[Linganth] CfP ASA 2018: "Imagining Language: Ethnographic Approaches"

[Jan David Hauck]

Language goes Oxford! We welcome paper submissions to our panel, entitled
"Imagining Language: Ethnographic Approaches" at the *2018 ASA conference*
in September at *Oxford, UK*.  (Note the "S" between the two "A"s, this is
not the AAA, but our UK sister organization, the Association of Social
Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth.)

Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth
*ASA18: Sociality, matter, and the imagination: re-creating Anthropology*
18–21 September 2018, Examination Schools, University of Oxford

*Deadline* for submission of proposals: *April 20th, 2018*

Panel:  *Imagining Language: Ethnographic Approaches*
Organizers: *Jan David Hauck* (University of California, Los Angeles)
and *Guilherme
Orlandini Heurich* (University College, London)

What is language in the human imagination? In the Western intellectual
tradition, language emerged as autonomous, representational system of
denotational code, a foundational pillar of the modern constitution. It
mediated the ontological separation of nature and society/culture (Latour
1991; Descola 2005), and became a tool for describing linguistic variation,
while at the same time serving as yardstick for its evaluation (Bauman &
Briggs 2003). Ethnographies from across the world have provided evidence of
alternative ontologies (Viveiros de Castro 1998), as well as documented
language practices that defy the privileging of symbolic, denotational, or
referential aspects of language (Feld 1982; Kohn 2013). They challenge its
separation from the realms of practice, the body, the nonhuman, and the
material, as well as the universality of an all-encompassing "nature of
language" underlying variation. If the latter is an artifact of the Western
imaginary, then how do other intellectual traditions make sense of language
and compare or translate between linguistic forms? To address this
conference theme's call for "new comparative approaches for the study of
radical variation," we invite contributions to mobilize local imaginings of
language from anywhere in the world, whether explicitly articulated or
embedded in practices. Papers may discuss daily conversations, speech,
play, verbal art, mythology, music, and non-verbal or material forms of
communication. Instead of looking at cultural representations of a unified,
pre-conceived notion of language we are interested in empirically exploring
the ontological variation of language, multiplying the possibilities of
what language(s) could be.

Discussant: *Alessandro Duranti* (University of California, Los Angeles)


*Instructions*
This panel has been accepted at the conference and you will need to submit
your paper proposals via the website.  Paper proposals must consist of:
– a paper *title*
– the *name/s *and email address/es of the author and co-authors
– a *short abstract* of fewer than 300 characters
– a *long abstract* of fewer than 250 words
All proposals must be made via this online form, not by email.  Please go
to the “Propose paper” link and follow the instructions from there to
submit your paper for consideration. Please submit the paper by *April 20th*.
Decisions will be made by *May 2nd* (the conference deadline) and
communicated to the proposers. To submit a paper you will not need to pay
registration fees.
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