Panel Description:

Language and mobility are almost inseparable. On the one hand, changes in language use are often initiated by socially and/or geographically mobile speaker groups. On the other hand, the mobility of language users is almost always reflected by and in the mobility of the language itself. On an overarching level, this means that languages are “turning up in unexpected places [...] [and] taking unexpected forms” (Heller 2007: 343), such as in the case of New Englishes, where new varieties develop due to contact between speakers of different languages who need to interact with each other. On a social level, speaking the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ language can enable or prevent upward social mobility (cf. Iversen et al. 2017 for an overview), which might even result in speakers abandoning local or heritage languages in favour of a variety which is perceived as more prestigious. Regarding geographical mobility, English functions as a global lingua franca and might make learning another local foreign language obsolete – especially, when the language is used as a tool for achieving locational freedom and mobility rather than social or cultural belonging (see, e.g., Szczepaniak-Kozak et al. 2022). Many highly mobile professionals, such as digital nomads or travel bloggers and writers rely almost exclusively on English rather than a local language when abroad (e.g. Luzón 2016).

In tourism contexts and travel writing, experiences are planned, described, and processed through language; (lacking) proficiency in a local language – or rather an insufficient local use of English – might even result in replanning or not travelling. Consequently, while local languages appear to be learnt decreasingly often, local and international speakers’ motivation to acquire English in addition to their first language(s) is strongly increasing (e.g. Meierkord 2020 on English usage in the Maldives). While language might enable contact between different social and cultural groups, it might also be altered by it. Thus, the mobility of diasporic communities is reflected in their way of using language.

Language and mobility share a linguistic, social, and cultural connection. Researching these connections and the varying and ever-changing influence within their interrelation unites scholars in linguistics, literature, and cultural studies. This panel aims at bringing together scholars from different fields to shed light on the multiplicity of relations between language and mobility. We invite contributions related (but not limited) to New Englishes, diasporic communities, language in tourism, language and immobility, grassroots multilingualism, travel writing, colonial writing, narratives of mobility, language and social/professional mobility, and identity construction in touristic spaces.

References:

Heller, M. (2007). The future of ‘bilingualism’. In M. Heller (ed.) Bilingualism: A Social Approach (pp. 340–345). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Iversen, V., A. Krishna, & K. Sen (2017). Beyond poverty escapes – social mobility in the Global South: A survey article. Global Development Institute Working Paper Series, 2017-017, 1–29.

Luzón, M.-J. (2016). Features of ELF interactions in travel blogs: Travelers doing interactional work. Ibérica 31: 127–148.

Meierkord, C. (2020). Spread of English at the grassroots? Sociolinguistic evidence from two post-protectorates: Maldives and Uganda. In A. Kirkpatrick (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes (pp. 233–249). London: Routledge.

Szczepaniak-Kozak, A., E. Wąsikiewicz-Firlej, & H. Lankiewicz (2022). Global English versus local language during a sojourn abroad: A narrative study. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 22(2): 53–63. https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v22i2.58

Part 1:

• 11:30-11:45 Welcome 
• 11:45-12:15 Elisabeth Reber (Universität Hildesheim): “Language, mobility, and practices of address in legal discourse”
• 12:15-12:45 Matthias Klumm (Universität Augsburg): “Negotiating prestige and identity through language: An empirical analysis of the use of nominal address by socially mobile speakers in Jamaica”

Part 2: 

• 14:00-14:30 Dominik Schoppa (Universität Augsburg): “Mobility, migrants, and expatriates in postcolonial megacities: Identity construction and methodological challenges at the interface of New Englishes and urban linguistics”
• 14:30-15:00 Teresa Pham (Universität Vechta): “I wish we lived here; would be here every week!” – Spatial language in online travel reviews”
• 15:00-15:30 Patricia Ronan (Technische Universität Dortmund): “Visualising linguistic mobility – the case of a Dublin City linguistic landscape”

