[Discussion] CFP: Speech Acts/Oral Traditions (Cyprus) (2/11/05; Inscriptions, 5/12/05-5/13/05)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

CALL FOR PAPERS

Speech Acts/Oral Traditions

A Panel Discussion at the
Eighth International Literature and Humanities Conference

INSCRIPTIONS '05: an arts and culture conference and festival at
Eastern Mediterranean University
in Famagusta, on the island of Cyprus
May 12th - 13th, 2005

Submissions are invited for a Panel Discussion exploring the forms and
modes in which literature, broadly defined, is transmitted orally; and
how the production, transmission, and reception of "texts" in oral
traditions may be addressed in terms of speech act theory or theories of
communicative action.

oral traditions:
For our purposes, forms of orally transmitted literature may include
(but are not limited to) traditional narratives such as the epic and the
ballad, and ritualized performances (lullabies, incantations, laments,
paeans, etc.); and also oral histories, folktales, myths, legends (urban
and other), fables, fairytales, ghost stories, proverbs, riddles, jokes
and shaggy dog stories, improvised theater, "street talk" or argot, rap
or popular song, gossip, rumor, hype, and buzz.

Such language forms may contribute to preserving existing cultural
traditions and systems, or to creating new ones. They interact in
complex ways with the methods and technologies used to record, print,
archive, and investigate them, which codify and transform them through
processes of editing, translation, and annotation; by extending their
duration, and by recontextualizing their existence in time and place.
These codifying processes are framed by, and at the same time generate,
the shibboleths and creolized discourses of schools of theory and
academic disciplines.

The global reach of electronic media and communication
technologies-radio, television, the internet in particular-used to
broadcast them has further complicated the study of oral texts not only
by modifying their method of transmission, but by dislocating and
decentering their cultural/historical provenance, their space of
existence, and their audience.

and speech acts:
In this global context, where the local conventions and assumptions of
a culture are constantly being questioned or reconfigured in interaction
with other cultures, the literary forms and modes of oral communication
and their reception in academic and other disciplinary contexts provide
an ideal field of inquiry for the various dimensions of speech act
theory articulated by theorists such as Austin, Grice, Wittgenstein,
Searle, Derrida, Iser, and Pratt, and the theory of communicative action
developed by Habermas.

The relation between speech act theories and social theories of
communicative rationality pivots on the operation and validity claims of
"illocutionary" speech acts-that is, performative utterances with some
inherent degree of agency-which depend on the complex system of
socio-cultural assumptions, rules, and attitudes in which they occur.

Since the meaning of illocutionary acts-the "perlocutionary effects"
they produce-depends on these conventions of their performance, the
forms and modes of transmission and reception of oral literature would
seem to constitute critical sites for investigating the illocutionary
force of literary/fictional speech acts, and for developing models and
paradigms for social action in real-world speech situations.

Prospective panelists are invited to send 250-word abstracts/proposals
for 15-20 minute presentations on any aspect of these areas to
rodney.sharkey@emu.edu.tr by 11th February, 2005. I look forward to
learning about your research, and to a provocative discussion.

For more information about INSCRIPTIONS '05, please visit our website at
http://www.emu.edu.tr/elh/inscriptions Please also check out our links
to "Individual Research Presentations" and "Creative/Performance Work."



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