International Conference

Register Revisited:
New Perspectives on Functional Text Variety in English

27-29 June 2013
University of Vechta (Germany)

Organizers:
Christoph Schubert (University of Vechta)
Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Submission of abstracts:
Deadline: 29 June 2012
Notification of acceptance: 31 July 2012
Publication: a selection of the papers will be published

The abstracts must be in English (c. 300 words excluding references) and should include the following information:
Name of author(s), title of paper, affiliation and postal address, email address

Please send your abstract to both conveners:
christoph.schubert@uni-vechta.de
christina.sanchez@sz.uni-erlangen.de

Format of presentations:
20-minute talk followed by 10-minute discussion

Conference fee: EUR 30,-
Early bird registration (until 31 March 2013): EUR 20,-

Confirmed plenary speakers:
Douglas Biber (Northern Arizona University, USA)
Malcolm Coulthard (Aston University Birmingham, UK)
Jan Renkema (Tilburg University, The Netherlands)

Conference website:
(http://www.uni-vechta.de/einrichtungen/wissenschaftliche-einrichtungen/institute-faecher/igk/anglistik/lehrende/schubert-christoph/international-conference-register-revisited/)

Call for Papers

As the possibilities of human communication increase, especially with the advent of modern communication technologies, so does linguistic variability. The aim of this conference, located in the area of variational text linguistics, is to give room to the description and discussion of registers that have not received an appropriate amount of attention so far. Along the lines of Biber and Conrad (2009), we regard register analysis as a perspective on text variety that investigates communicative functions of frequent and pervasive lexicogrammatical features in a sample of text excerpts. The features of registers depend on factors such as the topic, the communicative intentions of the interactants, and the setting.
In the discussion of registers, research has mainly concentrated on well-established and frequent registers such as face-to-face conversations or newspaper language, and many descriptive and theoretical issues have not yet been sufficiently investigated. We welcome papers on spoken, printed, or electronic texts covering various approaches such as corpus linguistics, stylistics, discourse analysis, and pragmatics.

We would like to invite contributions approaching the topic from a theoretical perspective, as exemplified by the following suggestions:

• The relationship between register, coherence, and textuality
• Register switching and embedding in complex discourse situations
• Register classification and text typology
• Registers and intertextuality
• Diachronic development of registers
• The role of registers in the compilation of representative corpora
• Computational algorithms for register discrimination
• The influence of overhearers and bystanders on spoken registers
• Textual revisions in different editions of a monograph
• Textual variants as allotexts

In addition, papers may present empirical case studies on minor registers, such as the following:

• Paratexts and their relation to the larger texts they accompany: acknowledgements, indexes, dedications, mottos, forewords, foot- and endnotes, glossaries, introductions to dictionaries, glosses etc.
• Electronic discourse and hypertext: circulars and mailing lists, out-of-office replies, homepages of linguistics departments, search engines, portals, FAQs etc.
• Text variety in specialized domains (underresearched LSPs)
• Registers in popular culture: pop music lyrics, singer-audience communication in concerts, celebrity interviews, the discourse of sports, computer games, reality TV shows etc.
• Literary texts: haikus, concrete poetry, faction (non-fiction novels), non-fictional registers in literature
• Further marginalized genres: crossword puzzles, riddles, movie trailers, invoices
• Text and image: hypermedia, comics, cartoons, commercials, ads, packaging
• Registers in specific regional/national varieties and cross-cultural genre comparison
• Archaic or obsolescent registers