Part 3:

• 15:00-15:30 Anika Gerfer (Universität Münster): “The mobility of Jamaican Creole: Language use in global reggae and dancehall music”
• 15:30-16:00 Markus Freudinger (Universität Paderborn): “About Herbert, yass queen and Powerhäuser. Language and Mobility on Drag Race Germany”
• 16:00-16:30 Panel Discussion 

Part 1:

• 11:00 - 11:15 Welcome and general introduction 

• 11:15 - 11:45 Stefan Diemer (Trier University of Applied Sciences): "Embodied lexis (and grammar?) – Showings in video-mediated conversations"

• 11:45 - 12:15 Theresa Heyd & Iris Bencsik (University of Heidelberg): "Cringe: the sociolinguistics of digital embodiment"

• 12:15 - 12:45 Daniela Landert (University of Heidelberg): "Embodied epistemic stance: Multimodal resources in expressing (lack of) certainty with I think"

Part 2:

• 14:00 - 14:30 Marina Reis de Souza (University of Hildesheim): "Multimodality and topic management: so-prefaced questions"

• 14:30 - 15:00 Maximiliane Frobenius (Münster University): "Lexico-grammatical units in multi-modal taste assessments"

• 15:00 - 15:30 Marit Aldrup (University of Potsdam): "Language and the body: Requests for reconfirmation as multimodal gestalts"

Part 1: "Narrative | Affects | Form"

• 11.00 - 11.15   Introductory Remarks
• 11.15 - 11.45   Martina Allen (Goethe University Frankfurt): “Feeling with the Castaway: Affect, Immersion and Narrative Misdirection in William Golding’s Pincher Martin and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi”
• 11.45 - 12.15   Denise Wong (Queen Mary University of London): “Disaffection and You-Narration in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Tambudzai Trilogy (1988–2018)”
• 12.15 - 12.45   Jennifer Leetsch (Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies): “Affect, Genre and the Slave Narrative: Archives of Feeling in The History of Mary Prince”

• 14:00 - 14.30   Sarah Wegener (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz): “‘And my heart throbs thick with fear’: Forms of Phobia and Uncanny Affect in Rosamund Marriott Watson’s Gothic Poetics”
• 14.30 - 15.00   Anja Hartl (University of Konstanz): “The Politics of Feeling in the Condition-of-England Novel: Shame in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South”
• 15.00 - 15.30   Gero Bauer (University of Tübingen): “Revisiting the ‘Fleshly School’: Genre and Affect in Pre-Raphaelitism and Its Legacy”

• 15.00 - 15.30   Ralf Haekel (University of Duisburg-Essen): “Affect and Genre in Romantic Drama: Joanna Baillie’s Plays of the Passions”
• 15.30 - 16.00   Martin Riedelsheimer (University of Augsburg): “Metaphysical Poetry: Affect, Form and Genre
• 16.00 - 16.30   Concluding Discussion

Panel description:

The Scottish Government presented the Independence Referendum of 2014 as ‘a choice between two futures’. A ‘Yes’ vote would allow to ‘make the most of the many opportunities that lie ahead […]. The door will open to a new era for our nations.’ In contrast, ‘[i]f we vote No, Scotland stands still’. The Independence Referendum starkly put into relief a sense of futurity we understand not just as the notion of what will happen, or of a time that is not yet, but rather as the idea of the future intertwined with affective attachments such as hope and fear. This concept emphasises both the potentiality and transformative nature of thinking about what lies ahead – what José Esteban Muñoz calls ‘the not-quite-here’. The exploration of identities and imagined worlds through a future-oriented lens expands the present’s horizons, challenging established narratives and introducing new political concerns. This process of activating or modifying unrealised possibilities, which may involve counter-writing or queering, disrupts social structures and offers alternative political, cultural, and ethical avenues. Yet, as Arjun Appadurai reminds us, factors such as class, gender, and ethnicity determine who can envision and actively participate in shaping potential futures and might render thinking about a different tomorrow an almost insurmountable task. Also, hopeful attitudes towards the future can be instrumentalised, not least in liberal-capitalist societies that thrive on feeding ‘promises of happiness’ (Sara Ahmed), without, however, ever delivering on these. As Lauren Berlant argues in Cruel Optimism, for the individual, dreams of the good life can thus actually become obstacles to prospering. Therefore, futurity should be considered not only as a concept and theme, but as an active process of negotiating empowerment and social change.

