EVIDENCE OF LINGUISTIC ENCOUNTERS, LANGUAGES IN CONTACT: FROM IMPRINT TO OWNERSHIP . University of Toronto, April 30th - May 1st

full name / name of organization: 
Department of French Studies' Graduate Association

The University of Toronto's Société des Études Supérieures du Département d'Études Françaises (SESDEF) has issued a call for papers from all disciplines for our annual graduate students' conference. The conference will be held April 30 - May 1, 2015 at the University of Toronto's St. George campus, downtown Toronto. Propositions of a maximum of 350 words may be submitted in either French or English, however the subject of the presentation must be related to the French language. The deadline for proposal submissions is March 1st, 2015 (email address - colloque.sesdef@utoronto.ca). Notifications of acceptance will be released by March 15th. We are honoured to welcome Professor Shana Poplack as our keynote speaker.

EVIDENCE OF LINGUISTIC ENCOUNTERS, LANGUAGES IN CONTACT:
FROM IMPRINT TO OWNERSHIP
Keynote speaker – Professor Shana Poplack (University of Ottawa)

CALL FOR PAPERS

LINGUISTICS
The question of language contact is more pertinent than ever. The technological advances of the last two decades have contributed to the emergence of a new linguistic norm - one in which monolingualism simply does not suffice. With the turn of the century, we have become witness to the contact of societies, cultures, and languages, resulting in the very essence of linguistic evolution and innovation. It is therefore of fundamental importance to investigate the development of this contact, and to explore the linguistic and social issues that it implies, whether from a synchronic or diachronic perspective. With the aim of promoting the exchange of new understandings of this subject, this conference seeks to explore the phenomenon of linguistic contact within the
following three areas:

Linguistic changes in :

• Morphology
• Phonetics/Phonology
• Pragmatics
• Prosody
• Syntax
• Semantics
• Other

Issues of linguistic contact in regards to:

• L1 Acquisition
• Bilingualism/Multilingualism
• L2 Learning/Acquisition
• Didactics
• Translation
• Automatic linguistic processing
• Methodological development

Consequences of linguistic contact, as concerns:

• Language death
• Minority languages
• Creoles; their origins and development
Interlanguage

LITERATURE

This conference is also interested in the role of language contact in literary texts. Since the second half of the 20th century, we've witnessed the emergence of a plural francophone literature, including francophone authors living in a linguistic minority context, as well as allophone authors who have chosen French as their language of literary expression. Be it authors from ancient French colonies - Édouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Antonine Maillet, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Rachid Boudjedra, Henri Lopès, France Daigle, ou Réjean Ducharme - or allophone authors - Nancy Huston, Ying Cheng, Johnathan Littell, Jorge Semprun, Milan Kundera, Akira Mizubayashi, Agota Kristof, ou Andreï Makine - these authors find themselves at a 'linguistic crossroads'. Given that the relationship an author has with his or her languages inevitably influences his or her work, literature becomes a linguistic meeting place, whether through the influence that languages have on each other, through the form, or through the representation of these languages. We aim to observe this type of meeting place, whether it is embedded in the narrative structure or whether it falls under into a thematic presence, but also, whether it pertains to cultural borrowing or ownership. Finally, we are interested in what results from this contact, the relationship of authority and order in the discourse, the presence of an in-between, as well as the aesthetic hybridity of language. We thus invite presentations which explore the following themes:

• Minor literature (according to the definition of Deleuze and Guattari, "that which a minority does in a majority language")
• Literary multilingualism
• Self-translation
• Creolization
• Diglossia/Heteroglossia
• Language and interculturality
• Polyphony/Dialogue/Intertextuality
• Linguistic frontiers
• Carnivalization of the language
• Linguistic ownership
• Joual, Chiac
• Orality
• Imitation of an author's first language's
Rhythm or phonetic structure in French