Vivien Law Prize Winner 2019
It is with great pleasure that we announce the winner of the 2019 Vivien Law Prize:
Stephen Turton (University of Oxford) for his essay “The confessional sciences: scientific lexicography and sexology in the Oxford English Dictionary”.
Congratulations, Stephen!
Announcement: 2020 annual colloquium 30/4/2020
The 2020 annual colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas will be held on Thursday 30 April at the University of Westminster, London. Papers are invited on any topic in the History of Linguistics and Linguistic Ideas. We also welcome proposals for panels of papers on a specific topic.
Paper should be 20 minutes in length (+ 10 minutes of discussion). Proposals should be submitted to Mariane Bignotto (LAS-exec-asst@westminster.ac.uk) by 31 December 2019 and should contain the following information: Name, Institutional affiliation (if any), email address, and abstract (max. 250 words). In addition, proposals for panels should include a 100-word statement from the panel organiser(s) giving the rationale for the panel.
Notification of acceptance will be made by 31 January 2020.
The University of Westminster is located on Regent Street in central London and is easily accessible from all London mainline railway stations.
HSS Colloquium 2019 programme
The programme for the Henry Sweet Society Colloquium, Edinburgh 5–7 September 2019, is now available.
Martin Burr Travel Bursary winners 2018
Congratulations to Beijia Chen (Freie Universität Berlin) and Mariarosaria Zinzi (Università degli Studi di Firenze), the winners of the 2018 Martin Burr Travel Bursary at the annual colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society in Edinburgh.
Registration open: 2019 Colloquium Henry Sweet Society
Registration is now open for the 2019 Colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society.
Click here to go to the registration website.
The Poor Man of Nippur – World’s first film in Babylonian
“The Poor Man of Nippur” is a c. 3,000 year-old comic folk tale in Babylonian language. The main manuscript is a clay tablet from 701 BC found at the site of Sultantepe, in South-East Turkey. Recounted by a third-party narrator, it tells the story of the three-fold revenge which Gimil-Ninurta wreaks on the local Mayor after the latter wrongs him.
The film version of this ancient text is a creation of Cambridge Assyriology, and (as far as we know) the world’s first film in Babylonian.
The film was acted by Assyriology students and other members of the Cambridge Mesopotamian community. Shooting locations were in several Cambridge Colleges, King’s Parade, The British Museum, Flag Fen Archaeological Park, and countryside near Grantchester.
This project was partly funded by a Martin Burr Grant from the Henry Sweet Society.
Vivien Law Prize 2018 winners
It is with great pleasure that we announce the joint winners of the 2018 Vivien Law Prize:
Ji Ma (University of Sheffield) for his essay “Medical Metaphor, Body Politic and John Hart’s Conceptualization of Orthographic Reform”.
Raf Van Rooy (KU Leuven) for his essay “From Koine to Standard: the Early Modern Making of a Key Metalinguistic Concept”.
CfP: Panel on Unusual Grammars
I am hoping to organize a panel at the Henry Sweet Society Colloquium 2019 on grammars that are based on models that are or might seem unusual, at least from our modern vantage point. An example might be John Palsgrave’s Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530), modeled on Theodore Gaza’s Greek grammar, on which I aim to present a paper as part of the panel.
Abstracts of no longer than 250 words and including the presenter’s name, affiliation, and contact details can be sent to raf.vanrooy@kuleuven.be before 1 February 2019.
In agreement with the colloquium’s regulations, presentations should last about 20 minutes with 10 minutes Q&A time.
– Raf Van Rooy
CfP: Political Conceptualization of Linguistic Thought, HSS 2019
We are hoping to organize a panel of papers on the political conceptualization of linguistic thought at the 2019 colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society and would like to hear from other researchers interested in presenting a paper, with 20 minutes’ speaking time and 10 minutes for questions. If you are interested in participating or would like to discuss this further, please contact Ji Ma (learnermaji@sina.com). We will need to receive a provisional title and a short (no longer than 250-word) abstract of your contribution by 15 February 2019.
Instead of focusing entirely on the scientific content of historical writings on language, this panel discussion aims to highlight how the ideology and rhetoric of linguistic ideas were informed by the theory and practice of politics in history. There are at least five ways in which linguistic ideas are connected to politics. First, the emergence of a linguistic idea is often motivated by a certain political purpose. Second, a scholar’s linguistic thought may be influenced by his political stance or prejudice (as some scholars have argued in the case of Wilhelm von Humboldt). Third, a scholar’s political motivation (e.g. colonial or post-colonial control) exerts an influence on his grammatical description of a certain language (which might be described in other ways if not for that political purpose). Fourth, a certain political theory is used as a metaphor in expounding a certain linguistic theory. Fifth, a popular political metaphor or a pre-existing political rhetoric is brought into linguistic texts to explain an idea about language.
CfP: HoLLT panels HSS Colloquium in Edinburgh, 4-7 September 2019
Here are two separate calls for expressions of interest in presenting a paper in a HoLLT-themed panel at the Annual Colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas, University of Edinburgh, 4–7 September 2019. Please contact the named panel organizer if you are
interested:
1) Proposed panel on Grammar-Translation in Modern Foreign Language Teaching
I am hoping to organize a panel of papers on ‘Grammar-Translation’ in modern language teaching at the above conference and would like to hear from other researchers interested in presenting a paper, with 20 minutes speaking time and 10 minutes for questions. If you are interested in participating, please contact Rolf Kemmler (rolf.kemmler@diacronia.de). A provisional title and a short abstract (no longer than 250-words) of your contribution will be required by 10 January 2019.
Rolf Kemmler
2) Proposed panel on ‘The Reform Movement in Modern Language Teaching’
We are hoping to organize a panel of papers on the late-19th-century Reform Movement in modern language teaching at the above conference and would like to hear from other researchers interested in presenting a paper, with 20 minutes’ speaking time and 10 minutes for questions. If you are interested in participating or would like to discuss this further, please contact Friederike Klippel (klippel@lmu.de). We will need to receive a provisional title and a short (no longer than 250-word) abstract of your contribution by 10 January 2019.
Friederike Klippel, Andrew Linn and Richard Smith
Call for Papers: Henry Sweet Society Colloquium 2019
The next annual colloquium of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas will be held at the University of Edinburgh, 4–7 September 2019.
Our confirmed plenary speakers are:
Gerda Haßler
Universität Potsdam
Jacqueline Léon
Laboratoire d’histoire des théories linguistiques, CNRS
Geoffrey Pullum
University of Edinburgh
Pierre Swiggers
KU Leuven
The Society now invites proposals for panels and abstracts for individual presentations. Contributions on any aspect of the history of linguistics and linguistic ideas are welcome.
Panels can be made up of either three or six presentations that address a common topic. Panel proposals should contain a brief description of the topic (one to two sentences) and abstracts for the presentations.
Abstracts for both individual presentations and presentations within panels should be no longer than 250 words and include the name, affiliation and contact details of the presenter.
Please send panel proposals and presentation abstracts to james.mcelvenny@mailbox.org no later than 1 March 2019. Notifications of acceptance will be made by 1 April 2019.
All presentations will be in standard conference format, with 20 minutes of speaking time and 10 minutes for questions. Panels may opt for a common 30-minute question and discussion time for groups of three presentations.
Details of registration will appear later on the conference webpage.
Come for the conference, stay for the lovely Edinburgh weather!
HSS Colloquium 2018 programme online
The final program for the 2018 HSS colloquium is available here.