Call for papers
19th SLIN Conference – First circular and call for papers
Dear colleagues,
We are very pleased to inform you that the 19th SLIN Conference will take place on 8th - 10 th May 2025 at the University of Catania, Italy.
The theme of the conference is:
Socio-political Instability and Language Change (1300-1900)
Our two invited plenary speakers are:
Prof. Jonathan Culpeper (Lancaster University, England) Prof. Matylda Włodarczyk (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland)
Papers (20 minutes + 10 minutes discussion) are invited on the conference theme. Please note that the chronological scope of the papers ranges from Late Middle English to Late Modern English, i.e. until 1900. Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:
Social movements and their influence on argumentation, rhetoric and lexis (e.g. religious movements, the reform of manners, abolition of slavery, temperance movement)
Socio-political unrest and the language of propaganda
Political instability and revolution and the emergence of new address terms and insults (e.g. the English Civil War, Jacobite Risings, Wars of Independence, Colonial Wars)
Contact factors in the birth of new varieties (geographical varieties resulting from imperial expansion and contact with indigenous communities)
Historical social discrimination and racism and its influence on discourse and language
Socio-political instability and its influence on the standardisation of English (e.g. population shifts and immigration in the 14th-15th centuries)
Translation and its role in facilitating and effecting language change in periods of socio-political instability
Acts of writing and reading as rebellion/resistance are also an interesting angle
Language codification and standardisation as a political act
Abstracts (350 words maximum excluding References) can be sent by 30th November 2024 to giuliana.russo@tiscali.it. Abstracts should be submitted as Word documents but if your abstract contains special characters, please also send a pdf version.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 20th December 2024.
Junior researchers are warmly invited to submit proposals.
We look forward to receiving your abstracts and seeing you in Catania!