36.1367, Calls: VocUM 2025: Play on Words, Words on Play (Canada)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1367. Fri Apr 25 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1367, Calls: VocUM 2025: Play on Words, Words on Play (Canada)

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Date: 23-Apr-2025
From: Gabriel Labrie [gabriel.labrie.1 at umontreal.ca]
Subject: VocUM 2025: Play on Words, Words on Play


Full Title: VocUM 2025: Play on Words, Words on Play
Short Title: VocUM
Theme: Language

Date: 13-Nov-2025 - 14-Nov-2025
Location: Montreal, Canada
Meeting Email: info at vocum.ca
Web Site: https://vocum.ca/en/call-for-paper-2025/

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Cognitive Science;
Language Acquisition; Ling & Literature; Linguistic Theories

Call Deadline: 20-May-2025

Call for Papers:
VocUM is an international conference organized annually by students of
Université de Montréal from different fields of study relating to
language. It is the only multidisciplinary conference in Montreal
dedicated to language. Its mission is to provide a platform for young
researchers to display their findings and foster meaningful
discussions across diverse disciplines. By engaging in the annual
student conference, participants have the opportunity not only to
refine their oral communication skills, but also to contribute to
scholarly discourse by publishing articles in the journal ScriptUM.
Thus, language has been targeted as a focal point to facilitate
dialogue between otherwise isolated disciplines.
The conference, which was founded in 2014, is now marking its 12th
edition. In addition to presentations by young researchers and two
keynote lectures, there will be a poster session.
To accommodate a diverse range of participants, the VocUM 2024
conference will feature 15 to 20-minute paper presentations followed
by a question period, as well as a dedicated time slot for poster
presentations. Students of all academic levels and young researchers
are invited to submit their projects, indicating whether their
submission should be considered for a paper presentation or a poster
(at the discretion of the evaluation committee), or a poster
presentation only.
Please submit your proposals by Tuesday May 20, 2025. Proposals should
not exceed 300 words (not counting references) and must be submitted
using the electronic form (https://forms.gle/RG8uuYDUQH6KNSpq6). The
scientific committee accepts proposals in French and English. However,
the dissemination of knowledge in French is strongly encouraged.
Theme :
The term jeu in French has a rich polysemy, covering various areas. It
can refer to a recreational activity with rules, an artistic
performance (acting), a space of freedom between elements (mechanical
play), or even a relational and strategic dynamic (political play).
However, its specific link with language is the theme of this
conference, more so iocus (speech play) than ludus (play in action).
Not only is language the ground for play—through wordplay, semantic
ambiguities, and rhetorical strategies—but it’s also the foundation of
many games, whether they be literary or theatrical. From riddles to
enigmas, to role plays and board games based on communication,
language shapes and enhances the ludic experience. This conference
explores how play and language interact, shape each other and
contribute to creativity and innovation in different cultural and
social fields.
In English, the verb to play and the term game both have different
meanings, distinct from the French equivalent. Game primarily refers
to a playful activity structured by rules, whether it be board games,
videogames or sports. According to Roger Caillois, a game is a “free”,
“separate”, “uncertain”, “regulated”, “fictive” and “unproductive”
activity (1967 [1958], 42–43), meaning it is consequence free and does
not enter the product-oriented regime. In this regard, its usage goes
well beyond the field of entertainment and can also reference a
strategy or competition (political game), hunting (game animals, in
the sense of animals that are hunted) or even a state of mind (to be
game for something, meaning to be up for a challenge). On the other
hand, the verb to play covers a larger semantic field closer to the
French verb jouer. It means to play in a ludic sense (to play a game)
but also to interpret a role (to play a character), to perform a piece
of music (to play the piano), or strategically manipulate a situation
(to play along). It can also express a more abstract interaction like
in to play with words, referring to a form of linguistic creativity or
to play a part, which highlights getting involved in a process or a
social context.
Beyond its polysemy, play is an ancient activity, preceding language
both chronologically and cognitively. Despite this, the relationship
between play and language is clear from the very beginning of human
development. More than a simple recreational activity, play has a
fundamental role in language acquisition, while also modelling the
cognitive and social skills essential for mastering it. From the very
first interactions, playing means creating a special framework for
linguistic exploration. Through symbolic play, kids internalize
language structures by pretending to interact socially and handling
abstract representations, making language learning easier (Vygotsky,
1978). The interactive settings found in play are essential, since
these ludic exchanges between children and adults allow for a gradual
development of syntactic and pragmatic competences (Bruner, 1983),
while also strengthening interpersonal relationships. Imitation games
and interactions in a playful context have also been identified as key
factors in the development of communicative abilities, including
collaborative learning and joint attention (Tomasello, 2003).
As the child grows, playing becomes an increasingly sophisticated tool
for language and cognitive enrichment. Wordplay and roleplaying
stimulate metalinguistic skills, helping children manipulate language
structures and explore semantic ambiguities from an early age (Bates &
MacWhinney, 1987). The increased interest in phraseology in
linguistics as a comparative approach is a good example. Play reveals
itself as a driving force for language socialization, allowing
individuals to progressively get used to the discursive and
communicative norms (Snow, 1999). This phenomenon does not limit
itself to childhood, as recent research shows that play is an
efficient method for language learning throughout one’s life,
including adulthood. In educational and professional contexts, play
promotes involvement, improves pragmatic understanding and allows the
development of linguistic skills in a way that’s interactive and
incentive.
>From a historical perspective, the ’70s were a pivotal point in the
history of games. In 1972, Nolan Bushnell’s company Atari introduced
Pong to the world, a game that transcended traditional pieces and
boards by using a screen and an interface with buttons and joysticks,
