Few months ago we spread
an interesting CfP, which resulted now in an international symposium to be held
in Paris on 12th and 13th June 2014. Organized by the Sorbonne University and
the Center for historical Studies Sciences-Po, the conference gathers scholars
from different research fields, granting so an interdisciplinary approach to
the discussion. Historians, linguists and specialists on literature will focus
on the development and the changes in the French language, as well as on the
other related European languages during the Great War. Two central questions
are at the center of the interest of the symposium. On the one hand the role
played by the WWI in the history of the French language, starting from the
assumption that the former deeply shaped this latter and questioning as a
consequence the interconnection between war and language histories. On the
other hand all this will enable the scholars to finally hold in due
consideration the history of French languages during the 19th and 20th
centuries, which was up to now mainly neglected.
Representing a fascinating and yet till unexplored laboratory for some of the
central themes of the contemporary linguistic (just think about the beginning
of the sociolinguistic on the background of essential reconfigurations even of
the social relationships) and providing an enormous amount of materials (both
oral and written witnesses), the Great War represents for the linguists a
privileged research field. Besides the already discussed question about the
argot of the trenches in France and in the other countries, the conference aims
to open new horizons discussing many central topics, concerning for example the
periodization of the language history and the demarcation line eventually
represented by the WWI; or concerning the ways of speaking and the neologisms,
the contacts and contaminations between different languages or the specialist
vocabulary of the military or technical language of the war, and again the
written language and the topic of education.
Considering all these aspects of the “linguistic phenomenon” during the Great
War, the conference will disclose also its historical and cultural
implications, promoting so the discussion among a wider public and increasing
the contact and exchange between historians and linguists. The full program is
available in French here.