Conferences and events
The Institute of English and American Studies regularly organize academic conferences and other events. These offer the framework for meetings of scientists, nationally as well as worldwide. Please find information on present and past events on this page.
Conferences and events to come:
Previous events
Note: The following is only a list of events where content is still available.
Workshop "English in India and Indian Englishes. New Horizons in the Study of Phonetics and Phonology" (Ph-IndE1)
New Horizons in the Study of Phonetics and Phonology (Ph-IndE1)
Proposal for an Interspeech Satellite Workshop to be held on 7 September 2018
at the University of Hyderabad
Conveners
Robert Fuchs, University of Hamburg, Germany
Pingali Sailaja, University of Hyderabad, India
Despite attempts immediately after independence to reduce the importance of English as a major language in India, it continues to be used widely. Its most important domains are public contexts such as education, administration, business and politics, but it is also used widely by Indians who travel or reside in a region whose local language they do not speak. English is the primary domestic language for only a small minority, although many others use it at home when discussing topics belonging to the public domain, as for example when a parent asks their child what happened at school that day. Around 23 % of the population of India have at least basic knowledge of English, and 4 % are fluent. Based on the 2011 census, this means there are 50 million fluent speakers (Desai et al. 2010, Sailaja 2009, 2012, Fuchs 2014).
While it is widely recognised that English in India is not a monolithic entity and that there is variation across, among others, variables such as education and first language/mother tongue, there is a growing consensus that there is an identifiable variety of English spoken in India. This variety is sometimes called "neutral accent" and is locally prestigious as it shows only a small degree of clearly identifiable traces of mother tongue influence. It is often spoken by and aspired to by educated Indians (Cowie 2007, Maxwell & Fletcher 2009, 2012, Sirsa & Redford 2013, Fuchs 2016). However, the existing evidence is still limited in a number of ways, among them by the number of phonological variables, the number of distinct mother tongue groups and educational backgrounds that have been investigated. A related field of inquiry is the study of Indian Englishes spoken in the diaspora (e.g. Kirkham 2011), which, despite its early successes, covers only some phonological variables and geographic areas (with the bulk of the studies focusing on the United Kingdom, notwithstanding exceptions such as Leung & Deuber 2014).
This workshop will provide a forum for empirical studies on the phonetics and phonology of English in India and Indian Englishes in the diaspora. A particular aim of the workshop is to encourage exchange and collaboration between Indian and international researchers. Dr. Olga Maxwell, University of Melbourne, will give a keynote on future perspectives in the study of the phonology of Indian English.
- Locally prestigious forms of English
- Variation in terms of educational background, socio-economic status, geographic mobility within and outside of India, first language/mother tongue, among others
- Indian Englishes in the diaspora
- Intelligibility, both within and outside India
- The pronunciation of English used in classrooms, both by teachers and in aural and textual instructional materials
All submissions need to involve an empirical analysis in the realm of phonetics/phonology. Abstracts should be up to two pages long (A4, 12 pt Times New Roman, 1.5 spaced, 2 cm margins), including references. All abstracts should comprise
- Brief discussion of previous literature
- Clear statement of the aims of the study and in how far they have not been addressed by previous research
- Clear description of the methods of data analysis and precise indication of the amount of data analysed (e.g. number of speakers, minutes of speech, number of phonemes)
- Description of the results, including statistical tests and graphical illustrations, where appropriate
All submissions should be carefully proofread and submitted via EasyChair [insert link] by 1 May 2018 and presenters will be notified by 15 May 2018.
Participants will need to pay a small fee to cover the costs of lunch and coffee breaks.
Proceedings of the workshop will be hosted by the ISCA archive.
Scientific committee
- Claire Cowie, Edinburgh
- Dagmar Deuber, Münster
- Robert Fuchs, Hamburg
- Ravinder Gargesh, Delhi
- James Lambert, Singapore
- Olga Maxwell, Melbourne
- Hemalatha Nagarajan, Hyderabad
- Pingali Sailaja, Hyderabad
- Lukas Sönning, Bamberg
- Caroline Wiltshire, Gainesville/Florida
- Sabine Zerbian, Stuttgart
References
Cowie, C. 2007. The accents of outsourcing: The meanings of “neutral” in the Indian call centre industry. World Englishes, 26(3), 316-330.
Desai, S.B., A. Dubey, B. L. Joshi, M. Sen, A. Shariff, and R. Vanneman, Human Development in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Fuchs, R. 2014. Integrating variability in loudness and duration in a multidimensional model of speech rhythm: Evidence from Indian English and British English. In Campbell, Nick, Dafydd Gibbon and Daniel Hirst, eds. Social and Linguistic Speech Prosody. Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Speech Prosody, 290-294. Dublin.
