21.2181, Calls: Socioling, Writing Systems/United Kingdom

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-2181. Tue May 11 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.2181, Calls: Socioling, Writing Systems/United Kingdom

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1)
Date: 11-May-2010
From: Esther-Miriam Wagner < emw36 at cam.ac.uk >
Subject: Scribes as Agents of Language Change
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 09:45:17
From: Esther-Miriam Wagner [emw36 at cam.ac.uk]
Subject: Scribes as Agents of Language Change

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Full Title: Scribes as Agents of Language Change 

Date: 04-Apr-2011 - 06-Apr-2011
Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom 
Contact Person: Esther-Miriam Wagner
Meeting Email: emw36 at cam.ac.uk

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics; Writing Systems 

Call Deadline: 30-Jun-2010 

Meeting Description:

This interdisciplinary conference aims to highlight the importance of written 
texts as a rich and promising source of data for the examination of language 
change using the techniques of sociolinguistics, and to investigate the 
emergence of language registers and the spread of innovation within scribal 
networks.

The proposed conference will bring together scholars working on the scribal
cultures of various languages, from the earliest written to medieval 
languages, to investigate how standard and substandard registers of 
languages emerge out of the scribal communities, and to apply 
sociolinguistic methods to determine how innovations spread within scribal 
networks and how language change occurs within written registers of 
languages.




Organizing committee: Esther-Miriam Wagner (T-S Genizah Research Unit,
University of Cambridge) and Eitan Grossman (Hebrew University of 
Jerusalem & Université de Liège) 

Call for Papers

Scribes as Agents of Language Change
St John's College, Cambridge
4th-6th April 2011

The value of written sources for the study of sociolinguistics has been
overlooked due to its focus on oral communication. It has often been 
remarked that written records are an imperfect source for the study of 
language change, or as Labov put it, historical linguistics is 'the art of 
making the best use out of bad data' (1994: 11). The relatively recent fields 
of historical sociolinguistics and historical pragmatics, however, have 
provided new theoretical frameworks and methodological tools for the study 
of language change (Romaine 1982, Bergs 2005), for instance, social 
network analysis as applied to scribal networks. Furthermore, recent years 
have seen a growing recognition that speakers and listeners in actual 
communicative situations - as opposed to abstract forces or structures - are 
the primary agents of change (e.g., Keller 1994, Croft 2000). However, 
these latter studies have rarely taken an interest in the close analysis of 
texts and their writers and addressees. In fact, speakers and writers are 
often conflated, as are listeners and readers. As a result, little attention has 
been paid to the actual producers and consumers of the written texts that 
constitute the data for the study of language change. Moreover, the great 
majority of work carried out in historical sociolinguistics and related fields 
has mainly dealt with the Germanic languages of Western and Northern 
Europe. The aim of the proposed conference is to bring together scholars 
working on scribal cultures of various languages, from the earliest written to 
medieval languages, to investigate how standard and substandard registers 
of languages emerge out of scribal communities, and to apply sociolinguistic 
methods to determine how innovations spread within scribal networks and 
how language change occurs within written registers of languages. 

Could anyone interested in attending and presenting a paper please send 
an abstract to Esther-Miriam Wagner (emw36 at cam.ac.uk) until 30th June.

Organizing committee:
Esther-Miriam Wagner (T-S Genizah Research Unit, University of 
Cambridge) and Eitan Grossman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem & 
Université de Liège)





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