Full Title: International Conference on ”Discourse Markers – Theories and Methods”
Short Title: DMTM

Date: 24-May-2023 – 26-May-2023
Location: Paris, France
Contact Person: Ludivine Crible
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >
Web Site: https://dmtheoriesmethods.sciencesconf.org/

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis

Call Deadline: 15-Dec-2022

Meeting Description:

We would like to kindly invite you to save the date for the upcoming International Conference on ”Discourse Markers – Theories and Methods” which will take place in Paris, France on the 24-26th of May 2023. The conference focuses on the impact of theory and method on the investigation of discourse markers, and vice versa. In particular, we wish to foster discussion and reflections on the sometimes implicit or unconscious theoretical choices that we make and their impact on data analysis. Conversely, some methods and data types may restrict or at least favor a particular theoretical perspective at the expense of others. Another important question is then: what can DM research bring, in return, to our knowledge of particular theories and methods?

Our confirmed invited speakers include Prof. Dr. Yael Maschler (University of Haifa) and Dr Gunther Kaltenböck (University of Graz).
The conference will also offer a half-day workshop featuring hands-on sessions to introduce registered participants to two major methodological paradigms:
– qualitative and quantitative analysis under the Theory of Enunciative and Predicative Operations, facilitated by Dr Graham Ranger (Université d’Avignon)
– quantitative categorical analysis and corpus annotation, facilitated by Prof. Dr. Liesbeth Degand (University of Louvain).

Early-career researchers are particularly welcome to the workshop but the sessions are open to anyone. Registration is required to participate in this hands-on workshop (no extra fee).

Practical information
Conference venue: University Paris Cité, France
Conference dates: 24-26 May 2023
Organization committee: Laure Lansari (University Paris Cité) & Ludivine Crible (Ghent University)

Conference fee: about 70€. It will include the welcome reception, coffee breaks and lunch for the Thursday and Friday. Participation to the hands-on workshop on Friday afternoon requires no extra charge but registration is mandatory. Participation to the conference dinner on Thursday evening (La Barge, a boat on the river Seine) is an extra 50€ (three-course dinner with drinks).

2nd Call for Papers:

Discourse Markers (henceforth DMs) are a central object of study in discourse analysis and pragmatics and have been investigated through a variety of theoretical and methodological frameworks. This diversity of approaches is not only an asset for knowledge-building but also a challenge for data comparability. It has long been observed that the very definition of what counts as a DM will vary with the linguist’s framework and purpose, let alone the way its features and uses will be analyzed. In their 2015 paper, Maschler & Schiffrin identified three major perspectives towards DMs (“discourse”, “pragmatic” and “interactional”) that illustrate differences in the definition and analysis of the category. They conclude that “the way one identifies markers is a direct consequence of one’s general approach to language” (2015: 203) and that “different approaches reflect profoundly different views of what ‘grammar’ is” (2015: 205). It is precisely this issue that the 2023 Conference on Discourse Markers – Theories and Methods intends to bring to the fore, by inviting discussions on the impact of theoretical and methodological frameworks on the treatment of DMs.
This question has received some attention in recent years, with publications that focus on one theoretical framework (Ranger 2018 for Culioli’s Theory of Enunciative and Predicative Operations; Dupont 2021 for Systemic Functional Linguistics; Heine et al. 2021 for Discourse Grammar) or that confront two frameworks on the same data (Lansari 2020). Similarly, methodological paradigms impose a number of constraints on data selection and analysis (Crible 2022 on combining corpus-based and experimental data), although they are not always made explicit. There is thus a momentum for gathering researchers interested in this topic, in order to raise awareness of existing approaches in the field (in particular for frameworks that might be popular in a particular area or country but not in others) and of their respective benefits and drawbacks.
We therefore invite submissions on any topic related to discourse markers and ask authors to emphasize their theoretical and methodological framework(s) in the abstract. In particular, we wish to foster discussion and reflections on the sometimes implicit or unconscious theoretical choices that we make and their impact on data analysis. Conversely, some methods and data types may restrict or at least favor a particular theoretical perspective at the expense of others. Another important question is then: what can DM research bring, in return, to our knowledge of particular theories and methods? We encourage in particular submissions that address the following questions:
– How does Construction Grammar / Conversation Analysis / Grammaticalization theory / the Theory of Enunciative and Predicative Operations / etc. account for discourse markers?
– What are the constraints and perhaps limits of these frameworks?
– What can we learn on discourse markers from the combination of two (or more) theoretical frameworks ?
– What are the best methodological practices for a constructional / pragmatic / enunciative / conversation-analytic / etc. approach to discourse markers?
– What are the underlying theoretical assumptions in corpus annotation / experimentation / qualitative case studies / diachronic analysis / first vs. second-language comparison / etc.?
– How has DM research impacted our understanding of particular frameworks? What are promising avenues in this respect (e.g. neurolinguistics, speech disorders, etc.)?

The conference language is English: abstracts must be submitted and papers given in English. Abstracts must be maximum 500 words (excluding references) and be submitted by the 15th December 2022 via Sciencesconf: https://dmtheoriesmethods.sciencesconf.org