Workshop: Language Ethics as a Field of Inquiry

[Yael Peled]

International workshop: Language Ethics as a Field of Inquiry

November 11-12, 2011

ITHQ (3535 St. Denis), Montreal



Convenors: Daniel Weinstock and Yael Peled


The workshop “Language Ethics as a Field of Inquiry” is an innovative  
and a first-of-its-kind attempt to identify, conceptualise and explore  
the social and political ethics of human language as a distinct field  
of intellectual inquiry, similarly to other distinct domains of ethics  
such as the ethics of war, bioethics, business ethics and  
environmental ethics.

The workshop brings together diverse scholarly perspectives from  
leading experts in politics, philosophy, linguistics, history and  
economics, in order to explore language ethics in a strong  
transdisciplinary environment. It therefore sets out to identify the  
ways in which the intrinsic plurality and complexity of this emerging  
field of inquiry may be approached, defined and studied in a  
systematic and dedicated manner.



Programme:

Friday November 11

9:00           	Greetings and Opening Remarks



Session I: Language Ethics - Definitions, Contexts and Approaches

9:30           	Dan Avnon (Political Science, Hebrew University)

	What is (or ‘are’) Language Ethics?

10:15             Arash Abizadeh (Political Science, McGill)

	Words versus the Public Thing: Verbal Threats to the Rousseauist  
Republic

11:00           	Break

11:15             Luisa Maffi (Terralingua)

	Earth of Languages, Languages of the Earth: Towards a Biocultural  
Ethics for the World’s Languages

12.00            	Lunch



Session II: The Normative Theorising of Language Policy

13:00          	Idil Boran (Philosophy, York)

			Language, Institutions and Political Theory

13:45             Jacob T. Levy (Political Science, McGill)

	The Language of Manners and the Manners of Language

14:30           	 Break



Session III: Linguistic Justice

15:00           	Alan Patten (Political Science, Princeton)	

			Language Preservation, Fairness and Language Rights

15:45             Helder de Schutter (Political and Social Theory,  
Leuven)

	Intralinguistic Justice



Saturday November 12

Session IV: Global Linguistic Justice

9:30           	Suzanne Romaine (English, Oxford)

	Towards Sustainable and Equitable Human Development: Why Language  
Matters

10:15             Daniel Weinstock (Philosophy, Montreal)

	Is Language Death Necessarily Unjust? Three Arguments

11:00             Break

11:15             Tom Ricento (Education, Calgary)

	Language Policy, Political Theory and English as a ‘Global’ Language

12:00            	Lunch



Session V: The Economics of Linguistic Diversity

13:00            David Robichaud (Philosophy, Ottawa)

	Language Rights and the Costs of Language Diversity

13:45             Francois Grin (Economics, Geneva)

	Is “Diversity” an Operational Concept for Language Policy?

14:30            	Break



Session VI: Language Ethics as a Field of Inquiry

15:00            General Discussion

16:30            Conclusion





Participation and registration:

Registration is free of charge but is essential, since the number of  
available places is limited. To register, please send a message  
expressing your interest to yael.a.peled at gmail.com. For directions and  
map of the workshop venue see http://www.ithq.qc.ca/en/hotel/pour-nous-joindre.php 
.



--------------------------------------

Yael Peled

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Inter-University Research Group in Political Philosophy
Centre for Research on Ethics (CREUM)
University of Montreal
2910 Edouard Montpetit, #308
Montréal, Québec
H3C 3J7 Canada

Tel.: +1 514-343-6111, #1354
Fax: +1 514-343-7899

http://oxford.academia.edu/YaelPeled/