Conference Language and Power

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Proceedings of the Conference Language and Power
URN-Link: https://miami.uni-muenster.de/Record/f1403bfe-2742-40a5-b4d0-a5848d0a976a
DOI-LINK: https://doi.org/10.17879/68958578934

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Language and Power

The University of Münster, Germany. March 22-24, 2023

Given its social nature, language is inextricably linked to power relationships. It can be used to manipulate and persuade, show dominance and, ultimately, establish hierarchies in society. Every person capable of language is, therefore, a subject of a power play, which often becomes a conduit for social inequality. A long-standing opposition between the standard and the vernacular, the language of elitist groups and disadvantaged minorities has been affecting the lives of speakers from a multitude of ethnic, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. At the same time, language and language practices are also affected by existing power relations: which language shall be chosen as official or national in a state, which variety to teach at school and how to carry out language reforms, – these and other issues have long been challenging academic and practical thought. In the 21st century, with the ever-growing dominance of English, the projected loss of many endangered languages, and the pandemic and wars furthering social disparities, the issues of language-power relationships are gaining ever more significance.

In our conference Language and Power we would like to engage in a critical discussion of the following questions:

  * How can language establish gender equality or postulate the prevalence of a certain gender?

  * How do language-related power structures affect minorities? How can we as scientists support these communities?

  * What are the mechanisms and consequences of the in-group and out-group differentiation based on language?

  * In what way is the government’s political discourse reflected in educational institutions?

  * How can linguistic structures influence our thinking, reinforce, amplify, or combat discourses of oppression?

  * What are the responsibilities of practitioners and scientists with regard to language and power? (for example, in the classroom or when it comes to language reforms)

Abstract submission

We expect contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics and themes:

  * Gender linguistics and raciolinguistics

  * Minority language and heritage language issues

  * Language of marginalized groups

  * Language policy, including language planning, education and diversity preservation

  * Standardization and language reform

  * Language ideology in education, political discourse, court, workplace and the media

  * Multilingual development in education

Please submit your abstracts for 20-minute presentations in a PDF format via EasyChair until 1 pm December 25th, 2022. The abstracts should not exceed 400 words (references are not included in the word count). References, graphs and tables can be provided separately. Please make sure your name and affiliation are NOT included in your abstract. The language of the conference is English, but we are looking forward to works dealing with a variety of languages. Notification of acceptance emails will be sent out before January 15th, 2023.

The conference proceedings will be published in a digital format on the publication server of the University of Münster.

Keynote speakers

We are happy to announce that the following distinguished researchers will deliver keynote speeches:

Prof. Dr. habil. Galina Putjata (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Prof. Dr. John Gray (University College London)
Prof. em. Dr. Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou (The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

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