PPPD 2014 - International Workshop on Pragmatic Perspectives on Postcolonial Discourse: Linguistics and Literature

Pragmatic Perspectives on Postcolonial Discourse: Linguistics and Literature
Christoph Schubert, University of Vechta
Laurenz Volkmann, University of Jena
Thematic outline
Sociolinguistic research on global varieties of English so far has mainly concentrated on the levels of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary. In order to widen the approach and to attain a complete picture of discursive variability, “variational pragmatics” has developed in recent years (e.g. Schneider/Barron 2008). Along these lines, the research on postcolonial Englishes, as named by Schneider (2007), has likewise been complemented by “postcolonial pragmatics”, investigating context-dependent language use in the New Englishes (cf. Janney 2009 and Anchimbe/Janney 2011). Accordingly, the projected workshop intends to further develop this new subdiscipline, which is still in its infancy (cf. Schneider/Barron 2011), and to point out emerging trends as well as new directions in research.
Corresponding to the motto “Building Bridges ? Inter- and Intradisciplinary Research” of ISLE-3, our aim is an integrative investigation at the interface of linguistic methodologies and literary text analysis. Our interdisciplinary workshop will deal with culture-dependent linguistic interferences in postcolonial varieties of English in ESL- (e.g. India, Nigeria, and South Africa) and ENL-areas (e.g. Canada and Australia) around the world. Hybrid communicative situations based on ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity will result in similarly hybrid communicative and social practices. Moreover, the internal communication system between characters in literary texts, particularly in drama, is complemented by an external communication system between text producer and recipient, which will have relevant repercussions on the pragmatic analysis. Central pragmatic paradigms to be discussed will be, for example, politeness, indirectness, humour, conversational routines and maxims as well as the variational use of speech act conventions.
The literary texts under discussion are seen as media reflecting and creating reality, so that they will provide intriguing insights into discourse phenomena that can be analysed by a joint venture of linguistics and literary studies. Since pragmatic approaches in literary analysis are quite rare (e.g. Black 2006), the workshop aims to show that fruitful collaboration between the disciplines is both possible and necessary.