Mar 24
announcements asfla, conferences No Comments
The conveners of the 2014 Australian Functional Linguistics Association annual conference have published their flyer for the upcoming conference.
Check it out and download a PDF version to print out and attach to your corridor wall!
Mar 15
Title: Reflections upon Genre
Subtitle: Encounters between Literature, Knowledge and Emerging Communicative
Conventions
Series Title: Europäische Studien zur Textlinguistik
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
http://www.narr.de/
Book URL: http://www.narr-shop.de/index.php/genres.html
Editor: Jan Engberg
Editor: Carmen Daniela Maier
Editor: Ole Togeby
Paperback: ISBN: 9783823368175 Pages: 230 Price: Europe EURO 58.00
Abstract:
The presents book departs from an observation made by a group of scholars at
Aarhus University: On the one hand, the concept of genre is present in and
pivotal for a number of different disciplines studying texts such as literary
studies, analytical text linguistics and the investigation of text production
in professional settings. On the other hand, and interestingly, each of these
disciplines tends to have developed its own theoretical tools and basic
assumptions, without taking into account the results and insights achieved in
the neighbouring fields. The present work is intended to overcome this state
of affairs. It is based upon a series of seminars involving scholars from the
mentioned fields. Questions that emerged from the interdisciplinary
discussions of the group and that are treated across the different
contributions include the following: What is the relation between genre, text
production and situation? To what extent is the situation or the function the
overarching factor in characterising and distinguishing genres? How do genres
develop and acquire new textual characteristics? How does the specificity of
the represented genres surface in text and context? The result is an inquiry
into problems with relevance across disciplines, where contributions from each
field intend to also reflect aspects traditionally treated in the other
fields.
Mar 09
Title: Evaluation in Context
Series Title: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 242
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Book URL: https://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.242
Editor: Geoff Thompson
Editor: Laura Alba-Juez
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027270726 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 149.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027270726 Pages: Price: Europe EURO 99.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027270726 Pages: Price: S. Korean won 83.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256478 Pages: Price: Europe EURO 104.94
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256478 Pages: Price: U.K. £ 83.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256478 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 149.00
Abstract:
It is now an acknowledged fact in the world of linguistics that the concept of
evaluation is crucial, and that there is very little – if any – discourse that
cannot be analyzed through the prism of its evaluative content. This book
presents some of the latest developments in the study of this phenomenon.
Released more than a decade later than Hunston and Thompson’s (2000)
Evaluation in Text, Evaluation in Context is designed as its sequel, in an
attempt to continue, update and extend the different avenues of research
opened by the earlier work. Both theoretical and empirical studies on the
topic are presented, with the intention of scrutinizing as many of its
dimensions as possible, by not only looking at evaluative texts, but also
considering the aspects of the discursive context that affect the final
evaluative meaning at both the production and reception stages of the
evaluative act. The editors’ main objective has been to gather contributions
which investigate the manifold faces and phases of evaluation by presenting a
wide variety of perspectives that include different linguistic theories (e.g.
Axiological Semantics, Functionalism or Politeness Theory), different levels
of linguistic description (e.g. phonological, lexical or semantic), and
different text types and contexts (e.g. the evaluation found in ironic
discourse, the multimodality of media discourse or the world of politics, just
to name a few). The volume can be of use not only for scholars who study the
evaluative function of language, but also for students who wish to pursue
research in the area.
Feb 04
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:46:32
From: Wilbert Spooren [w.spooren@let.ru.nl]
Subject: Call for Contributions: Genre in Discourse and Cognition
We are inviting contributions to an edited volume on Genre in Discourse and Cognition: Concepts, Models and Methods.
Short Description:
Discourse genre – a conventional way of performing communicative activities (news reports, business letters, legal decisions) using language – is a well-established concept in various branches of discourse studies, stylistics and applied linguistics. A surprising fact, then, is that we hardly know how genre operates from cognitive and linguistic points of view. This volume intends to explore how recent insights regarding the relation between discourse and cognition, as well as recent developments towards more sophisticated methodology in discourse research, may contribute to solving a number of longstanding empirical and theoretical problems surrounding the concept of ‘discourse genre’ (more detailed description below).
Editors:
Ninke Stukker (University of Groningen)
Wilbert Spooren (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Gerard Steen (VU University Amsterdam)
Contributions:
We invite contributions from any theoretical framework (for example: Systemic Functional Grammar, Language for Specific Purposes, Critical Discourse Analysis, Applied Linguistics, Stylistics, Cognitive Linguistics, etc.) addressing the volume’s central question: how do discourse genres operate from linguistic and cognitive points of view?
