27.829, FYI: Call for Papers: Exploring Silence and Absence in Discourse

Mon Feb 15 16:02:32 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-829. Mon Feb 15 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.829, FYI: Call for Papers: Exploring Silence and Absence in Discourse

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
                   25 years of LINGUIST List!
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Ashley Parker <ashley at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 11:02:10
From: Charlotte Taylor [charlotte.taylor at sussex.ac.uk]
Subject: Call for Papers: Exploring Silence and Absence in Discourse

Call for papers: Conspicuous by Absence: Exploring silence and absence in
discourse

Contributions are invited for an edited collection dedicated to absence and
silence in discourse. Although it is acknowledged that absences contribute to
the meaning of what is present, discourse analysis has frequently focussed on
what is said and, to date, the systematic analysis of what is unsaid and
silenced, rare or absent in linguistic data, has received relatively little
attention. In part, this is due to the methodological challenges of
identifying, accessing and investigating absences. More conceptualisation is
also required on how we can interpret absences in discourse as meaningful.
These are the issues that we intend to tackle in this innovative volume. The
aim is to bring together researchers who have been investigating absence and
silence and to present a range of proposals as to how we can identify and
analyse what is absent (and yet structuring of the discourse). In so doing,
the volume aims to promote the empirical study of absence and silence in
discourse and to give them a more central position in discourse analysis. 

We invite contributions from a range of perspectives, which discuss and
demonstrate ways of analysing silence and absence empirically. We particularly
welcome proposals which go beyond the identification of an absence to include
reflection of how to systematically identify that kind of absence/silence, and
how absence can actually be analysed as part of the interpretation of a
discourse. 

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

- absence/silence as the result of suppression to support a dominant
discourse, as a result of hegemony and the absence of alternatives
- absence/silence as the result of the development of discourses; what becomes
absent in a process of development from a more heterogeneous discourse into
hegemonic narratives or what gets left out of successive drafts/different
versions of texts and/or as the result of addressee orientation
- absence/silence regarding participants in events; voices that are heard or
absent, make themselves heard or are silenced, participants that strategically
claim they have been silenced
- absence/silence as the result of (the process of) translation; which texts
get selected for translation, which aspects of discourse determined, culture
specific or time bound meaning get ‘lost in translation’ 
- absence/silence in metaphors; how does metaphorical conceptualisation
contribute to the foregrounding and backgrounding of aspects of the phenomenon
in question
- absence/silence in multimodal texts; what is reinforced or silenced in the
interplay between different modes of communication
- metadiscourse about absence/silence; how are silences identified and
evaluated by discourse participants, what is it that makes silence meaningful
to them

We invite abstract proposals of up to 300 words (excluding references) to be
submitted to the editors Melani Schröter (m.schroeter at reading.ac.uk) and
Charlotte Taylor (charlotte.taylor at sussex.ac.uk) by 30 April 2016. If
accepted, we will ask for first drafts of chapters (up to 9000 words) to be
submitted by 1 October 2016 with view to publication with an international
publisher (expressions of interest already in place) in 2017. 
About us: The editors, Melani Schröter and Charlotte Taylor, have both been
investigating and grappling with absence for some time. Melani is the author
of ‘Silence and Concealment in Political Discourse’ and Charlotte is the
co-author of ‘Patterns and Meaning in Discourse: theory and practice in
corpus-assisted discourse studies’ both published with Benjamins. We run an
occasional blog on the topic at https://absencediscourse.wordpress.com/ 

Melani Schröter | https://reading.academia.edu/MelaniSchroeter
Charlotte Taylor | https://sussex.academia.edu/CharlotteTaylor

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
            http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-27-829	
----------------------------------------------------------