call papers - "Writing names" - Paris 2012

Wed Dec 28 16:54:01 UTC 2011

The IXth International Conference "The Idea of Writing":

Writing names

Paris, 25-27 June, 2012 (INALCO, IUF, LLACAN)

Call for papers

Most decipherments of early and unknown writing systems before the
application of more distributionally oriented analyses since the
unravelling of Linear B by Chadwick, Ventris and Kroeber have heavily
relied upon the study of personal and place names in bilingual texts
(cf. Aalto 1945, Doblhofer 1957;1960, Pope 1975, Parkinson et al. 1999).
The crucial, yet peculiar position of names in writing thus has a long
pedigree in the study writing systems, but it has never been fully
explored. The IXth "Idea of Writing" conference, to be held in
Paris between 25 June and 27 June 2012 hopes to fill this gap by
bringing together specialists in the history and theory of writing
systems from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, to address the
theme of "names in writing".

The organisers solicit papers including, but not necessarily limited to
the following conference topics:

ñ     How are names represented in non-alphabetic writing systems?
Are there special signs, diacritics, classifiers etc. to mark names, and
how do they differentiate between personal, place, ethnic and other
types of names?

ñ     What is the relationship between acts of naming in spoken and
in written language, how do writing systems convey the special
linguistic status of proper names in semantics, morphology, pragmatics
etc. (cf. van Langendonck 2007)?

ñ     How do elements of writing systems (letters, syllabic signs,
glyphs 
) function in anthropological name giving practices
cross-linguistically and ethnographically?

ñ     Where do the borderlines between the written and iconographic
representation of names get blurred?

ñ     What is the status of signatures and other individualizing
authority or property marks in writing?

ñ     What is the role of names in the decipherment of writing
systems, in the analysis of writing precursors and of non-writing
marking systems?

ñ     Can linguistic and philosophical theories of proper names
(Frege 1952, Kripke 1980, Anderson 2006, Coates 2006 etc.) be
meaningfully extended to the domain of writing? How do written proper
names challenge conventional notions of wordhood, representational
semantics, semiotics etc.?

ñ     How are names abbreviated, tabooed, referred to, punned upon,
tracked, misspelled ... in writing systems?

ñ     Are there systematic differences between the representation of
names in ancient, borrowed, or young writing systems, arising in
colonial contexts?

ñ     What is the role of naming practices in triggering the initial
development of writing systems and/or the initial process of
phoneticization in early developmental stages of a given writing system?

ñ     How are writing systems and their elements named and renamed?
etc.

Anderson, John M. (2003): "On the Structure of Names". Folia Linguistica
37: 347–398.

Anderson, John M. (2007): The Grammar of Names. Oxford.

Aalto, Pentti (1945): "Notes on methods of decipherment of unknown
writings and languages". Studia Orientalia 11(4): 1–26.

Carroll, John M. (1983): "Toward a Functional Theory of Names and
Naming". Linguistics 21: 341–71.

Coates, Richard (2006): "Properhood". Language 82: 356–82.

Doblhofer, Ernst (1957): Zeichen und Wunder - Entzifferung verschollener
Schriften und Sprachen
<http://www.abebooks.fr/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=795600030&searchurl=an%\
3De%2Bdoblhofer> . Wien.

Doblhofer, Ernst (1961): Voices in stone: The decipherment of ancient
scripts and writings. New York.

Frege, Gottlob (1952): "On Sense and Reference". In: P. Geach, M. Black
(eds.): Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege.
Oxford.

Kripke, Saul (1980): Naming and Necessity. Basil Blackwell. Boston.

Kripke, Saul (1972): "Naming and Necessity". In: Davidson,
Donald/Harman, Gilbert (eds.): Semantics of Natural Language.
Dordrecht/Boston: 253–355.

Van Langendonck, Willy (2007): Theory and Typology of Proper Names.
Berlin.

Parkinson
<http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AParkinson%2C+Richard+B.&qt=hot_au\
thor> , Richard B ; Whitfield Diffie
<http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ADiffie%2C+Whitfield.&qt=hot_autho\
r> ; et al. (1999): Cracking codes: the Rosetta Stone and decipherment.
Berkeley.

Pope, Maurice (1975): The story of archaeological decipherment. New
York.

The organisers cordially invite papers for 30-minute presentations,
including the Q & A period. Please submit one-page A4 abstracts
(including references, as *.doc and *.pdf files) to Konstantin
Pozdniakov (pozdniakov at vjf.cnrs.fr <mailto:pozdniakov at vjf.cnrs.fr> )
before 1.04.2012. Please also provide your full name and title, your
university or departmental affiliation. All abstracts will be subject to
peer review by the conference's scientific committee:

    * Alex de Voogt (New York), adevoogt at amnh.org
<mailto:adevoogt at amnh.org>
    * Wolfgang Behr (Zurich),      wolfgang.behr at oas.uzh.ch
<mailto:wolfgang.behr at oas.uzh.ch>
    * Konstantin      Pozdniakov (Paris), pozdniakov at vjf.cnrs.fr
<mailto:pozdniakov at vjf.cnrs.fr>
    * Sven Osterkamp (Bochum),      sven.osterkamp at rub.de
<mailto:sven.osterkamp at rub.de>
    * Andréas Stauder (Chicago), astauder at uchicago.edu
<mailto:astauder at uchicago.edu>

Acceptances will be notified by 1.05.2012.

Local conference organisers:
·        Danielle Bonardelle

·        Magali Diraison

·        Konstantin Pozdniakov

·        Jeanne Zerner

·        Valentin Vydrin

In case of further questions, do not hesitate to contact our mail
address. Looking forward to

meeting you in Paris,

Happy New Year!

Alex de Voogt, Wolfgang Behr, Konstantin Pozdniakov, Sven Osterkamp,
Andréas Stauder.

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