We are especially interested in studies that use innovative empirical methods for testing hypotheses regarding the linguistic and/or cognitive operation of discourse genres.
Deadline for expression of intent: February 15;
Deadline for abstracts: March 1.
If you are interested, please send a tentative title by February 15 (to n.m.stukker@rug.nl). By March 1 please send us a brief abstract (300-600 words, to n.m.stukker@rug.nl), referring to framework, methods and results, and also indicating how your contribution relates to the overall contents of the volume as sketched below. We will check your contribution for cohesion with the rest of the volume. We will notify you within two weeks whether we will ask you to send in a complete paper.
If you need any additional information, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Timeline:
We roughly envisage the following time-line:
– February 15: provisional title due
– March 1: abstracts due
– March 15: notification of provisional acceptance and submission of book proposal to series editors
– June 1: (expected) decision by series editors
– June 30: full papers due; send out for external review
– September 15: reviews due
– October 31: revised versions due
– November 15: submission to the series editor
– January 15, 2015: review of volume as a whole by the series editor due
– March 15, 2015: submission of final manuscript to the series editor
– November 2015: expected date of publication
Publisher:
Mouton de Gruyter and Benjamins have both shown interest in our initial plans.
Books Description:
Genres – conventional ways of performing communicative activities (news reports, business letters, legal decisions) using language – are a well-established concept in various branches of discourse studies, stylistics and applied linguistics. A surprising fact, then, is that we hardly know how genre operates from cognitive and linguistic points of view. This may be due to the fact that genre is a complex and multifaceted concept, consisting of linguistic, pragmatic, and content-related knowledge, having both linguistic, psychological, social and communicative aspects, and thus crossing traditional linguistic theoretical borders. Another reason may be that research on genre faces a number of empirical problems, a crucial one being that assumed models are not always unambiguously reflected in the linguistic form of ‘real life’ generic texts. At the same time, however, numerous studies have shown that language users do have ‘genre knowledge’ and that overall linguistic p!
atterns in discourse do tend to correlate with the communicative functions performed.
This volume attempts to address this paradoxical situation. It starts from the assumption that linguistic variation, and interaction between interpretive sources of various nature (content, grammar, social context) should not be viewed as ‘problems’, but instead as a fundamental characteristic of human cognition and communication.
We bring together a number of experts in these fields whose contributions center around two themes: (i) theoretical concepts and models, exploring how more general aspects of human cognition (categorization, prototype structure, schematization, framing) may account for the elusive and complex linguistic patterns attested in real life generic texts, and (ii) methods, addressing the question what methodology we need to adequately map out the complex interactions between content, context and grammar creating genre meaning.
Viewed from the perspective of genre studies, our goal is to explore the usefulness of concepts from linguistics and cognitive sciences to solve a number of longstanding empirical problems regarding genre.
Feb 01
Call Deadline: 15-May-2014
Signs and Society is a multidisciplinary open-access journal focusing on the study of sign process (or semiosis) in the realms of social action, cognition, and cultural form. Taking as its broad mission the study of “signs and society,” the journal publishes articles that analyze sign processes and/or sign activities empirically in some specifiable or generalizable social circumstance, historical period, or textual artifact.
The journal solicits contributions from scholars in traditionally defined fields as well as emerging interdisciplinary fields of inquiry:
Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Classics, Cognitive Psychology, History, Linguistics, Literary Studies, Religious Studies, Sociology, Semiotics, Digital Humanities, Cognitive Science, Global Studies
We are interested in becoming a dialogic forum for scholars such as classicists and archaeologists working on “past worlds” and scholars studying contemporary cognitive and social phenomena. We welcome studies that cross types of communicational media, from face-to-face verbal interaction to technologically mediated mass communication (both analog and digital), and types of semiotic codes, including linguistic, material, behavioral, and pictorial. Research in several fields dealing with the relationships between languages and textualized cultural complexes (e.g., narratives, performances, literatures, films) fits the intent of the journal especially well. While frequently understood as a real-time phenomenon, semiosis, in our view, includes modalities for diachronically and historically recording events in fixed forms, such as memorializations, museums, and archives, and for extending the range of communication from interpersonal, contextualized messages to the global “flow”!
of transmitted or commodified cultural forms.
Mission
We take semiosis to be the most general label for the activity of sign production, communication, and interpretation. In using this word, made famous as a technical term by Charles Sanders Peirce, we do not suggest that Signs and Society is another semiotics journal, nor do we intend that every contribution need advance the often arcane quasi-discipline of semiotics.
