Full Title: Intra-Writer Variation in Historical Sociolinguistics
Short Title: HiSoN 2020
Date: 01-Apr-2020 – 03-Apr-2020
Location: Erlangen, Germany
Contact Person: Judith Huber
Web Site: https://sprachwissenschaft.fau.de/hison2020/
Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Sociolinguistics
Call Deadline: 01-Sep-2019
Meeting Description:
The HiSoN 2020 conference Intra-Writer Variation in Historical Sociolinguistics will be held on 1-3 April 2020 at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. It is is hosted by the junior research group Flexible Writers in Language History in collaboration with the FAU Linguistics Lab and the Historical Sociolinguistics Network (HiSoN).
Intra-writer or stylistic variation can be considered as one of the new waves in historical sociolinguistics – see the previous HiSoN conference in Leiden 2018. In modern sociolinguistics, intra-speaker and stylistic variation have reached »the centre of sociolinguistic theorization and method » (Bell 2014: 297) and are now »a key ingredient of variationist sociolinguistic research » (Hernández-Campoy 2016: 30). The success of the so-called third-wave studies with their focus on the construction of identities through language have brought about influential concepts such as stylization, crossing and enregisterment. Resulting from the frequent lack of available information about individual historical writers and the randomness of textual transmission, historical sociolinguistics faces increased difficulties when focusing on individual language use and stylistic repertoires. This may be the reason why intra-writer variation has as yet not received much attention – this desideratum in historical sociolinguistics will be addressed at the HiSoN 2020 conference.
Further information, including the Call for Papers, can be found on our conference website: https://sprachwissenschaft.fau.de/hison2020
Keynote speakers:
Stephan Elspaß (University of Salzburg)
Terttu Nevalainen (University of Helsinki)
José del Valle (The City University of New York)
Organizing committee:
Markus Schiegg, Franziska Eber, Monika Foldenauer, Sabrina Freund (German Linguistics); Judith Huber (English Linguistics)
Contact: conference-hison2020fau.de
Website: https://sprachwissenschaft.fau.de/hison2020
Call for Papers:
For the Historical Sociolinguistics Network Conference 2020 in Erlangen, focusing on intra-writer variation, we invite contributions that, among others, address the following questions:
– Which factors influence stylistic variation in historical writing – intended addressees, social situations, communicative purposes and/or self-identity management?
– Can the concepts of intra-speaker or stylistic variation in modern sociolinguistics be applied to historical data?
– In which kind of historical data can we find intra-speaker variation?
– Can effective style-shifting and the scope of a stylistic repertoire be correlated with communicative competence and education?
– How can we separate stylistic from social variation in historical data?
– Is it possible to aggregate local findings of stylistic variation and combine qualitative with quantitative approaches?
– Does the analysis of stylistic variation in writing allow us to observe language change in progress? Can the language history ‘from below’ approach benefit from stylistic variation?
– How does intra-speaker variation evolve over the lifespan of historical writers?
– What roles do style-shifting and individual language use play within historical social networks and communities of practice?
– Do we have access to metalinguistic discourses on and ideologies of historical styles and register awareness?
– How can electronic corpora and digital methods be used to assess individual variation?
Presentations will be 20 minutes + 10 minutes discussion. Please send your abstracts of up to 300 words (excluding references) to
conference-hison2020(at)fau.de
by 1 September 2019.
Notification of acceptance will be sent in October 2019.