[Linganth] Call for papers: AAA panel on language in the Trump era (Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton)

[Janet McIntosh]

Call for papers: AAA panel on language in the Trump era
      (Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton)


Dear colleagues,


We’re writing to invite proposals for a 2017 AAA panel on language in the
era of Donald Trump. Since the subject matter is of some interest beyond
linguistic anthropology, we hope for papers that will be intelligible to
all. The provisional abstract below shouldn’t be taken as a limit on what
could be discussed; we are open to your ideas. If you’re interested, please
be in touch with Janet (janetmc at brandeis.edu), and feel free to forward
this message on to others (including cultural anthropologists) who might be
interested. Thank you!


Best,

Janet and Norma


The rise of Donald Trump has shifted the linguistic playing field in
American politics and political commentary. Trump’s campaign, with its
racism, Islamophobia, sexism, vulgarity, and violence, fomented right-wing
hostility toward “political correctness” on college campuses and beyond,
while “Trump talk” appears to have emboldened hate speech and other forms
of verbal bullying (Pollock 2016). Trump’s team members have been accused
of a range of linguistic sins: lying, pivoting, leaking. While some of
Trumps detractors have recurrently invoked their own shocked
“speechlessness,” many protesters have engaged in wordplay with creatively
intertextual signs and slogans. Those on all sides, meanwhile, claim a
monopoly on truth while accusing the opposition of deceit and trammeling
free speech. This panel proposes to examine pragmatics and meaning-making
in the Trump era, in the United States and beyond. Papers might explore
questions such as: How have Trump’s brand and “message” (Lempert and
Silverstein 2012) hinged upon juxtaposition with other politicians’
linguistic styles? How have racial, gendered, class-based, national, and
religious identities been semiotically performed by Trump’s supporters and
detractors? When and why has Trump been “taken literally,” and when and why
as a carnivalesque (Brooks 2017) and entertaining celebrity performer with
plausible deniability (Hall et al 2016, Hodges 2017)? What have been some
effects of floating policy ideas, wielding mock Spanish, and taunting
foreign leaders in 140 characters or less? When have Trump’s spelling
errors, solecisms, and empty intensifiers (Hodges 2017) been taken as
indexes of “authenticity,” and when as deep intellectual flaws? How has
social media been implicated in current political possibilities, including
the possibilities for resistance? How have Trump, his supporters, and his
detractors used techniques of framing (Lakoff 2017) to steer the public
conversation? And how have participant frameworks in political
communication, domestically and beyond, shifted since Trump took office?

-- 
Janet McIntosh
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
Brandeis University
PO Box 549110, MS 006
Waltham, MA 02454
Tel: 781-736-2215
Fax: 781-736-2232
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