*apologies for cross-postings*

Dear colleagues,

Re: Languages and the First World War - International Conference to be held at the British Library and the University of Antwerp 18-19-20 June 2014.

The call for papers for the above conference is still open (closing at 16.00 on the 1st December 2013).  Submissions for a proposed paper should be in the form of a 300 word abstract and sent to [log in to unmask]  

Conference papers may be given in languages other than English (with a synopsis avialable in English).

The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War coincides with the fading of direct memory of the period. Few can remember the linguistic experience of wartime in the speech of those directly or indirectly involved, but the linguistic traces of combat and civilian life, in and out of war zones, remain. 

The term ‘no man’s land’, for instance, came into general use in English during the First World War, referring to inhabitable areas that saw the fiercest of the fighting between the two sides of the conflict; the use of the term, many centuries earlier referring to an isolated patch of land outside the City of London, is indicative of a pattern of language-change produced by the war – by 1920 ‘Niemandsland’ was a widely used term in German. In the varied theatres of war, the home fronts, training camps, war offices, hospitals and supply trains, language shifts happened, in which the dialects and languages of the various parties involved influenced one another, and in which new language and new language use emerged through new technologies of destruction and communication.

The idea for a conference on the linguistic experience and legacy of the war arose from research into the sociolinguistics of the war (especially the Western Front) and the immediate post-war period in the UK, particularly with reference to how terms had crossed linguistic boundaries, including between hostile linguistic groups.  The conference aims to be truly international and interdisciplinary.

The conference aims to explore the nature of language experiences and change brought about by the First World War, both within languages and between languages. The languages in question include, but are not limited to: Arabic, Hindi, Turkish, Dutch / Flemish, English, French, German, Russian, Yiddish.

Subject areas for the conference have been grouped into five broad sections: Movement between languages; Slang, dialect and cant; Translation, mistranslation and interpretation; Political management of language and Legacy.

Papers by postgraduate students and early career researchers are encouraged.  Full details of the conference can be found on the following blog post  http://bit.ly/123zZE8 (which also contains a link to the full call for papers PDF)

With kind regards,
From the conference co-organisers:

Robert Davies, Matthew Shaw and Julian Walker (British Library); Christophe DeClercq (UCL/University of Antwerp); Marnix Beyen and Els Maldoy (University of Antwerp) and Hilary Footitt (Univeristy of Reading).