Fuchs, R. 2016. Speech Rhythm in Varieties of English. Evidence from Educated Indian English and British English. Singapore: Springer.
Kirkham, S. 2011. The acoustics of coronal stops in British Asian English. Proceedings of the XVII. ICPhS, Hong Kong, 1102-5.
Leung, G. A. & D. Deuber. 2014. Indo-Trinidadian speech. In Hundt, M. & D. Sharma, Eds., English in the Indian Diaspora. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 9-27.
Maxwell, O., & Fletcher, J. 2009. Acoustic and durational properties of Indian English vowels. World Englishes, 28(1), 52-69.
Maxwell, O., & Fletcher, J. 2010. The acoustic characteristics of diphthongs in Indian English. World Englishes, 29(1), 27-44.
Sailaja, P. 2009. Indian English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Sailaja, P. 2012. Indian English: Features and sociolinguistic aspects. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6(6), 359-370.
Sirsa, H., & Redford, M. A. 2013. The effects of native language on Indian English sounds and timing patterns. Journal of Phonetics, 41(6), 393-406.
66. Annual Meeting of the German Association for American Studies: "U.S.-American Culture as Popular Culture"
Please find further information via:
https://dgfa2019.com/
Anglistentag 2016
The Institute of English and American Studies hosted the "Anglistentag" in 2016.
- More information via the webpage of the Anglistentag 2016
17. Norddeutsches Linguistisches Kolloquium (17th Northern German Colloquium, NLK)
Universität Hamburg and the Institute of English and American Studies were hosts of the 17. Norddeutsches Linguistisches Kolloquium (NLK) from March 31, to April 2, 2016 at the Warburg-Haus.
Call for papers (PDF)
Further information (PDF)
Link to the site of the Conference (PDF)
Objective
The NLK stands in a long tradition of promoting young linguists in northern Germany. It aims to
- encourage research activities, in particular by promoting students, young academics and researchers;
- present the latest linguistic research results and methods to a broad public, including interested students and audiences from all walks of life;
- facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue;
- foster young academics from the region;
- bridge the gap between academia and the public.
„Theatre and History. Cultural Transformations“ (19. bis 22. Juni 2014)
Die 23. Jahrestagung der German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), die vom IAA orgainisert wird und vom 19. bis zum 22. Juni 2014 in Hamburg stattfinden soll, wird „Theatre and History: Cultural Transformations“ im zeitgenössischen Drama zum Thema haben. Ansprechpartnerin für die Organisation der Tagung ist Prof. Ute Berns (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Hamburg). Tagungsort wird das Elsa Brändström Haus in Hamburg sein. Die Abgabefrist für Abstracts ist der 15. Dezember 2013.
Hier finden Sie weitere Informationen sowie den Call for Papers zur Tagung (PDF).
„American Media – European Cultures: Negotiations of Transnational Exchange“ (10. bis 12. Oktober 2013)
Die Tagung unter dem Titel „American Media – European Cultures: Negotiations of Transnational Exchange“ wird gemeinsam von Prof. Böger vom Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik der Universität Hamburg und Prof. Decker vom Amerika-Institut der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München organisiert. Sie wird vom 10. - 12. Oktober 2013 im Amerika-Institut der Universität München stattfinden.
Thema der Tagung ist der transnationale Austausch und das Zusammenspiel zwischen der amerikanischen und der europäischen Medienkultur. Amerika besetzt in diesem Bereich derzeit die dominierende Position (z.B. in der Filmindustrie oder auch in den neuen Medien, etwa durch Google oder Facebook). Dennoch hat sich auch in Europa eine eigene mediale Identität entwickelt.
Symposium: „Kulturwissenschaftliche und poetische Annäherungen an William S. Burroughs' Werk und Wirken“
16.8.2013
Symposium: „Kulturwissenschaftliche und poetische Annäherungen an William S. Burroughs' Werk und Wirken“
(Veranstaltungsort: Deichtorhallen Hamburg)
- Weitere Informationen (PDF)
Symposium: „Embracing Difference: The Tradition of Anglican Inclusiveness“
22.9.2012
Symposium: „Embracing Difference: The Tradition of Anglican Inclusiveness“
(Veranstaltungsort: Danish Seaman's Church Hamburg)
- Weitere Informationen (PDF)
Tagung „Narrating Spaces, Reading Urbanity“
6.9. bis 9.9.2012
Tagung „Narrating Spaces, Reading Urbanity“
(Veranstaltungsort: Hauptgebäude der Universität Hamburg)
Gründungskonferenz der „Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung“
30.9. bis 3.10.2010
Gründungskonferenz der „Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung“
(Veranstaltungsort: Flügelbau Ost der Universität Hamburg)