Rather, we intend semiosis to refer to a set of interrelated dimensions, —representation, codification, communication, entextualization, interpretation, regimentation, etc.— and to argue that research from many disciplines is required to understand their dynamic interrelationship. While the journal insists on this “big picture” approach, we do not expect that each contribution will treat all of these dimensions of semiosis. Rather, we seek to publish articles that, taken as a group, will illuminate this larger view.
We believe that our approach will provide flexible scaffolding for investigation and not be a constraining grid for explanation. Focusing directly on semiosis in its multiple dimensions, we believe, will promote collaborative translation across analytical categories and technical vocabularies already established in distinct disciplinary traditions and lead to uncovering unanticipated parallels in the ways semiosis is manifest in diverse empirical domains.
We encourage scholars from various disciplines in the social sciences and humanities to contact the Editor-in-Chief (Richard J. Parmentier, rparmentier at brandeis.edu) to discuss a possible contribution. For general questions, please feel free to contact the Managing Editor (sas at hufs.ac.kr).
Signs and Society publishes regular issues in May and Nov (and a Supplementary Issue in Feb). Submissions are ongoing, but for consideration for publication in Nov 2014 issue, please submit your papers–at least–by May 15.
Website: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/journals/journal/sas.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SignsAndSociety
Jan 19
Date: 26-Aug-2014 – 29-Aug-2014
Location: London, United Kingdom
Contact Person: Tommaso Milani
Meeting Email: tommaso.milani@wits.ac.za
Web Site: http://www.zebracki.org/cfp2014queer
Call Deadline: 30-Jan-2014
Meeting Description:
Queer, Semiotics and Space: Understanding Queer Identities through Language and Space
Annual International Conference, London, 26-29 August, 2014
Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with Institute of British Geographers (IBG)
Sponsored by the Space, Sexualities & Queer Research Group (SSQRG)
Convenors:
Martin Zebracki & Tommaso M. Milani
University of Leeds, United Kingdom & University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
To date queer geography has induced critical debates about a variety of topics, which include but are not limited to: heteronormativities and homonormativities (e.g. Seidman 2001; Podmore 2013), sex/sexuality and space (e.g. Hubbard 2011), queer epistemology (e.g. Binnie 1997), feminism (e.g. Wright 2010), queer space (e.g. Oswin 2008), sexual citizenship (e.g. Mann 2013), queer liberalism (e.g. Eng 2010) and homonationalism (e.g. Puar 2007) in the light of the everyday represented and experienced identities of the sexual dissident, i.e. queer. These queer identities intersect with sex, gender, class, race, age, religion and ability/disability (cf. Brown 2012) across time, as implied in socio-historical understandings, current praxes and imagined futures, and across space, ranging from the home (e.g. Gorman-Murray 2008) to public life and governance (e.g. Bell & Binnie 2004) and online communities (e.g. O’Riordan & Phillips 2007).
Queer identities, and the everyday practices and performances associated with them, cannot be dissociated from the ways in which they are expressed by language-in all its subtleties and implicit associations as well as explicit self-reports-as situated in dynamic contexts of social norms and values, politics, power, ideology and various media (cf. Cameron & Kulick 2006).
We, a collaborating geographer and a semiotician, conceive of what we term as ‘queer semiotics’ as a frontier of knowledge that can further frame and challenge (predominant) discursive notions of the queer-space-identity nexus, as well as the language that scholars from diverse epistemological and lingual settings use to understand this relationship. Queer, in this sense, should not only be considered a subject of study but also a critical academic disposition in poststructuralist research on sexuality.
Call for Papers:
We invite scholars across disciplines and linguistic backgrounds—including non-Anglo-Saxon contexts—to further flesh out multidisciplinary spatial articulations of queer semiotics. We welcome any theoretical, methodological and/or empirical accounts drawn from either preliminary or fully-fledged research on this matter.
The deadlines are tight. If you are interested in participating in this session, please provide a brief statement of interest to both of the convenors by 30 January 2014. A 250-word abstract should be submitted by 10 February 2014.
We will potentially pursue opportunities for basing a special journal issue on this session. Therefore, in your statement of interest, please also indicate if you would like to contribute to such issue.
