Viadrina Languaging Winter School

Methods in Studying Language as Multilingual, Embodied and Mediated Practice

10-12th January 2024, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

The Linguistics Department at European University Viadrina invites applicants for a PhD winter school. The Viadrina Languaging Winter School will take place from 10th to 12th January 2024 at Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, in the vicinity of Berlin. In the tradition of culturally-oriented language research at European University Viadrina, our winter school teaches methods that allow to study language as an interactive, socially embedded and multimodal cultural practice. In line with current posthumanist language theory (Schneider & Heyd to appear) and embodied multimodality (Müller 2018; Müller & Kappelhoff 2018), “coconstructions” (Fernández-Villanueva & Jungbluth 2016), and border thinking (Höfler 2020), we question body/mind dualisms and understand language as languaging, that is, as “everyday multimodal communicative acts” (De Meulder and Kusters et al. 2019), which bring about meaning and social relationships.

Programme (PDF)

Location:

11.1. Thursday in Auditorium Maximum (AM) 02
12.1. Friday in Auditorium Maximum (AM) 104

The event invites PhD students from all fields of linguistics, anthropology, media studies and other disciplines whose work includes the analysis of data in verbal and/or multimodal communication and interaction.

Day one focuses on methodological inputs:

Language Ideological Approaches to Data (Britta Schneider)
Analysing Coconstruction (Konstanze Jungbluth & Rita Vallentin)
Gesture & Languaging (Cornelia Müller)
Media Analyses of Video Data (Sarah Greifenstein & Cornelia Müller)

Day two is reserved for joint data sessions of participants’ projects.

Requirements and Application

All participants should prepare a 20-minute presentation of their project with a special focus on the methods they apply. To apply, send a motivation letter (max. 1 page) and an abstract of 500 words that describes your PhD project. A limited number of travel grants will be available, please indicate in your letter if you want to apply for these.

15th of September: Application Deadline (send one pdf to: pilyarchuk@europa-uni.de)
10th of January: Arrival and Reception
11th of January: Classes
12th of January: Joint Data Sessions

References

De Meulder, Maartje, Annelies Kusters, Erin Moriarty, and Joseph J. Murray. 2019. 'Describe, don't prescribe. The practice and politics of translanguaging in the context of deaf signers', Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 40: 892-906.

Fernández-Villanueva, Marta and Konstanze Jungbluth. 2016. Beyond Language Boundaries, Berlin: De Gruyter.

Höfler, Concha. 2020. Boundaries and Belonging in the Greek Community of Georgia, Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Müller, Cornelia. 2019. ‘Gesture and sign: Cataclysmic break or dynamic relations? In: W. Sandler, M. Gullberg, C. Padden (eds.), Visual Language. Lausanne: Frontiers Media. doi: 10.3389/978-2-88963-078-3.

Müller, Cornelia and Hermann Kappelhoff. 2018. Cinematic Metaphor. Experience – Affectivity – Temporality In collaboration with Greifenstein, Sarah, Horst, Dorothea, Scherer, Thomas, Schmitt, Christina. Berlin/Boston: De GruyterMouton, Reihe: Cinepoetics – English Edition 4.

Schneider, Britta and Theresa Heyd (to appear) “Unthinking language from a posthumanist perspective.” Signs and Society (Special Issue Unthinking Language).

Contact

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Müller

cmueller@europa-uni.de

For Applications:
Kateryna Pilyarchuk

pilyarchuk@europa-uni.de