marking the beginning of videogames. This new gaming system brought
new dimensions and ways of play. Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Sonic the
Hedgehog, and Street Fighter would not exist without Pong. In some
games, the question of language plays a more or less central role in
the narrative: this is the case, for example, with No Man’s Sky, Tunic
and Chant of Sennaar, in which players have to translate ancient or
unknown languages. Other games, such as Adibou and Aventura and the
Letters, target a younger audience and integrate language into the
gameplay for educational purposes. However, even if they do not
purposefully have an educational intent, in the virtual world,
videogames can serve as a learning tool in some cases, such as a
learning aid for today’s English learners.
The social and interpersonal sphere of games is not limited to its
ludic aspect. Board games, for example, are increasingly used in
psychotherapy to solve conflicts, especially in family therapy and
marriage counselling. By promoting communication and interaction
between the participants, these games provide a new way of exploring
and modifying relationship dynamics while maintaining a secure and
structured space for learning conflict resolution strategies (Bensalah
et al., 2016). Therefore, participants are able to test alternative
behaviour patterns
and build social and emotional skills (Kriz, 2003). In linguistics
subfields such as sociolinguistics, games can be used as an
elicitation strategy to collect more accurate data about interviewees’
casual speech. When it comes to intimate relationships, the language
elements of erotic games help with exploring desire and consent.
Verbal or not, language gives structure to the interactions of
partners attempting to negotiate, to express their expectations and
set their boundaries. Henceforth, leading to a better mutual
understanding and the establishment of a respectful and consensual
dynamic (Barker, 2018). This highlights the importance of discourse
rituals and shared language codes for building pleasure and intimacy,
presenting language as a central role in setting the mood and
experiential facet of the erotic game (Foucault, 1978).
Evidently, games are not confined solely to the educational and
interpersonal relationships sphere: they play an important role in
arts and entertainment. As early as the Middle Ages, the first profane
literature written in French employed ludic formulations (le fabliau
to prompt laughter and to share morals, le jeu as the literary form
preceding plays) or game staging (language jousters and deceits). As
mentioned in the texts of the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or
Oulipo, this tradition of playing with language is gaining importance
while increasing in craftiness and subtleness with the evolution of
linguistic tools. Representative members of the Oulipo bring into
their compositions the dynamics and mathematical mechanics of games by
imposing rules and fixed formal constraints. Since playing with
language also involves creating new rules and to define it
differently. Language then becomes a game board where grammar, syntax,
and semantics turn into pawns to move, conquer, and defeat:
[The Oulipians] defend the value of play and challenge its
separateness from the serious. [P]lay can have instrumental value.
[...] Queneau pointed out that “recreational mathematics” had
stimulated the development of topology, number theory, probability,
and game theory, implying that the Oulipo’s “recreational poetics”
could do the same for literary theory and practice. The benefits of
playing can also be more direct. [T]he Oulipians have testified in
their lives and their fictions to the protective powers of play as a
psychological defence mechanism (Andrews, 2022).
Nevertheless, inventing rules is not enough: occasionally, we do have
to overlook some rules or exceed certain limits for the sake of the
game. When language is in question, games can rhyme with
deceitfulness, wittiness, slyness, and an unexpected ludic
transgression of the expected. As an example, the Nouveau Roman or New
Novel literary genre comes to mind, with authors working towards
gamifying the conventional 19th century’s novelistic approach to
writing—since, after all, some perceive the formal constraints of
literary genres as unwritten rules to follow. The crossing of genres
is then, among others, a way to subvert these conventions without
openly playing with, but instead within language itself.
Important dates:
Proposal submission deadline: May 20, 2025 (using this form :
https://forms.gle/RG8uuYDUQH6KNSpq6)
Notification of acceptance: June 2025
Conference dates: November 13 and 14, 2025 (in person at Université de
Montréal)
For further information: vocum.ca − info at vocum.ca
References
Andrews, C. (2022). “Games Gone Wrong.” How to Do Things with Forms:
The Oulipo and its Inventions, (192–220). McGill-Queen’s University
Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv307fhh0.15
Barker, M.J. (2018). Rewriting the Rules: An Anti Self-Help Guide to
Love, Sex and Relationships (2nd ed.). Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315173061
Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. (1987). “Competition, Variation, and
Language Learning.” In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of Language
Acquisition (157−193). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bensalah L. et al. “Links Among Cognitive Empathy, Theory of Mind, and
Affective Perspective Taking by Young Children.” J Genet Psychol.
2016;177(1):17−31. https://doi:10.1080/00221325.2015.1106438
Bruner, J.S. (1983). Child’s Talk: Learning to Use Language. Oxford
University Press.
Caillois, R. (1967 [1958]). Les jeux et les hommes. Le masque et le
vertige. Gallimard.
Foucault, M. (1976). Histoire de la sexualité I. La volonté de savoir.
Gallimard.
Kriz, W.C. (2003). Creating Effective Learning Environments and
Learning Organizations through Gaming Simulation Design. Simul.
Gaming 34, 4 (Decembre 2003), 495–511.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878103258201
Ryan, M.-L. (2007). Jeux narratifs, fictions ludiques. Intermédialités
9. http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1005527ar
Snow, C.E. (1999). Social Perspectives on the Emergence of Language.
In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), The Emergence of Language (257–276). Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A Usage-Based Theory of
Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978 [1933]). Mind in Society: The Development of
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& E. Souberman, Eds. & Trans.). Harvard University Press.
Wittgenstein. L. (1980). Culture and Value (translated by G. H. von
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Wittgenstein, L. (1984). “Vermischte Bemerkungen”. InWerkausgabe in 8
Bänden, vol. 8. Suhrkamp.
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