[EDLING:1587] CFP: Universalism and Relativism in Face-Saving: Focus on Postcolonial Contexts

[Tamara Warhol]

via the Linguist List . . .

Full Title: Universalism and Relativism in Face-Saving: Focus on 
Postcolonial Contexts

Date: 30-Aug-2006 - 02-Sep-2006
Location: Bremen, Germany
Contact Person: Eric Anchimbe
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 30-May-2006

Meeting Description:

We are organising a workshop titled: 'Universalism and relativism in 
face-saving: Focus on postcolonial contexts' during the 39th annual 
meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) scheduled for 
30-Aug-2006 to 02-Sep-2006 in Bremen, Germany. It is our intention to 
bring together papers that evaluate the relevance of certain pragmatic 
issues claimed to be universal, within postcolonial contexts. Although 
the focus of this panel is primarily on face-saving, papers related to 
the myriad locutionary forms, illocutionary functions, and 
perlocutionary effects of language communication and communication 
systems in postcolonial contexts are welcome as well.

Papers dealing with natural discourse and issues of cultural 
displacement, migration, hybridity, diaspora, and the role of public and 
government media in shaping perceptions of postcolonial history, 
politics, and regional, ethnic, and social identities will also be 
considered. With its emphasis on communication and issues of identity, 
agency, understanding, and empowerment in different postcolonial 
contexts, this panel wishes to provide a common platform for 
interdisciplinary cooperation between scholars of different persuasions 
with interests in language, communication, and postcolonial questions

Send abstracts to
Richard W. Janney (University of Munich) janneylmu.de
Eric A. Anchimbe (University of Munich) anchimbe_ericyahoo.com

Deadline: May 30th, 2006.

More information on the SLE conference at: 
http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/sle2006



Universalism and relativism in face-saving: Focus on postcolonial contexts

Richard W. Janney (University of Munich)
janneylmu.de
Eric A. Anchimbe (University of Munich)
anchimbe_ericyahoo.com

The main question this panel wishes to address is: to what extent are 
the patterns of face-saving claimed by Brown and Levinson (1978) really 
universal? Since the publication of Brown and Levinson's work, several 
other works have been published that describe patterns of politeness and 
face-saving in Non-western cultures that are distinctly different from 
those in Western cultures. Although some researchers have discussed 
politeness in certain African and Asian cultures, it is still not 
established if the further mix of languages and linguistic identities 
created by colonialism play a significant role in the way speakers in 
multilingual postcolonial speech communities produce and react to speech 
acts related to politeness and face-saving. This issue is particularly 
complex, because language use and abuse play important roles in many 
areas of postcolonial life. Language can be a powerful mediator of 
understanding, empowerment, and solidarity, or a source of repression, 
disempowerment, and discrimination. Choices of what and how (and in what 
languages) things are expressed stand at the centre of postcolonial 
pragmatic interest.

If certain face-saving strategies (hedging, complimenting, understating, 
distancing, etc.) are relatively uniform in Western cultures, as Brown 
and Levinson claim, how are these realised in postcolonial contexts? 
What happens to these strategies among speakers who have complex, hybrid 
linguistic identities built on mixtures of foreign languages imposed 
during colonialism, indigenous languages, and the languages of wider 
communication (Pidgins and Creoles)? Do speakers adopt situational 
faces, using the different languages (and with these, identities) at 
their disposal to project such faces? Or do they adopt stabile 
face-saving patterns specific to one language and culture in their daily 
communication? Answers to these questions could be found by analyzing 
everyday face-to-face discourse, political and institutional discourse, 
print media discourse, literary discourse, and all forms of 
electronically mediated communication.

Although the focus of this panel is primarily on face-saving, papers 
related to the myriad locutionary forms, illocutionary functions, and 
perlocutionary effects of language communication and communication 
systems in postcolonial contexts are welcome as well. Papers dealing 
with natural discourse and issues of cultural displacement, migration, 
hybridity, diaspora, and the role of public and government media in 
shaping perceptions of postcolonial history, politics, and regional, 
ethnic, and social identities will also be considered. With its emphasis 
on communication and issues of identity, agency, understanding, and 
empowerment in different postcolonial contexts, this panel wishes to 
provide a common platform for interdisciplinary cooperation between 
scholars of different persuasions with interests in language, 
communication, and postcolonial questions.