Delegates from Australia, Brazil, Britain, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey and from around the USA will be gathering in Seattle this September for the third in a series of conferences organized around the role of the media in relation to the representation, construction and/or production of language. The first two conferences were held at Leeds University, England: in 2005, Language in the Media: Representations, Identities, Ideologies, and, in 2007, Language Ideologies and Media Discourse: Texts, Practices, Policies.
Keynote speakers:
* Naomi Baron, American University, USA
* Sally Johnson, University of Leeds, England
* Jannis Androutsopoulos, Kings College London, England
* Theo van Leeuwen, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Papers at this next conference will be exploring the representation, construction and/or production of language through the technologies and ideologies of new media - the digital discourse of blogs, wikis, texting, instant messaging, internet art, video games, virtual worlds, websites, emails, podcasting, hypertext fiction, graphical user interfaces, and so on. A number of papers are also focusing on the ways that new media language is metalinguistically represented, constructed and/or produced in print and broadcast media such as newspapers and television.
With this new media theme in mind, the 2009 conference will continue to prioritize papers which address the scope of the AILA Research Network on Language in the Media by examining the following types of contexts/issues:
* standard languages and language standards;
* literacy policy and literacy practices;
* language acquisition;
* multilingualism and cross-/inter-cultural communication;
* language and communication in professional contexts;
* language & class, dis/ability, race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality and age;
* media representations of speech, thought and writing;
* language and education;
* political discourse;
* language, commerce and global capitalism.
Please submit abstracts for papers (20 minutes plus 10 for discussion) by email to lim2009@u.washington.edu no later than Thursday 26 February 2009. Abstracts should include a title, your contact details (name, mailing address, email) and a description of your paper (250 -350 words). The conference committee will begin reviewing abstract submissions immediately after the deadline; notification of acceptance will be Thursday 19 March. (Please send your abstract as a Word document or in the body of your email.)