Sociolinguistics and CMC

Hmmm...very interesting. I too was a reviewer for AoIR, and didn't get to review any discourse-related abstracts. I actually did think about trying to put together a panel for AoIR for 2006, but since it's in Australia this year I wasn't sure how many people were going to be able to go, thought I did manage to squeeze out an abstract in the midst of dissertation editing (keep your fingers crossed). Are there other interdisciplinary conferences out there that would be receptive to this kind of work? SALSA has a couple of interesting looking papers this year (http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/salsa/Program2006.html), but unfortunately I can't make a 3rd trip to Austin this spring, but SALSA doesn't take panel proposals.

As far as a whole conference, it's an intriguing idea, but do you think we could get a big-enough group? Maybe a pre-conference at an established conference (or 2) might work a little better? At any rate, I'd be interested in talking more about this is anyone else is; I have a fair amount of conference organizing experience.
 

I would certainly be interested in talking more about this as well. I think the original idea about NWAV at OSU is a good one (call for submissions isn't up yet, see), though it seems like that wouldn't encompass all of our interests very well. If a panel couldn't work, I agree that a pre-conference session would be nice. One problem is, though, what conference other than SALSA (which also rejected me, pity) are our several (ok, not several, but we represent a few) disciplines likely to converge at?

FWIW I just came across this useful site maintained by Mary Bucholtz, which lists language and gender-friendly conferences...many of them are undoubtedly CMC-friendly too, and some of them are new to me (Society for Text and Discourse? Yes please!).
 

i didn't have much of a brisbane budget, but with next year's AoIR being somewhere in canada, i think i might want to put something together for it. i think SALSA would be a great venue for something in the future, and LISO/CLIC too, since they're both so interdisciplinary and have faculty at the host university that are interested in internet. NWAV is a possible one for those of us looking specifically at linguistic variation, and IGALA would be great for those of us looking at gender/sexuality. those of us doing CA and discourse type stuff might think about the International Pragmatics conference (they've hosted CMC panels a few times).

another idea would be a gigantic conference like the American Anthropology Association annual meeting, which has a separate section for linguistic anthropology papers (and which allows for a definition of linguistic anthropology that's broad enough to encompass everything we do here, really). all they do there is panels, and since i'm currently in the process of putting together a panel for them now on an area of spoken discourse, i'll know a bit more about the how-to should we decide to put something together next year. i think i remember that rae did a poster at the last AAA. maybe she has something to add to that.
 

One possibility might be submitting either a pre-conference or a panel to the Language & Social Interaction Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), which in 2007 will be in San Francisco (Memorial Day weekend). The LSI division (of ICA and NCA) is much more interdisciplinary than other areas of comm, since a lot of people in LSI have some training or background in linguistics, and there's a heavy emphasis on discourse. I think a well-constructed panel could represent a variety of views and still be appealing, and there might be some possibility of cross-sponsorship with the Communication Technology Division. Also I think AoIR 2007 is a very good idea.

The deadline for ICA is usually Nov. 1. I definitely can't do AAA, since it's the same time as NCA.
 

yeah, i've been running into some conflicts with NCA and AAA happening at the same time too. i think i'm going to have to find out more about the NCA or ICA though, or at least their language and social interaction division.

i'd type more, but i'm totally burnt out with conference discussions. more in a few weeks.
 

back from the dead!

i think the panel idea is great. it seems like our research interests all intersect on identity perception... how interlocutors perceive the identity of each other over the interet... or what kinds of cues interlocutors focus on in perception...

we have two basic approaches to these kinds of questions: 1) a discourse based approach, and 2) a linguistic based approach. some of us focus on the role that linguistic variation plays while others of us look at this variation within a larger discourse context. i think it would be interesting to bring these two perspectives toegther to talk about how variation within discourse shape our perceptions of identity.

i also think it would be interesting to put together a panel (or perhaps do a research project) looking specifically at standardization online. i'm not sure if kris would have any interest in doing this though. lauren, josh, and I all dip around this in our research, and i think it would be great if we could address it specifically.
 

welcome back, iorio!
 

I swear, someday I'm going to stop coming into these conversations days and day late.

but yes, I'm really all for organizing a panel or a conference. I always go to NWAV so that would be one I'd love to do. Abstracts are due July 1, but I don't know if panel spots are already filled there (I have some professors who are on some, I think.) AAA is also a good place to look into, they seem very open to interesting panels. But whatever one we all think works best, I'm in 100 percent.