[Linganth] SLA CFP: Linguistic Spectres and the Public Sphere

[Hannah McElgunn]

Hi everyone,

We would love to have one or two more participants for our proposed panel, “Linguistic Spectres and the Public Sphere” for the SLA in Chicago. If you are interested, please email me (hannah.mcelgunn at queensu.ca<mailto:hannah.mcelgunn at queensu.ca>) with an abstract and paper title by November 21st. Working panel abstract below:

This panel considers how different discursive phenomena get taken up as threats to an idealized public sphere, and how various actors are imagining solutions to these linguistic spectres. Across a wide range of contexts, from the global spread of English, to software engineers’ experiments with using AI, to swear words in sacred contexts, we ask how ideologies of what language is and does collide with contemporary imaginations of democracy and diversity.
Building on classic work in linguistic anthropology, such as the role of languages in creating the public sphere (Gal and Woolard 2001) and moral panics (Cameron 1995), we ask how these classics can apply to, or are challenged by, current crises. Are new forms of language ideological work emerging to address the contemporary moment? Or are familiar language ideologies taken for granted in the imagination of new worlds?


All the best,
Hannah McElgunn (with Janet Connor and Britta Ingebretson)



Hannah McElgunn

Assistant Professor
Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Queen's University at Kingston
Kingston Hall, 4th Floor
103 Stuart Street
Kingston, ON K7L 3N6

www.hannahmcelgunn.com<http://www.hannahmcelgunn.com>


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