AAA panel on argumentative lang/verbal duels

[Valentina Pagliai]

Dear colleagues,

I apologize if you are receiving this message in double copy.
Thinking about the upcoming deadline for AAA panel proposals, I was
wondering if there are people out there who would like to contribute to
a panel on verbal duels and/or argumentative language. 

My idea would be to have the panel address topics such as:

- How are argumentative language and/or verbal duels used to empower
themselves, disempower others, create conflict in society? Can they be
considered forms of resistance? Can they affect social norms?
Deconstruct them? Deconstruct social realities? 
- The importance of conflict/dissonance/discordance in communication and
in social relationships.
- What does argumentative language/verbal duels entails in term of
face-work, especially when insults are involved? How do performers
cooperate in insulting each other? How is face maintained or not? What
about footing, participation structures? How is footing used in
arguments/verbal duels? How do people effectively disagree? How do they
learn to do it? 
- How do verbal duels relate to/affect the construction of identities?
(For example the gender/sexual identities of the performers when the
insults are directed at one's masculinity/femininity)
Etc.

Ideally, I would like to create a panel that brings together that sparse
cohort of scholars of language working on argumentative discourse/verbal
duels. It would be nice to see the latest studies done on this topic. I
would hope to see papers that abandon the paradigm that sees argument as
an exception in conversation, to see it as central to communication.

I have done work on traditional verbal duels in Tuscany for many years,
but more recently I have been working on racialization processes. One
thing that interests me is the way people may resist agreeing with
racializing or racist discourse by shifting footing in an argumentative
way, and how people then reorganize the structure of the encounter when
a person disagrees effectively.

Drop me a line if you are interested.


Valentina Pagliai
Dept. of Anthropology
Oberlin College

Via dei Prati 5
Pistoia 51100 (PT)
Italy