Ethno/CA News: Conferences
CfP: Symposium on “Object requests in six languages”
As part of the conference: Language, Culture and Mind V
We are looking for contributors to a symposium we want to organise
for the "Language, Culture and Mind" conference in Portugal (27-29 June
2012):
We are interested in bringing together researchers working on object requests
in different languages. The formulation of requests has mostly been
analysed with respect to relatively stable sociolinguistic categories,
such as the social identities of speakers and recipients, following work
on politeness (Brown & Levinson,1987). However, work in Conversation
Analysis (on requests for action more broadly) has shown that speakers
(also) orient to contingent and situational factors in formulating requests
(e.g., Curl & Drew, 2008; Heinemann, 2006;Lindström, 2005; Wootton,
1981).
In this symposium, we want to explore the situational factors that
speakers orientto in formulating low imposition requests for objects in
everyday face-to-face interaction. Constructed examples ofsuch requests
– such as “can you pass me the salt” – have figured frequently in discussions
of “indirectness”, but there is a paucity of research on object requests
based on interaction data. Yet object requests are one of the most prominent
kinds of request in informal everyday interaction, and provide a good site
for the study of the organization of cooperation across communities of
speakers. At the moment, we do not know whether there are dimensions
of interactional situations that speakers across languages orient to in
formulating object requests, and we do not know how substantial any diversity
across languages is. By bringing together researchers working on object
requests in interaction across languages, we want to make a first foray
into this unchartered territory.
If you would like to contribute to this symposium, please send us an
expression of interest, ideally already with an abstract.
Send your abstract to: joerg.zinken [at] port.ac.uk
Deadline:4th November 2011
Format: 1 page, up to 500 words, single-spaced, font size 12
pt, Times New Roman, 2.5 cm margins on all sides. Diagrams must fit in
the page.
Heading should include:
-Title of the paper
-Author(s) name
-Author(s) affiliation
-E-mail address of principal author
References
Curl, T. S., & Drew, P. (2008). Contingency and action. A comparison
of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction,
41(2), 129-153.
Heinemann, T. (2006). "Will you or can't you?" Displaying entitlement
in interrogative requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1081-1104.
Lindström, A. (2005). Language as social action: A study of how
senior citizens request assistance with practical tasksin the Swedish home
help service. In A. Hakulinen & M. Selting (Eds.), Syntax and lexis
in conversation (pp.209-233). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Wootton, A. J. (1981). The management of grantings and rejections by
parents in request sequences. Semiotica, 37(1/2), 59-89.
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