STANDARDIZATION
AS LANGUAGE MANAGEMENT
7th International Language Management Symposium
August 30-31, 2021 (Monday and Tuesday)
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
IMPORTANT: Due to the epidemiological situation, the symposium will be organized as a hybrid event, combining a “live” in-person meeting with “virtual” online presentations.
Please note that the deadline for abstract submission has been extended until June 30, 2021.
Standardization as a process based on intervening in variation is usually aimed at efficient communication on a larger scale. It not only covers the emergence of standard varieties of languages, but also language cultivation, elaboration of genres and terminologies, and language teaching as well as the development of norms and standards for industry, commerce and intercultural contact.
How far should standardization go? Standards help to measure and to compare quality. Achieving standards in various areas of human activities, extending far beyond language use, has been a product of the modern era. Standardization is inextricably linked with social modernization, i.e. with social and cultural development through industrialization, urbanization, and digitalization as well as political, economic and cultural integration and unification. This era is followed by the pluralization of the existing standards in connection with the post-modernist bolstering of regional and minority identities (Neustupný 2006).
Standardization as a major goal of language development is usually conceived as politically authorized or particular interest groups’ organized activities, but success is ultimately measured by the implementation of proposed standards within the wider speech community; however, such standards may be contested and resisted in everyday interactions. In addition, some standards emerge in a bottom-up manner, stemming, for example, from evolving community norms. For these reasons, research on standardization is well-suited for the language management approach (Fairbrother et al. 2018, Kimura & Fairbrother 2020).
The symposium aims to explore 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 papers 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? Apart from language structures, which patterns of language use have become objects of standardizing efforts? (E.g. genres, communication standards in the service industry, technology, the sciences and professions, described levels of language skills as in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, etc.)
(2) How strict is the implementation of standards in various 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