Call for Papers

12/06/2006

Linguistic Ethnography and Institutions

Knokke (Belgium), 20–22 September 2006

Institutions provide a relatively stable set of social arrangements and relationships, a set of structured roles and functions for those who “inhabit” them. As such, institutional discourse comprises the sum of rules, conventions, expectations and appropriate practices in any given institution. Is there an added value to combining linguistics and ethnography in the study of institutional discursive practices and their socially-constructed sets of conventions? Would or do such combinations open up new lines of analysis and understanding? Would a joint venture of linguistics and ethnography open up new perspectives on the characteristic forms of interaction within particular institutional sites and the discursive practices through which such sites are constructed and identified?

The workshop welcomes papers on epistemological and methodological issues arising from the conjuncture of ethnography and linguistics and/or emerging research questions which have relevance across a range of institutional contexts. Papers may relate to any of the following topics:

	Issues of access to research sites including issues of identity and participant observation in an institutional context.
	Issues of interpretation and representation of institutional discourse.
	The methodological/epistemological implications of new software applications for data collection in institutional contexts. Does the promise of new software applications lie merely in how they facilitate data collection and data organisation or do they also hold considerable promise for an expansion and deepening of ethnographic knowledge of institutions? Are they merely a tool or instrument for data collection or does their use have implications for all stages of the research process?

	Roles and social identity: how are institutional power roles played out through discourse?
	The inside and outside of institutional discourse. To what extent may linguistic ethnography shed light on the contrast between what happens on the very formal front stage and what happens back stage in an institution or profession?

Deadline for submitting abstracts: 15 May 2006

Send your abstract (300 words) to LEIN@ugent.be

Most recent update 06/12/06