LINGUIST List 29.2996
Tue Jul 24
2018
Calls: Anthro Ling, Disc Analysis, Pragmatics, Socioling, Text/Corpus
Ling/China
Editor for this issue: Kenneth Steimel <kenlinguistlist.org>
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Date: 23-Jul-2018
From: Britta Schneider <britta.schneider
fu-berlin.de>
Subject: Posthumanist Pragmatics:
Linguistic Encounters in the Digital Uncanny Valley
E-mail this message to a friend Full Title: Posthumanist
Pragmatics: Linguistic Encounters in the Digital Uncanny Valley
Short Title: DigUncanny
Date: 09-Jun-2019 - 14-Jun-2019
Location: Hong Kong, China
Contact Person: Theresa
Heyd
Meeting Email:
<
click here to access email >
Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics;
Text/Corpus Linguistics
Call Deadline: 15-Oct-2018
Meeting Description:
In this
panel, we treat pragmatic aspects of human-machine interaction in everyday life, including:
-
the reading and producing of algorithmic texts
- discursive engagements with the Internet of Things,
with software agents such as Alexa or Siri, and with social media bots
- or the consumption of
AI-generated/enhanced media products
These various forms of language production are shaped by
the interaction of human and non-human agents. Embedded in the larger notion of posthumanist applied
linguistics (Pennycook 2018), they demonstrate the generally precarious nature of an understanding of
the human as essentially different from non-human communicative agents.
From a sociolinguistic
and pragmatic point of view, one recurring theme in human-machine interaction is striking: the language
that is produced here is often perceived as divergent. Sometimes, it may produce inadvertent humor and
double-entendre (e.g. autocorrect effects), surprising creativity and even machine-generated beauty. In
other cases, the linguistic effects may be more unsettling: algorithms bring taboo discourse to the
fore; social media sites foster and create interactions that some users experience as transgressive or
even abusive; technological artefacts may become sexualized, anthropomorphized or otherwise imbued with
social meaning.
Some of these pragmatic conditions may be linked to a linguistic uncanny valley
effect (see Mori et al. 2012 [1970]). It may be precisely their semiotic semblance of humanness which
makes their diverging qualities all the more unsettling and transgressive - in brief, uncanny. Potential
effects could be that pragmatic conditions of sayability are changed; assumptions about im/politeness
and common ground may be altered; patterns of conversational structure may be rearranged in talking to
machines, and prosodic features of computer-generated voices may trigger complex patterns of uptake.
Call for Papers:
We invite theoretical and empirical studies that explore posthumanist
pragmatics in its diverse forms. We invite contributions that engage with the sociolinguistics and
pragmatics of encounters at the margins of human and nonhuman language, including aspects such as:
- The digital uncanny: discourses of transgression on social media
- Pragmatic conditions of
human-machine interaction
- Changing conversational routines in transhuman encounters
- The
pragmatics of algorithmed discourse
- Transnational effects in transhuman digital language
production
- Theoretical examinations of the distinction of human and non-human interaction
-
Aspects of gender, sexuality and age.
Tentatively confirmed contributors: Ana Deumert (Cape
Town); Alexandra Georgakopoulou (London); Rodney Jones (Reading); Netaya Lotze (Münster); Alastair
Pennycook (Sydney).
Abstracts of 250 - 500 words (including references) can be submitted until
October 15 via the IPrA conference website
https://ipra2019.exordo.com/.
Additional information regarding the abstract submission process can be found at
http://pragmatics.international/page/CfP.
Please feel free to contact us via email with any questions: theresa.heyd
uni-greifswald.de
Page Updated: 24-Jul-2018