Integrationism and language ideologies

VIRTUAL SEMINAR  

March 15-20, 2021

You tube channel of the group Políticas Linguisticas UFSC  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl3lJ7qZwd57G3Y1W429cHQ

‘There are issues of pride, passion and politics involved, not to mention intelligence and imagination, and ultimately – perhaps initially and primarily— moral responsibility as well. And they are involved not merely as contributory causes or consequences but as substantive questions concerning how – if at all – A communicates with B’ (Roy Harris, Signs, Language and Communication, 1996, p. 2).

The annual Conference of the International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication (IAISLC) will be held at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, March 15-20, 2021, and will be hosted primarily by the Post-Graduate Program of Linguistics at the Federal University of Santa Catarina.

Rationale and aims

This landmark event in the history of the IAISLC will critically explore the potential contribution that integrationism may make in the wider spheres of political practice, ethics, and social responsibility. To this end, the conference will encourage and facilitate productive encounters between integrationism and other perspectives on language and communication with a view to clarifiying and sharpening the critical tools necessary to the understanding and furthering of the interests of people in the Global South.

For integrationism, communication, as a fundamental dimension of human social existence, cannot be reduced to a system of signs that can be mechanically and/or pragmatically decoded and categorized: communication is nothing less than human beings’ necessary involvement with and response to others throughout the life course. Language, an integrated dimension within the whole continuum of signifying practice, therefore presupposes and helps to create a communitarian way of being in the world.  The immediate implication of such a perspective is that politics and ethics are indissolubly bound to the communicational organization of everyday social life. We are consequently keen to explore how language studies in general may benefit from the broader concept of public sphere which integrationism offers in which both action and discourse are seen from the perspective of plurality and co-existence.

Objectives of IAISLC 2020-2021

 The main objective of the conference is to contribute to the further development of the integrationist perspective through critical dialogue with other approaches to language and communication. A secondary  objective is to explore the interdisciplinary applications and implications of integrationism for diverse regions of the world, with or without a history of colonialism. The conference will therefore invite discussion and evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the contribution of integrationist scholarship in relation to other frameworks, including sociocultural theory, critical discourse analysis, ethnomethodology and language ideology. By subjecting integrationism itself to critical analysis and evaluation, we hope to address the main question of IAISLC 2019: How far can integrationism help us in the task of “academically decolonizing traditional sociolinguistics?”

A third objective is to explore the extent to which integrationism can capture the multifaceted and contradictory linguistic experiences of people on the margins of society whose communicational practices have not so far been a focus for integrationistic thinking. In doing so, we wish to discuss how to best create a partnership with the Global South and with communities that were previously marginalized in the collaborative work of building and extending the relevance and reach of integrationism as a radically critical communicational philosophy.

Call for papers for IAISLC 2020-2021

We would like to invite:

• papers that explore the intersection or conflict between integrationism and other contemporary approaches to language and communication, including posthumanism, ethnomethodology, decolonisation, language rights and animal rights. Such papers should provide an exploration of the dynamic and constantly developing field of integrationist philosophy and analysis;
• papers that explore the significance and implications of integrationism for an understanding of conflictual social practice and political mobilisation, with particular reference to the Global South and to marginalized and migrant communities.

Format of the conference:

Conference contributions will be invited according to the following formats:

• individual papers of 30 to 40 minutes each, with 15 minutes for virtual discussion;
• symposia, consisting of a 2-4 papers on a particular topic with Introduction from the symposium Coordinator;
• theme-related round-table discussions, to be proposed and coordinated by the Conference organizers.

Abstracts of a maximum of 300 words, with institutional identification and email, must be submitted by individual presenters or Symposium Coordinators to Cristine Severo (crisgorski@gmail.com / iaislc2020@gmail.com) by January 15, 2021. Decisions regarding the status of submission will be made by February 15, 2021.

Conference conveners:

Cristine Severo: crisgorski@gmail.com

Sinfree Makoni: sinfreemakoni@hotmail.com

Ashraf Abdelhay: aschraff200@gmail.com

Daniel Silva: dnsfortal@gmail.com

Integrationism and Philosophies of Language: Emerging Alternative Epistemologies in the Global North and the Global South

Homepage of the event: https://sites.psu.edu/integrationism/

Flyer for workshops: click on Integrationism 2019

COMPLETE CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: Integrationism Conference Schedule 2019

The annual International Conference on Integrationism (aka Integrational Linguistics) will be held at the Pennsylvania State University, August 30 to September 2, 2019, hosted by the Department of Applied Linguistics and the African Studies program. Integrationism is a theory of communication that emphasizes innovative participation within contexts and rejects rule-based models of language. Integrationism rejects the notion of distinctions between language and non-language. Ideas about integrationism have permeated substantial areas of language studies.

The primary objective of the conference is to systematically explore the nature of the overlap and the disjunctures between core ideas about Integrationism and certain philosophies of language, including Socio-Cultural Theory, Critical Discourse Theory, Identity, Translanguaging, and Systemic Functional Theory, as well as Colonial and Postcolonial Theory.

The second objective of the conference is to contribute towards the development of scholarship in Applied Linguistics and African Studies from decidedly Global South perspectives, that is those regions of the world which have been the object of colonialism.  These perspectives have also been labelled under the term Southern Theory. The Global South is also found in the Global North in regions and parts of cities occupied by immigrants and the socio-politically and economically vulnerable.

In addressing issues about Southern Theory in  Linguistic Theory and African Studies, participants are asked to address one or more of the following questions:

What is the nature of Southern Theory?

What is the impact of Southern Theories on scholarship in the Global North?

How can a critique of Eurocentricism be made from a non-Eurocentric perspective, and how does this perspective differ from Critical Applied Linguistics?

What is the nature of the relationship between decolonial theory and Southern Theory either in Applied Linguistics or African Studies?

Format of the conference:

The conference will be comprised of presentations of individual papers of 40 to 45 minutes, with 15 minutes for discussion and theme-related round table discussions. Abstracts of a maximum of 300 words must be submitted to Sinfree Makoni sinfreemakoni@hotmail.com by March 31, 2019. Decisions regarding the status of submission will be made by May 31, 2019.

Educational Workshops: The conference will begin with a two-day workshop (Friday, August 30, and Saturday, August 31, 2019) as well as tutorials that address theoretical and empirical issues related to Integrationism.

Expressions of interest in taking part in the workshop should be made by to Deryn Verity dpv3@psu.edu by January 30, 2019.

Graduate students who wish to attend the conference are encouraged to attend the educational workshops, which will be led by these scholars:

Adrian Pablé, School of English, University of Hong Kong   email: apable@hku.hk

Peter Jones, Department of Language and Communication, Sheffield Hallam University, UK email: P.E.Jones@shu.ac.uk

Dorthe Duncker, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark   email: duncker@hum.ku.dk

Conveners of the conference: