Date: 08-Jun-2022 – 11-Jun-2022
Location: Flensburg, Germany
Contact Person: Cordula Neis

Linguistic Field(s): History of Linguistics

Call Deadline: 31-Jan-2022

Meeting Description:

From June 08 – 11, 2022, the XXXI. International Colloquium of the “Studienkreis ‘Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft’” (SGdS) on Language and Language Awareness in the History of Linguistics will take place at the Europa-Universität Flensburg.

Participants who have already submitted an abstract have been included in the conference programme and do not need to submit a new abstract.
The choice of topics may range from antiquity to the present.

Call for Papers:

From June 08th-11th, 2022, the XXXI. International Colloquium of the “Studienkreis ‘Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft’” (SGdS) on Language and Language Awareness in the History of Linguistics will take place at the Europa-Universität Flensburg.
Participants who have already submitted an abstract have been included in the conference programme and do not need to submit a new abstract.

The choice of topics may range from antiquity to the present. Since antiquity, there has been a lively debate on questions dealing with language and language awareness.
One only needs to think of Plato’s reflections on the role of language as an instrument of knowledge and of Truth Seeking in his Cratylus or on the factional dispute between the Anomalists and Analogists.

Over the centuries, the Renaissance, especially turned out not merely to be an age of discovery, but also an age of an arising language awareness, as evidenced by the whole range of apologetic texts which spread all over Europe at that time:
Sperone Speroni, Dialogo della lingua (1542), Joachim Du Bellay, Deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse (1549), Richard Carew, On the Excellency of the English Tongue or Martin Opitz, De contemptu linguae teutonicae (1617) and Schottelius and his Lob der Teutschen Haubtsprache (1663).
During the 17th century, especially in France, tendencies of linguistic standardization come to the fore which are reflected in the purism of the Académie française. Apologetic texts on the French language and its alleged clarity are expressed in a large amount of treatises published in France during the 17th and 18th centuries such as Dominique Bouhours‘ Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène, Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique or Rivarol’s Discours sur l’universalité de la langue française.
This apologetic manner of discourse is echoed even today in French linguistic discussions as well as in France’s language policy. On the one hand, an increasing demand for an appropriate appreciation of regional and minority languages together with their social and political acceptance has to be noticed. On the other hand, due to globalization, there is the worldwide usage of English as an indispensable and universal lingua franca.

Over the centuries, language in Europe turned out to be an essential component of cultural identity. Thus, the development of a European linguistic awareness has been closely linked to the formation of European nations and nation states. The emergence of nation states in Europe in the 19th century facilitated the evolution of social and cultural mentalities as well as the manifestation of individual and collective language awareness.
The main interest of this conference will be the expression of language awareness in different European countries in past and present times. Speakers can provide comments and opinions about their own and other languages, language assessment, language criticism as a manifestation of language awareness, as well as the evaluation of specific language usage. This usage can be expressed as the acceptance or rejection of particular linguistic forms. The choice of presentation topics is relatively free within the range of the history of linguistics. We warmly welcome interdisciplinary presentations as well.
Colleagues who would like to participate in this conference, in particular those who would like to give papers, are kindly asked to register as soon as possible (by 31 January 2022 at the very latest). A title and an abstract of c. 200-300 words (in German, English or French) should be submitted to the following email address:

languageawareness2020(at)uni-flensburg.de

Presentations of papers are strictly limited to a maximum of 30 minutes, followed by a discussion of 15 minutes.
Information on the selection of papers and further details concerning travel and accommodation will be available in the first half of February 2022.

Prof. Dr. Cordula Neis
Europa-Universität Flensburg
cordula.neis(at)uni-flensburg.de