Theme: Standardization as Language Management

Date: August 30-31, 2021 

Venue: Zagreb, Croatia, and online

Webpage: http://lms.ffzg.unizg.hr

Rationale

Standardization as a process based on intervening in variation usually aims at efficient communication on a larger scale. The process is inextricably linked with social modernization, i.e. with social and cultural development through industrialization, urbanization, digitalization as well as political, economic and cultural integration and unification. In language and communication, it is associated not only with the emergence of standard varieties of languages, but also with language cultivation, elaboration of genres and terminologies, language teaching as well as the development of norms and standards for intercultural contact (Neustupný 2006).

How far should standardization go? Standards help measure and compare quality. Achieving standards in various areas of human activities, going beyond language use, has been a product of modern era. It is followed by pluralization of the former standards in connection with the post-modernist bolstering of regional and minority identities.

Standardization is usually conceived as a strand of organized activities of various social actors in a position of social power, but its success is ultimately measured by the implementation of standards within the wider speech community and implementing standards is sometimes resisted in everyday interactions. In addition, some standards emerge in the bottom-up manner. For these reasons, research on standardization is well suited for the language management approach (Fairbrother et al. 2018, Kimura & Fairbrother 2020).

The symposium aims at exploring all basic aspects of standardization processes from the perspective of language management theory as well as other relevant theories.

References

Fairbrother, L., J. Nekvapil & M. Sloboda (Eds) (2018). The Language Management Approach: A Focus on Research Methodology. Berlin: Peter Lang.

Kimura, G. C. & L. Fairbrother (Eds) (2020). A Language Management Approach to Language Problems: Integrating Macro and Micro Dimensions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Neustupný, J. V. (2006). Sociolinguistic aspects of social modernization. In U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K. J. Mattheier & P. Trudgill (Eds), Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society / Soziolinguistik: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Wissenschaft von Sprache und Gesellschaft. Volume 3 / 3. Teilband (pp. 2209–2224). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Call for individual papers

We invite proposals for paper which reflect any topic related to language management and particularly, the main theme of the symposium. Questions for discussion include (but are not limited to the following):

(1) What kinds of practices of language standardization can be observed? Language structures apart, which patterns of language use have become objects of standardizing efforts? (Genres, apologies in professional e-mails, communication standards in the service industry, levels of language skills as in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, etc.)

(2) How strict is the implementation of standards in which communication domains, genres and situations?

(3) How are the micro and macro levels interconnected in this process? How exactly is the process of standardization reflected in simple and in organized management?

(4) Whose and which interests do the individual stages of language (de)standardization serve?

Abstract submission

Abstracts (300–500 words) should be uploaded by June 30, 2021. For more on registration and submission process see Registration. The abstracts will be evaluated by the scientific committee.

Registration fee

HRK 450 / EUR 60