symposium: Language and the Body in a Material World

[Mary Bucholtz]

THE SECOND SANTA BARBARA SYMPOSIUM ON LANGUAGE, INTERACTION, AND SOCIAL 
ORGANIZATION
Language and the Body in a Material World

McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
University of California, Santa Barbara
Sunday, May 20, 2007

Symposium website: 
http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/symposia/2007/
For more information, contact Mary Bucholtz (bucholtz at linguistics.ucsb.edu)

A symposium in association with the Conference on Language, Interaction, 
and Social Organization (LISO)

Registration is free and no advance registration is required; the symposium 
is open to the public.

PRESENTERS AND DISCUSSANTS

H. Samy Alim (UCLA)
Mary Bucholtz (UC Santa Barbara)
Barbara Fox (University of Colorado)
John Haviland (UC San Diego)
Lanita Jacobs-Huey (University of Southern California)
Celia Kitzinger (University of York)
Gene Lerner (UC Santa Barbara)
Norma Mendoza-Denton (University of Arizona)
Jason Raley (UC Santa Barbara)
Emanuel Schegloff (UCLA)
Jan Svennevig (Norwegian School of Management BI)
Sandra A. Thompson (UC Santa Barbara)
Merran Toerien MRC (Health Services Research Collaboration)

DESCRIPTION

As research on language and social interaction draws more heavily on video 
technologies, analysts have become increasingly sensitive to the importance 
of examining interaction not simply as language use but instead as embodied 
social practice. The body in interaction performs a range of socially 
consequential actions tied to talk and other activities, from fleeting 
facial expressions and movements to expansive motion of the head, limbs, 
and torso to manipulation or other use of material resources and the 
physical environment. To examine the body as a communicative resource, 
then, it is inadequate simply to add another analytic layer to a 
fundamentally language-centered analysis. The materiality of social 
interaction demands new approaches that are attentive to the tight 
integration of linguistic communication and embodied practices within 
social activities.

The invited speakers draw on video data from a range of interactional 
contexts, from beauty salons to political meetings to bilingual classrooms 
to everyday conversation, to investigate some of the broad phenomena 
encompassed by research on the body in interaction. The workshop format of 
the symposium allows for in-depth exploration of data by the invited 
presenters, the discussants, and the audience.

The symposium follows the Conference on Language, Interaction, and Social 
Organization (LISO) May 17-19, 2007. For more information about the LISO 
conference, contact the conference organizers (LISOconference at gmail.com) or 
visit the LISO conference website 
(http://www.liso.ucsb.edu/conferences/LISOConf2007/).


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Mary Bucholtz, Associate Professor
Department of Linguistics
3607 South Hall
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100
phone: (805) 893-5415
fax: (805) 893-7769
http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/

Spring office hours: W 2:30-3:20, F 10:00-10:50
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