deadline is October 15, 2007. Notification of proposal acceptance: December 12, 2007. A prize will be awarded to the best student presentation or poster; no separate application is needed.
Presentation formats include:

(1) Colloquia: Scheduled for 2-hour blocks. Colloquium organizers may divide time as they choose, but time should be allocated for opening and closing remarks, presentations, discussion and audience response. Organizers serve as the liaison between participants and the conference organizers. Organizers may choose to participate in the panel as a presenter or discussant.

(2) Individual papers: 20 minutes long with a 10-minute discussion period. 

(3) Poster presentations: displayed for a 2-hour block of time; an opportunity to report on work in progress in one-on-one discussions.
Poster and paper submissions will require an abstract of 250 words. Colloquia submissions will require a 250 word abstract (describing the overall session), a title and an abstract (250 words) for each paper.
Proposal submission is only through the conference website. More information about the submission procedure is now available under Abstract Submission.