[EDLING:565] CFP: Speech Acts/Oral Traditions (Cyprus)

[Francis M Hult]

> CALL FOR PAPERS
> Speech Acts/Oral Traditions
> A Panel Discussion at the Eighth International Literature and Humanities
> Conference,
> INSCRIPTIONS '05: an arts and culture conference and festival
> at Eastern Mediterranean University
> in Famagusta, on the island of Cyprus
> May 12th - 13th, 2005
>      Submissions are invited for a Panel Discussion exploring the forms and
> modes in which literature, broadly defined, is transmitted orally; and how
> the production, transmission, and reception of "texts" in oral traditions
> may be addressed in terms of speech act theory or theories of communicative
> action.
>
> .oral traditions.
>
>       For our purposes, forms of orally transmitted literature may include
> (but are not limited to) traditional narratives such as the epic and the
> ballad, and ritualized performances (lullabies, incantations, laments,
> paeans, etc.); and also oral histories, folktales, myths, legends (urban and
> other), fables, fairytales, ghost stories, proverbs, riddles, jokes and
> shaggy dog stories, improvised theater, "street talk" or argot, rap or
> popular song, gossip, rumor, hype, and buzz.
>       Such language forms may contribute to preserving existing cultural
> traditions and systems, or to creating new ones. They interact in complex
> ways with the methods and technologies used to record, print, archive, and
> investigate them, which codify and transform them through processes of
> editing, translation, and annotation; by extending their duration, and by
> recontextualizing their existence in time and place.
> These codifying processes are framed by, and at the same time generate, the
> shibboleths and creolized discourses of schools of theory and academic
> disciplines.
>       The global reach of electronic media and communication
> technologies-radio, television, the internet in particular-used to broadcast
> them has further complicated the study of oral texts not only by modifying
> their method of transmission, but by dislocating and decentering their
> cultural/historical provenance, their space of existence, and their
> audience.
>
> .and speech acts.
>
>       In this global context, where the local conventions and assumptions of
> a culture are constantly being questioned or reconfigured in interaction
> with other cultures, the literary forms and modes of oral communication and
> their reception in academic and other disciplinary contexts provide an ideal
> field of inquiry for the various dimensions of speech act theory articulated
> by theorists such as Austin, Grice, Wittgenstein, Searle, Derrida, Iser, and
> Pratt, and the theory of communicative action developed by Habermas.
>       The relation between speech act theories and social theories of
> communicative rationality pivots on the operation and validity claims of
> "illocutionary" speech acts-that is, performative utterances with some
> inherent degree of agency-which depend on the complex system of
> socio-cultural assumptions, rules, and attitudes in which they occur.
>       Since the meaning of illocutionary acts-the "perlocutionary effects"
> they produce-depends on these conventions of their performance, the forms
> and modes of transmission and reception of oral literature would seem to
> constitute critical sites for investigating the illocutionary force of
> literary/fictional speech acts, and for developing models and paradigms for
> social action in real-world speech situations.
>
>       Prospective panelists are invited to send 250-word abstracts/proposals
> for 15-20 minute presentations on any aspect of these areas to
> rodney.sharkey at emu.edu.tr by 11th February, 2005. I look forward to learning
> about your research, and to a provocative discussion.
>
> For more information about INSCRIPTIONS '05,
> please visit our website at http://www.emu.edu.tr/elh/inscriptions
> Please also check out our links to "Individual Research Presentations" and
> "Creative/Performance Work."