Submission Email:
Jan 16
Third and final Call for Papers
First Conference of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS)
September 25-27, 2014
Lund, Sweden
http://conference.sol.lu.se/en/iacs-2014
IACS-2014@semiotik.lu.se
Plenary speakers
* Søren Brier, Copenhagen Business School
* Merlin Donald, Queens University
* Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie Mellon University
* Cornelia Müller, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
* Raymond Tallis, University of Manchester
Theme: Establishing Cognitive Semiotics
Over the past two decades or so, a number of researchers from semiotics, linguistics, cognitive science and related fields, from several European and North American research centres, have experienced the need to combine theoretical knowledge and methodological expertise in order to tackle challenging questions concerning the nature of meaning, the role of consciousness, the unique cognitive features of mankind, the interaction of nature and nurture in development, and the interplay of biological and cultural evolution in phylogeny. The International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS) aims at the further establishment of Cognitive Semiotics as the trans-disciplinary study of meaning, combining concepts, theories and methods from the humanities and the social and natural sciences.
Abstracts
We invite the submission of 400 word abstracts (excluding title and references) for either an oral presentation (20 min presentation + 5 minute discussion) or poster (at a dedicated poster session), by uploading to the EasyChair website. The abstracts can be related, though need not be restricted, to the following topics:
* Biological and cultural evolution of human cognitive specificity
* Cognitive linguistics and phenomenology
* Communication across cultural barriers
* Cross-species comparative semiotics
* Evolutionary perspectives on altruism
* Experimental semiotics
Iconicity in language and other semiotic resources
* Intersubjectivity and mimesis in evolution and development
* Multimodality
* Narrativity across different media
* Semantic typology and linguistic relativity
* Semiosis (sense-making) in social interaction
* Semiotic and cognitive development in children
* Sign use and cognition
* Signs, affordances, and other meanings
* Speech and gesture
* The comparative semiotics of iconicity and indexicality
* The evolution of language
Important dates
* Deadline for submission of theme sessions: 31 Dec 2013(past)
* Deadline for abstract submission (oral presentations, posters): 1 Feb 2014
* Notification of acceptance (oral presentations, posters): 1 April 2014
* Last date for early registration: 1 July 2014
Local organizing committee
* Mats Andrén
* Johan Blomberg
* Anna Redei Cabak
* Sara Lenninger
* Joel Parthemore
* Göran Sonesson
* Jordan Zlatev
Jordan Zlatev, Professor
Lund University, Centre for Languages and Literature
Box 201, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
Centre for Cognitive Semiotics (CCS), Deputy research director
http://project.sol.lu.se/en/ccs/
The Public Journal of Semiotics (PJOS), Editor-in-Chief
http://pjos.org
International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS), President
Jan 12
Title: Language and Power in Blogs
Subtitle: Interaction, disagreements and agreements
Series Title: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 237
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Book URL: http://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.237
Author: Brook Bolander
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027270986 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 143.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027270986 Pages: Price: Europe EURO 95.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027270986 Pages: Price: U.K. £ 80.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256423 Pages: Price: U.K. £ 80.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256423 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 143.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256423 Pages: Price: Europe EURO 100.70
Abstract:
Language and Power in Blogs systematically analyses the discursive practices
of bloggers and their readers in eight English-language personal/diary blogs.
The main focus is thereby placed on ties between these practices and power.
The book demonstrates that the exercise of power in this mode can be studied
via the analysis of conversational control (turn-taking, speakership and topic
control), coupled with research on agreements and disagreements. In this vein,
it reveals that control of the floor is strongly tied not solely to rates of
participation, but more strikingly to the types of contributions interlocutors
make. With its detailed linguistic analyses and comprehensive theoretical and
methodological treatment of language use and power, the book is interesting
for researchers and students working within the domains of pragmatics,
discourse analysis, text linguistics and corpus linguistics, in both offline
and online settings.
Jan 11
Full Title: 7th International Conference on Multimodality
Short Title: 7-ICOM
Date: 11-Jun-2014 – 13-Jun-2014
Location: China, Hong Kong
Contact Person: Nancy Guo
Meeting Email: 7icom@polyu.edu.hk
Web Site: http://englishpolyu.wix.com/7icom
Call Deadline: 28-Feb-2014
Meeting Description:
Making meaning through multi-semiotic resources.
In this 7th edition of ICOM, it is time to pause, reflect and bring together the developments in multimodality research over the last two decades. ICOM aims to include a range of different areas in its review of multimodality, such as film studies, electronics in education and robotics, architecture, design, the creative industries, animation and any other fields related to communication.
Our objectives are to take stock of what has been done up to now and discover what new ideas are being explored, as well as give current researchers an opportunity to exchange ideas, share knowledge and build new bridges in terms of collaboration. For research students ICOM will present new ideas and the opportunity to learn from the comments of well established scholars.
