Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics; Syntax; Writing Systems

Call Deadline: 30-Jun-2018

Meeting Description:

Punctuation is a formally and functionally differentiated subsystem of written language. However, its significance is controversial. Linguists of the language system and of language typology consider it to be of little or no importance for the language system of a single language as well as for other languages in comparison, and as ‘too insignificant’ to deal with, and thus leave it to the ‘carping critics’. Even in the spelling discourse, punctuation is often reduced to its certified rules without recognizing the linguistic potential of the syntactic, semantic, and prosodic principles on which punctuation is based. Not to mention the everyday writing practice in which punctuation is taken into account, but still,depending on language, government, domain (school, public authority, private sphere, etc.), and medium (e.g. social media), punctuation is still used differently and individually. Even those who must teach and evaluate punctuation as an orthographic substandard differ considerably with regard to their assessment of how relevant punctuation actually is.

Thus, it is no surprise that punctuation has hardly been considered a part of the research focus in the fields of language typology, contrastive linguistics, sociolinguistics and pragmalinguistics as well as studies concerning attitudes and standards in language. Instead, punctuation research is primarily conducted in the domains of written language acquisition, didactics of writing, and language code research.
Especially in Germany, however, the study of the history of punctuation has received new impetus in recent years. There are approaches to comparative punctuation research in individual works, but contrastive punctuation research including typology (language system), sociolinguistics (language norms) and pragmatic aspects (language practice) remains highly desirable.

The aim of the conference is to focus on system, norm, and practice of punctuation, and to discuss punctuation in connection with these three aspects contrastively or comparatively, codicologically, and with regard to education in international comparison.

The meeting addresses all scientists and researchers who deal with punctuation from a typological, codicological, or norm-related perspective or with didactics and implementation of the writing practice as well as those ones who are interested in this topic area.

Call for Papers:

Conference from 3 to 4 May 2019, University of Regensburg/Germany

Punctuation Seen Internationally. System – Norm – Practice

Addressees:

The meeting appeals to all researchers who deal with or are interested in punctuation from a typological, codicological, or norm-related perspective or deal with the didactics and implementation of the practice of writing.

Contributions about all languages with a writing system and punctuation are welcome.

Conference languages: English, German

If you are interested in participating and in giving a presentation, please send a concrete topic (title plus abstract of max. 2500 characters) until 30th June 2018 to the following address: punctuationur.de

Prof. Dr. Paul Rössler
University of Regensburg
German Department
Chair of German Linguistics
D-93040 Regensburg
E-mail: paul.roesslerur.de