Cfp – SHESL conference 2024 – Ethnolinguistics – Linguistic anthropology: history and current trends

Call for papers
SHESL conference 2024
Ethnolinguistics – Linguistic anthropology: history and current trends
organized by ChloĂ© Laplantine (HTL), CĂ©cile Leguy (UniversitĂ© Sorbonne Nouvelle – LACITO), Valentina Vapnarsky (LESC & EPHE)

Paris, 1-2 February, 2024

Please send abstracts for contributions by 21 July 2023 to shesl2024@listes.u-paris.fr
Abstracts should be around 250 words long and include a bibliography.

Information: https://shesl.org/index.php/en/conference-2024/ and shesl2024@listes.u-paris.fr

Conference description
Linguistic anthropology is one of four research fields belonging to anthropology in the North American tradition, along with archeology, physical anthropology, and socio-cultural anthropology; this organization is commonly recognized as originating with Franz Boas, though the historical situation is in fact somewhat more complex (Hicks 2013).  As a result, the work of linguistic anthropologists has been diffused in conferences and journals devoted to general anthropological study as well as in specialized conferences[1] and in journals such as Anthropological Linguistics (founded in 1959), Language in Society (1972), or The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology (1990).  In France, where the discipline was first called “ethnolinguistics”, works such as those of GeneviĂšve Calame-Griaule or Bernard Pottier, the cross-fertilizations between linguistics and anthropology effected by Émile Benveniste, Roman Jakobson, and Claude LĂ©vi-Strauss, as well as the influence of the British and American traditions, have given rise to a tradition made both specific and complex by the multiple approaches it has interwoven.  The field of ethnolinguistics witnessed important developments in France during the 1970s and 1980s[2], leading to the founding and federating of research groups[3] and journals[4].  At present, at least five research seminars in ethnolinguistics or linguistic anthropology are active in Paris, a sign of the continuing vitality of this field of study.

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PhD funding for international students – UniversitĂ© Paris CitĂ©

Université Paris Cité, the host institution for the Histoire des théories linguistiques (HTL; https://htl.cnrs.fr/en/home/) research group, has earmarked PhD funding for international students starting this year.

Students will register at the Linguistics Department (https://u-paris.fr/linguistique/en/home/#pll_switcher), and be supervised by a member of HTL.

For some possible PhD (or MA) topics and a list of HTL researchers able to supervise dissertations, please see https://htl.cnrs.fr/formation/theses/ Any other member of the research group (https://htl.cnrs.fr/equipe/) can co-supervise a PhD student. Funding is for 3 years. Knowledge of French is helpful but not necessary. Dissertations can be written in English or French. 

Please contact any member of the research group before June 7th if interested. Finalized proposals must be submitted to the doctoral school by June 23rd; interviews (zoom possible) will be held on July 3rd.

Posted in Jobs and funding

Podcast episode 32: Leonard Bloomfield and behaviourism

In this episode, we discuss the leading American linguist Leonard Bloomfield and his connections to the psychological school of behaviourism and the philosophical doctrines of logical positivism.

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Posted in Podcast

Recent publications in the history and philosophy of the language sciences – April 2023

James McElvenny, ed. 2023. The Limits of Structuralism. Forgotten Texts in the History of Modern Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 336 p. ISBN 9780192849045
Publisher’s website

Based around seven primary texts spanning 130 years, this volume explores the conceptual boundaries of structuralism, a scholarly movement and associated body of doctrines foundational to modern linguistics and many other humanities and social sciences. Each chapter in the volume presents a classic — and yet today underappreciated — text that addresses questions crucial to the evolution of structuralism. The texts are made accessible to present-day English-speaking readers through translation and extensive critical notes; each text is also accompanied by a detailed introduction that places it in its intellectual and historical context and outlines the insights that it contains. The volume reveals the complex genealogy of our ideas and enriches our understanding of their contemporary form and use.

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Posted in Publications

Podcast episode 31: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

In this episode, we explore the historical background to linguistic relativity or the so-called ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis’.

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Posted in Podcast

Podcast housekeeping April 2023

This clip is a brief audio update on what’s been happening with the podcast, and what’s going to happen in the next few months.

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Posted in Podcast

Recent publications in the history and philosophy of the language sciences – March 2023

Zanna Van Loon, John Steckley, Toon Van Hal, Andy Peetermans, eds. 2023. Anchored in ink: Pierre-Philippe Potier’s Elementa Grammaticae Huronicae (1745), a Jesuit grammar of Wendat. Potsdam: UniversitĂ€tsverlag Potsdam. 446 p.
ISBN 978-3-86956-516-3. DOI : https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-51306
Book in open access
Publisher’s website

This book serves as a gateway to the Elementa grammaticae Huronicae, an eighteenth-century grammar of the Wendat (‘Huron’) language by Jesuit Pierre-Philippe Potier (1708–1781). The volume falls into three main parts. The first part introduces the grammar and some of its contexts, offering information about the Huron-Wendat and Wyandot, the early modern Jesuit mission in New France and the Jesuits’ linguistic output. The heart of the volume is made up by its second part, a text edition of the Elementa. The third part presents some avenues of research by way of specific case studies.

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Posted in Publications

Recent publications in the history and philosophy of the language sciences – February 2023

Lorenzo Cigana & Frans Gregersen, ed. 2023. Structuralism as one – structuralism as many – Studies in Structuralisms. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag. 560 p. ISBN 9788773044476
Publisher’s website

This book includes 14 contributions to the study of structuralism as a historical current in the history of European ideas and more particularly in the study of language. The studies combine to contextualize structuralism in both its unity and its diversity, hence the title. In the first section, the reader is introduced to the broader canvas of disciplines and competing ideas surrounding structuralism, starting with Claude LĂ©vi-Strauss’s anthropological structuralism. The second section views structural linguistics from without and investigates its legacy in relation to contemporary linguistics, analyzing its relationship to functionalism and its forerunners. The third section explores structuralism from within, with particular attention to a specific output: Louis Hjelmslev’s theory of glossematics. This constitutes the focus from where the immediate past within the Danish tradition is reanalyzed and its heritage for today’s semiotics and linguistics is discussed.

