AAA 2010 volunteered session CFP: Politics of Dialect

[Thea Strand]

AAA 2010 volunteered session CFP: Politics of Dialect
Co-organizers: Michael Wroblewski (UArizona), Thea Strand (UMass  
Amherst)
Contact: wroblews at email.arizona.edu OR trstrand at anthro.umass.edu

Working panel abstract:

This panel presents ethnographic research on local politics of spoken  
dialect variation, construction, use, and change. Although dialect  
variation is a key topic in sociolinguistic research, analysts often  
downplay the influence of mirco-level political interaction and  
ideology formation on language change while favoring macro-level,  
structural explanations. By contrast, understanding local politics  
and ideologies has become a central pursuit for linguistic  
anthropologists, while analysis of the real effects of politics on  
linguistic form has so far been noticeably absent (Woolard 2008). As  
a result, neither discipline has fully explored dialect variation as  
a salient ethnographic phenomenon.

This panel aims to contribute to the rapprochement of linguistic  
anthropology and sociolinguistics by examining local ethnographic  
discourses of dialect variation and investigating their potential  
links to real linguistic change, while contextualizing both within  
broader (inter)national politics. Spoken dialect is an essential  
marker of local identity that can be used as both a stylistic medium  
for constructing positioned voices and as an object of political  
project making. Recognized normative and non-normative dialect  
features can be selectively and strategically employed by speakers to  
signal both allegiance to and rejection of shared ideological  
objectives. As a result, dialect has become an important concern in  
both academic and folk discourses wherever ethnic, cultural, and  
regional identities come into contact. The participants on this panel  
contribute studies of the perception and representation of dialect  
variation in a variety of socio-cultural milieux. They approach  
dialect as both a linguistically observable and socially determined  
construct that is always incomplete and always subject to ideological  
contestation and power-laden interaction.

If you are interested in participating, please submit an abstract of  
250 words or less to either of the panel organizers -- Michael  
Wroblewski (wroblews at email.arizona.edu) or Thea Strand  
(trstrand at anthro.umass.edu) -- by MARCH 26.