Short Title: IMC2022

Date: 04-Jul-2022 – 07-Jul-2022
Location: Leeds, United Kingdom
Contact Person: Axel Müller
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >
Web Site: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2022/

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics

Call Deadline: 22-Sep-2021

Meeting Description:

The IMC provides an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of all aspects of Medieval Studies. In 2022 the special thematic focus is ‘Borders’.

Call for Papers:

Historical linguistics panel(s): ‘Linguistic Boundaries, Speaking of Borders’
International Medieval Congress (IMC) Leeds, 4-7 July, 2022.

Two successful Linguistic Borderlands panels were held at Leeds online IMC 2021, and we want to do it all again for 2022 (hopefully in person!)

Historical linguistics has not been prominent at Leeds IMC, and now we hope to build on 2021, establishing an ongoing presence for historical linguistics in this important conference.

2022 Theme
Leeds IMC is again running with the theme ‘Borders’; this is the same theme that was planned for the Covid-cancelled conference of 2020.

In 2021 both of our two panels ran under this theme: we called them ‘Linguistic Borderlands, Languages at the Boundaries’.

The theme continues to be highly suited to historical linguistic theory and specific historical linguistic analyses, and even though there were withdrawals from the 2020 schedule of 4 such panels, there is still much ground to cover.

So for 2022 we continue with this theme, but want to mix it up a bit.

We’ve all been through a fairly shit couple of years, so we also want to mix some whimsy and fun into our academic poindexterism.

Title:
Linguistic Boundaries, Speaking of Borders

Paper Proposals:
a. Serious
Both theoretical and specific subject-analytical papers are invited, and your proposal must deal with a medieval topic. You might consider one or more of the following subject ideas, or propose another topic that may fit under the broad boundaries and borders theme:
– Language contact and language change
– The language of marginal or other overlooked inscriptions: manuscript, stone, lexis, text, graphics
– Modern concepts of language boundaries and implications for the study of historical/medieval languages
• Contexts of the study of historical languages: theoretical, political, cultural, academic
– Disciplinary boundaries affecting language study

b. Whimsical
Do you want to break a rule, disrupt a pattern, or just throw an idea out there for the hell of it? Whimsy, swears and silliness are all linguistic behaviours, and if you want to explore the silly, if you want to test the boundaries of rude, or just play with language, be mischievous, weird, capricious, comical or fanciful, we want to open our space up to you! All you need to do is make sure it is historically linguistic (somehow), and medievally oriented. Topics that you might like to mess about with include:
– Lexis okay, pragmatics fine, but what’s the deal with syntax?
– Border wars, boundary disputes: they really thought/spoke/wrote like that?
– I can’t believe it’s not Dutch!
– Holes in the OED. More like no ED.
– Bound dairies, Bored oars: playing with dumb puns and topical play.
– For fuck’s sake! Swearing at/in/through the academy.
– Laugh! Rectum! The body, the mind, the soul: it’s all a bit of a linguistic game.

Process:
Paper proposals including an abstract of approx. 150 – 200 words are invited, to be sent to
Roderick McDonald mcdrod(at)gmail.com by Wednesday 22nd September 2021.

Publication:
Our previous aims (for 2020) were to edit a collection of papers derived from these panel sessions into a hard copy volume with an academic publisher. This is still a possibility, but hey, there are no promises any more, just hopes and dreams, likes and prayers.

Seán Vrieland (Københavns Universitet), Christine Wallis (Sheffield and Manchester), Emily Reed, Roderick McDonald (Emu Forge)