Organising Committee:
Nancy Guo
William Feng
Renia Lopez
Francis Low
Christian Matthiessen
Francisco Veloso
Kaela Zhang
For enquiries contact 7icom@polyu.edu.hk.
Call for Papers:
We invite scholars from different fields to submit papers that discuss the creation of meanings through a range of semiotic resources. The focus of presentations may include theoretical developments in the description and annotation of multimodal artifacts; the use and applicability of multimodal artifacts in the professions, such as education, architecture, design, and others, case studies of particular multimodal documents, and critical analysis of multimodal documents in social contexts, and other aspects and areas that might be of relevance to a better understanding of the uses of semiotic resources in the creation of meanings in contemporary society.
You are welcome to propose:
Symposia:
– Presentation time: 60 minutes (plus Q&A)
– Purpose: Full papers are for mature work, requiring lengthy explanations of the conceptual background, as well as methodology, data, analysis and implications. We also encourage papers that address conceptual and future issues.
Focus Papers:
– Presentation time: 30 minutes (plus Q&A)
– Purpose: Reports focus on innovative results and work in progress that have the potential for significant contributions. Reflections are brief theoretical notes and commentaries.
Colloquia :
– The total duration will depend on the number of papers under the colloquia. Each paper will be 25 minutes long plus Q&A, opening and closing sessions. The total estimated time should be noted in the Colloquia abstract.
– Purpose: To bring together papers that share a theme and generate meaningful discussions.
Abstracts should be sent to 7icom@polyu.edu.hk as an attached .doc file. Please write down ”Abstract” as the subject of your email, and include the following information:
– Title
– Author
– Author’s affiliation
– Email
– Type of presentation (symposia or focus papers)
– The body of the abstract should contain between 250 to 300 words
– Three keywords separated by semicolon
– References, if applicable (APA format)
All submissions will be refereed and selected papers will be notified after 17 March 2014.
Dec 19
Title: The Visual Language of Comics
Subtitle: Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images.
Series Title: Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL: http://bloomsbury.com/uk/the-visual-language-of-comics-9781441170545/
Author: Neil Cohn
Hardback: ISBN: 9781441170545 Pages: 240 Price: U.K. £ 75.00
Paperback: ISBN: 9781441181459 Pages: 240 Price: U.K. £ 24.99
Abstract:
Drawings and sequential images are an integral part of human expression dating back at least as far as cave paintings, and in contemporary society appear most prominently in comics. Despite this fundamental part of human identity, little work has explored the comprehension and cognitive underpinnings of visual narratives—until now.
This work presents a provocative theory: that drawings and sequential images are structured the same as language. Building on contemporary theories from linguistics and cognitive psychology, it argues that comics are written in a visual language of sequential images that combines with text. Like spoken and signed languages, visual narratives use a lexicon of systematic patterns stored in memory, strategies for combining these patterns into meaningful units, and a hierarchic grammar governing the combination of sequential images into coherent expressions. Filled with examples and illustrations, this book details each of these levels of structure, explains how cross-cultural differences arise in diverse visual languages of the world, and describes what the newest neuroscience research reveals about the brain’s comprehension of visual narratives. From this emerges the foundation for a new line of research within the linguistic and cognitive sciences, raising intriguing questions about the connections between language and the diversity of humans’ expressive behaviours in the mind and brain.
“Neil Cohn’s The Visual Language of Comics is a smart, carefully organized, and exceptionally well-argued work of comics scholarship. I suspect it will become one of a very small number of truly crucial texts in the burgeoning field of comics studies. The book provides an original yet persuasive account of the relationship of comics and language and introduces key terms and conceptual distinctions that are likely to become part of the common sense of comics analysis and criticism. It also explores the ways in which comics have been used as tools of communication and self-expression across a variety of cultural contexts. Over the past decade Neil Cohn has published a number of important research articles on comics that make use of his training in linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience. The Visual Language of Comics builds on this interdisciplinary scholarship but it also offers new insights and opens up new avenues of inquiry. Recommended for anyone with an interest in comics, language, and what Richard Gregory calls “the eye-brain system.”” – Kent Worcester, Professor of Political Science, Marymount Manhattan College, USA,
“Neil Cohn thinks about the comics medium and visual literacy on very deep and enlightening levels. In The Visual Language of Comics, Cohn shares his research and insights on how the mind works when processing sequential visuals. It’s fascinating reading for anyone interested in visual communication.” – Carl Potts, Former Executive Editor, Marvel Comics and Author of ‘The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics: Inside the Art of Visual Storytelling’,
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