Particularly suited to explore future visions, the creative arts reflect on the limitations of the past and transcend these in imaginative leaps, introducing fresh ideas and concerns with potential to lead to change. Futurity is literally engraved in the wall of the Scottish Parliament Building with a quotation attributed to Alasdair Gray: ‘work as if you live in the early days of a better nation’. However, explorations of Scottish futurities long predate devolution and the Independence Referendum. We find them in William Dunbar’s apocalyptic visions and Robert Burns’s Romantic horizons; in the Border ballads’ anticipative worldmaking and Hamish Henderson’s striving to revive folk communities; in Calvinist horizons and providential narratives; in David Lyndsay’s Satyre calling for political reforms in the mid-sixteenth century and 7/84’s urgent agitprop; in Walter Scott’s romantic conception of history as progress towards modernity and the potentialities of becoming offered by Catherine Carswell, Nan Shepherd, and Willa Muir; in Patrick Geddes’s urban civics and the wall-less spaces of the National Theatre of Scotland; in George Mackay Brown’s probing of the future of community and Hugh MacDiarmid’s socialist myths and dreams; in Edwin Morgan’s interstellar tomorrows and Naomi Mitchison’s memoirs of the future; in Alasdair Gray’s reimagined city as the rewritten fabric of the nation and James Kelman’s explorations of the possibilities of language and working-class experience; in Ali Smith’s narratives of hope and A. L. Kennedy’s question of what becomes; in Claire Cunningham’s choreographies of form-of-life and Jackie Kay’s creations of transformed identities; and in Douglas Stuart’s recent revisiting of struggles with limiting notions of masculinity and sexuality and recovering a sense of futurity in the post-Thatcher era.

In this section we seek to explore the diverse expressions of futurities in the Scottish context, from mediaeval and early modern imaginations of the future to reimaginings of past possibilities, and to opportunities and constraints on futurity within the present moment, particularly amidst current crises. With an inclusive definition of Scottishness as by birth, residence, or choice and encompassing the Scottish diaspora, we invite approaches from fields such as literature, theatre, cultural studies, visual arts, performance, spoken word events and oral storytelling, music, history, and beyond. We welcome papers that explore a wide range of topics related to Scottish futurities, including but not limited to:

• Envisioning the Beyond: Apocalyptic and Dystopian Visions in Scottish Mediaeval and Early Modern Literature
• The Futurity of a Justified Sinner: Calvinist Horizons and Providential Narratives
• Haunting the Future: the Temporalities of Scottish Gothic
• Red Horizons: Socialist Futurities
• National(ist) Futurities: the Scottish Literary Renaissance
• Scottish Science Fiction and Fantasy
• Bella Caledonia: Devolution and the Imagination of Scotland’s Futures
• Island Prospects: Shetland, Orkney, Hebrides
• Scottish Futurities and Ecological Consciousness
• Historical Futurities
• Scotland’s Queer Futurities
• Scotland’s Decolonial Futures
• Crip Futurity in Scottish Literature and Performance
• Crises of Futurity

With this section, we would also like to promote the Scottish Literature and Culture Network (ScotLitCult), a collaborative platform dedicated to the scholarly discussion of Scottish literature and culture in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), fostering exchange and advancing research and HE teaching in this field.