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Posted in Publications

Recent publications in the history and philosophy of the language sciences – January 2023

Danielle Candel, Didier Samain & Dan Savatovsky, ed. 2023. Eugen WĂŒster et la terminologie de l’école de Vienne. Paris : SHESL (HEL Livres, 2). 338 p. ISBN 979-10-91587-18-1. DOI : 10.5281/zenodo.7503185
Book in open access
Publisher’s website

La terminologie, avec ses analyses thĂ©oriques et ses applications, reprĂ©sente un secteur multidisciplinaire, qui s’est dĂ©veloppĂ© parallĂšlement aux progrĂšs scientifiques ou industriels et aux Ă©changes internationaux. Rares restent toutefois les linguistes ou les Ă©pistĂ©mologues et historiens de la linguistique bien au fait des terminologies ou des langues de spĂ©cialitĂ© et de leurs sources. Cet ouvrage rassemble les actes du colloque organisĂ© par la SHESL (Paris, 3-4 fĂ©vrier 2006) oĂč l’on se proposait de faire connaĂźtre plus largement le fondateur de la terminologie contemporaine, Eugen WĂŒster (1898-1977), et de mettre Ă  la disposition d’un public plus important une documentation qui Ă©tait et demeure souvent inĂ©dite, ou seulement disponible en allemand.
WĂŒster Ă©tait d’abord un ingĂ©nieur, prĂ©occupĂ© d’objets industriels et soucieux d’en proposer une description normĂ©e, mais on aurait tort d’imputer une attitude normalisatrice rigide et rĂ©ductrice Ă  un terminologue qui inclut au contraire dans sa dĂ©marche des rĂ©flexions linguistiques prenant en compte un large spectre de variations langagiĂšres. Ajoutons que ses Ă©crits signalent un rĂ©el souci pĂ©dagogique, dont il serait dommage de continuer Ă  priver les chercheurs. Le prĂ©sent ouvrage dĂ©gage les principales thĂšses linguistiques et Ă©pistĂ©mologiques dĂ©veloppĂ©es par WĂŒster et prĂ©sente l’école viennoise de terminologie et sa portĂ©e actuelle.

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Posted in Publications

Recent publications in the history and philosophy of the language sciences – December 2022

MichaĂ«l Crevoisier & AurĂ©lien Galateau, ed. 2022. Langage et IdĂ©ologie. Penser le devenir de la langue avec Klemperer. Nice : Éditions Unes. Unes IdĂ©e. 184 p. ISBN 978-2-87704-251-2,
Publisher’s website

Depuis une vingtaine d’annĂ©es, on commence Ă  mieux connaĂźtre en France la vie et l’Ɠuvre de Victor Klemperer, ce philologue juif allemand qui a dĂ©cryptĂ© la langue du TroisiĂšme Reich et lui a miraculeusement survĂ©cu. Ses carnets, dans lesquels il a consignĂ© pendant plus d’une dĂ©cennie les distorsions que les nazis faisaient subir Ă  la langue allemande, sont devenus un document incontournable pour saisir ce qu’est le totalitarisme. 
L’expĂ©rience singuliĂšre et tragique de cet homme qui a trouvĂ© son salut dans l’Ă©tude obsessionnelle de l’idiome nazi est ici le point de dĂ©part d’une rĂ©flexion sur la situation actuelle du langage. Pour peu qu’on l’Ă©coute vraiment, la langue dit toujours la vĂ©ritĂ© d’une Ă©poque. À travers ses transformations, dans la confusion des sentiments et l’ambiguĂŻtĂ© des mots, s’imposent certaines idĂ©es et reprĂ©sentations qu’on a longtemps qualifiĂ©es d’idĂ©ologie avant que ce terme ne tombe en disgrĂące. Cet ouvrage collectif entreprend de montrer les modalitĂ©s suivant lesquelles l’idĂ©ologie se dĂ©ploie aujourd’hui, en croisant l’approche linguistique hĂ©ritĂ©e de Klemperer, la tradition critique en sciences sociales qui a su historiquement la conceptualiser, et une problĂ©matisation des systĂšmes techniques qui permet d’analyser l’automatisation du langage.  
Faire de Klemperer notre contemporain, c’est nous confronter au discours publicitaire et aux algorithmes du web mondialisĂ© en nous armant du principe d’exactitude qui guidait l’Ă©criture de son journal et « apprendre Ă  se colleter Ă  sa propre conscience, plutĂŽt que de surveiller celles des autres », comme nous y invite Walser.”

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Posted in Publications

Upcoming events


17–20 March 2026
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain)
XV Congreso Internacional de la Sociedat Española de HistoriografĂ­a LingĂŒĂ­stica
Prescriptivism and descriptivism from the peripheries


23–25 March 2026
Montpellier (France)
Asian Languages in the History of Lexicography


2-4 September 2026
Nottingham (UK)
Henry Sweet Society Colloquium 2026
(Non-)Native Speakers in the History of Linguistic Ideas


10-11 September 2026
Fribourg (Switzerland)
The Prague Linguistic Circle in Geneva and Paris: Circulations and Decenterings


19-21 November 2026
Sofia (Bulgaria)
La linguistique ‘fonctionnelle’ cent ans aprùs la fondation du Cercle linguistique de Prague


23-27 August 2027
NiterĂłi, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
ICHoLS XVII