CFP AAA 2013: Multilingualism and Multimodal Interaction

[Melanie McComsey]

Call for papers for 2013 American Anthropological Association annual
meeting in Chicago. Please indicate your interest in the panel as soon as
possible, and send a 250 word abstract by April 1 to Melanie McComsey at
mmccomsey at ucsd.edu.


Multilingualism and Multimodal Interaction


Organizer: Melanie McComsey (University of California, San Diego)


Traditional approaches to the study of multilingual interaction have
focused primarily on speech phenomena such as codeswitching, borrowing,
interference, and the deployment of linguistic variables in talk. Like all
interaction, however, multilingual interaction is multimodal, meaning that
it makes recourse to a diversity of semiotic resources in the speech
stream, the human body, and the environment. Recent approaches to
multimodal and embodied interaction, such as those collected in Streeck,
Goodwin and LeBaron 2011, have diverse antecedents. Work by Goffman on
mutual monitoring (1963) and on the importance of the human and material
setting in interaction (1964), and early work by Kendon on “visible
behavior” (1973) and “gesticulation” (1980) have been particularly
influential. The present session will take inspiration from such
multimodal approaches, bringing them to bear on multilingual interaction
and thus expanding the possibilities for what might be considered
linguistic contact phenomena.


Papers may include but are not limited to topics such as:
*bimodal multilingualism
*multilingualism in signed languages
*cross-linguistic gestural transfer (Pika et al. 2006) or “manual accents”
(Kellerman and Van Hoof 2003)
*relationship between codeswitching and embodied practice
*socialization to multiple repertoires of embodied practice
*contact-induced change in prosody, gesture, etc.
*the role of the body in second language learning
*the relationship between linguistic ideologies and embodied practice
*gestural translation and gesture in translation


This panel engages the 2013 AAA theme of “Future Publics, Current
Engagements” by acknowledging that in a globalized future of linguistic
and cultural heterogeneity, multilingual encounters will become the norm.
The panel contributes to a broad movement in linguistic anthropology to
redefine the traditional boundaries of “language” and to challenge the
notion of the discreteness of linguistic codes. Furthermore, multimodal
approaches to language, due to their focus on micro-interactions, are at
the forefront of methodological innovations in anthropology, utilizing new
technologies and adapting techniques that have been used in other
disciplines such as cognitive science, linguistics and psychology.

Melanie McComsey
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Anthropology
University of California, San Diego
Tel (US): +1 (619) 866 4554
Tel (Mexico): +52 55 4169 1336