Website: https://scotlitcult.blogspot.com/

Part 1: "Scotland and the Nation State"

• 11:00 - 11:15 Introduction 

• 11:15 - 11:45 Julia Ditter (University of Freiburg): "Beyond the Caledonian Antisyzygy: Scottish Studies for the Future"

• 11:45 - 12:15 Leonie Jungen (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz): "To 'lead back the memory of any wandering son of Scotland' – Nomadism and Historical Futurities in Christian Isobel Johnstone’s Clan-Albin: A National Tale (1815)"
• 12:15 - 12:45 Gero Guttzeit (Luwig Maximilians University Munich): "In Search of Lost Futures? Stevenson and the Gothic Temporalities of Scottish Nationhood"

Part 2: "Futurities of/in Scottish Crime Fiction"

• 14:00 - 14:30 Joachim Frenk (Saarland University): “Yesterday’s Men and Present Scottish Futures: Ian Rankin’s A Heart Full of Headstones and Irvine Welsh’s The Long Knives”

• 14:30 - 15:00 Ann-Christin Herbold (University of Kassel): "Something Old, Something New, Something Blue: Imaginations of Scotland’s Future in Ian Rankin’s Rebus Novels"
• 15:00 - 15:30 Silvia Mergenthal (University of Konstanz): "From Body Politic to Impolitic Corpses: Paul Johnston's Dystopian Crime Fiction"

Part 3: "Transformative Futures?"

• 15:00 - 15:30 Wolfgang Funk (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz): “Ovid in Inverness: The Metamorphosis of Scottish Myths in Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy”

• 15:30 - 16:00 Monika Class (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz): "'Children are our future': The Queer Child in Douglas Stuart’s Scottish Futurities in Shuggie Bain"
• 16:00 - 16:30 Dietmar Böhnke (University of Leipzig): "‘Early Days of a Better Nation’? Utopian vs Dystopian Thought in the Work of Alasdair Gray"

Panel description: 

English language education in Germany is not only focused on developing learners’ linguistic skills and competences, but also on making learners aware of the intricate interplay between language and context. In this setting, the notion of teaching and learning about literatures and cultures plays a most pivotal role, as learners’ reflections of literary and cultural discourses become a most important prerequisite for successful societal participation and personal agency. 

This prominent position of literatures and cultures is also mirrored in current research on language education where, over the past two decades, many studies have addressed the question of how to productively integrate literary and cultural learning in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. In this context, our section explores some recent research trajectories in the field, thus showcasing the versatility of new approaches to teaching literatures and cultures in the English language classroom.

Part 1:

• 11:00 - 11:20 Daniel Becker & Silke Braselmann (Münster & Jena) „New Developments in Teaching Literatures and Cultures in English Language Education – Introduction to the Panel” 

• 11:20 - 11:50 Michael Prusse (Zürich) “Focus on Teacher Education: Multiliteracies, Multimodal Narratives, and a Blog”
• 11:50 - 12:20 Saskia Schabio (Stuttgart) “Literature Classroom into Reading Lab – Research Literacy of Teachers”
• 12:20 - 12:45 Open Panel Discussion  

Part 2:

• 14:00 - 14:30 Stefan Eick (Bamberg) “Creativity as a new paradigm for the EFL classroom”

• 14:30 - 15:00 Janice Bland (Bodø) “Reading for In-Depth Learning on Guardianship and Climate Literacy”

• 15:00 - 15:30 Laurenz Volkmann (Jena) "Wokeness as 'spectacle'? Or: Is virtue signalling the new cultural capital in EFL? A critical enquiry"

Part 3:

• 15:00 - 15:30 Thorsten Merse (Duisburg-Essen) “Principled innovations or eclectic amalgam? A meta-reflective view on trends and tropes in cultural and literary learning”

• 15:30 - 16:00 Max von Blanckenburg (Regensburg) “Cultural identity, politics, and appropriation. Contested concepts and their implications on cultural learning”
• 16:00 - 16:30 World Café: New Directions for Teaching Cultures in English Language Education

You can find the workshop description here.