Call for Abstracts for IPrA 2011: Panel on Agency (forward)

[Mary Bucholtz]

(Apologies for repeat postings; I previously sent this to the old LINGANTH address.)

Call for Abstracts for IPrA 2011 (Panel on Agency)

I am organizing a panel on agency for the 2011 IPrA conference, which will be held in Manchester, UK in July.  Below is the description of the panel as constituted so far.  If you would like to join this panel, please e-mail me to express interest by Aug 20.  I will need an abstract of your presentation shortly thereafter.

Patricia Mayes
Associate Professor
Department of English
P.O. Box 413
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Tel: (414)229-6992
mayes at uwm.edu

PANEL ABSTRACT

The Limits of Agency: Exploring the Interface between
Semantic and Social Constructs of Agency

    Semantic definitions of agency assume that the prototypical agent is human, intentional, and consciously affecting a patient in some way (cf. Fillmore 1968, Jackendoff 1972, 1990, Klaiman 1991).  Early work in pragmatics left this semantic definition largely intact and focused on how agency, and more generally, transitivity was expressed in linguistic grammars (cf. Lakoff 1977; Hopper and Thompson 1980; Langacker 1991, Dixon 1994, etc.).  Agency has also received attention in other language-focused disciplines, but what is meant by this term is generally quite different.  In her cross-disciplinary review, Ahearn (2001) suggested a broad definition, the “socioculturally mediated capacity to act,” which encompasses the different meanings, but also brings up a number of questions such as the following: Are agents necessarily human?  Are agents individuals, or can agency be collective?  Are agents “conscious, intentional, or effective” (Ahearn 2001: 112)?  Our proposed panel explores these questions and challenges the traditional semantic definition of agency and its limits, following Ahearn (Forthcoming) in reconceptualizing agency as fluid, culture- and context-specific, and discursively enacted.
     Approaching these issues from different perspectives, our panelists challenge the traditional definition by examining examples of agency occurring at the margins of the semantic construct.  The first presenter examines morphological voice alternations in Toraja (an Indonesian language) and finds that the voice alternation typically associated with low transitivity is also often associated with agency, but a different kind – one that highlights how the agent is affected by the action.
     The second and third presenters both explore problems of constructing humanness by attributing voice.  The second examines language development and use in primates, autistic children, and Internet ‘bots’, arguing that attempts to establish artificial platforms for alternative linguistic competencies generate uncertainties about who is really speaking and what it means to seem human.  The third presenter examines two types of institutional discourse, focusing on how agency is used to construct corporations
not only as humans, but also as individuals, which has the effect of suggesting that corporations are “just like us,” with the same responsibilities and rights as “other” human beings.
     The final presenter argues that the construct of agents as conscious and intentional has led many scholars to view agency as equivalent to “empowerment.”  However, certain kinds of “agentive” actions are intersubjectively constructed in ways that may be quite disempowering.  For example, interview data from immigrant language learners shows that when language learning is constituted as something individuals can control, learners are positioned as responsible not only for learning, but also for not learning the dominant language quickly or fully.
     Our discussant will summarize the common threads in the presentations, commenting on our contention that the traditional semantic definition of agency is too narrow because it is based on western models of transitive action that may not be appropriate elsewhere.  She will also comment on the idea that it is more productive to reconceptualize agency more broadly.  We will end with suggestions for continued research that connects this area of pragmatics with other disciplines.

References

Ahearn, Laura M. (2001) Language and agency. Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 109-137.

Ahearn, Laura M. (Forthcoming) Agency and language. In Andreas Jucker, Wolfram Bublitz & Klaus Schneider (series eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 28-48.

Dixon, Robert M. W. (1994) Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fillmore, Charles J. (1968) The case for case. In Bach & Harms (eds),  Universals in Linguistic Theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, pp. 1-88.

Hopper, Paul J. and Sandra A. Thompson (1980) Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56: 251-299.

Jackendoff, Ray (1972) Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jackendoff, Ray (1990) Semantic Structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Klaiman, M. H. (1991) Grammatical Voice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, George (1977) Linguistics gestalts. Chicago Linguistic Society 13: 236-287.

Langacker, Ronald W. (1991) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol 2. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Mary Bucholtz, Professor
Department of Linguistics
3607 South Hall
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100

http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/
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