Call for papers CDDC 15-16/2021
Semanticity, Alterity, Creativity:
Building on Eugenio Coseriu’s Legacy
Eugenio Coseriu (1921-2002) emerged in full force on the international scene in 1958 with a work that was to set the blueprint for the purport and overarching themes of his life-long scientific endeavors: Sincronía, diacronía e historia. El problema del cambio lingüístico. Katsuhiko Tanaka, one of the co-translators of the first Japanese edition and himself a reputed linguist, notes in his explanatory study: this book is not to be viewed as book in/of linguistics, but rather as “an efficient weapon that enables one to deepen one’s own reflection on the fundamental issues of man, language, society and culture” (1981). Tanaka and the other co-translator, Takashi Kamei, first proponent of the idea that Coseriu needs to be considered “a linguist for the 21st century”, converge in assessing the Coserian paradigm as a theoretical outlook truly ahead of its time, whose genuine reception and full development can only be effected under the aegis of a future century.
Coseriu’s project of an “integral linguistics” embraces the systematic study of all the forms and aspects of language as a cultural activity, i.e. as a free, purpose-oriented, infinite activity of meaning creation on a dimension of alterity – creation for and with the other –, as epitomized in what Coseriu defined as the three “primary essential universals of language”: semanticity, alterity, creativity. Coseriu’s work lays out the map of a vast territory to be explored: a grand design where the universal level of speaking in general, the historical level of particular languages and the individual level of discourse are all included in a coherent conceptual construction. The dynamic diversity reflected in language varieties, the role of contexts and of all the circumstances of speech in the production and interpretation of meaning, the emphasis on taking poetic (literary) discourse as a privileged object for linguistic inquiry – since it is in it that all the sense-generating potentialities of language can be found in their full actualization – , these are just a few of the perspectives that place Coseriu at odds with some of his contemporary (20th-century) mainstream linguistic paradigms, and delineate a new path, whose success – or failure – is to be decided in the decades to come.
In the year 2021, which marks the centenary of Eugenio Coseriu’s birth, the InterLitteras Research Centre of Ștefan cel Mare University (Suceava, Romania) kindly invites submissions in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish for issues no. 15 and 16 of the peer-reviewed academic journal
„Concordia Discors vs Discordia Concors: Researches into Comparative Literature, Contrastive Linguistics, Cross-Cultural and Translation Strategies” ( http://condisdiscon.blogspot.ro/2015/02/aims-and-scope.html )
dedicated to exploring Coseriu’s legacy for the development of language studies in the 21st-century, and to reappraising his life-long endeavors towards a systematic conceptual reconstruction of humane sciences in general. In keeping with the journal’s profile, contributions adopting comparative and contrastive perspectives, and aimed at unraveling the interplay of language(s), discourse and culture are warmly welcomed.
The following open list of thematic areas and questions is offered for reflection and debate, in the spirit of anti-dogmatism that constituted Coseriu’s own guiding principle throughout his scholarly life:
- The philosophical foundations of Coseriu’s “integral linguistics”, with a view to addressing a broader and more radical question: Does linguistics (still) need philosophical foundations in the 21st century?
- Critical confrontations with competing (and arguably more successful - in a hypothetical box-office ranking of institutional endorsement -) theoretical trends from 20th century linguistics
- Phenomena pertaining to the reception of Coseriu’s work in diverse linguistic-cultural spaces and periods of time (ranging between poles of acceptance / rejection, in-depth comprehension / partialization, creative development / servile imitation)
- The topicality of Coseriu’s theoretical and methodological outlook for the contrastive study of languages and texts
- The challenges of building the “text linguistics as a hermeneutics of textual sense” envisaged by Coseriu, and delineating its interfaces with other disciplines of textuality and discourse (such as stylistics, poetics, semiotics, discourse analysis, text pragmatics)
- Possibilities and limitations of integral text linguistics as a framework for studying poetic (literary) texts
- Coseriu’s contributions to translation theory and practice, in particular his methodological dissociation between “rational” vs “empirical” limitations of translation.
A special section will be dedicated to interviews, reviews of publications and presentations of projects related to Coseriu’s work and life, as well as research progress reports in adjacent thematic areas.
Interviews and reviews of recent books / plays / films /musical performances / art exhibitions are also accepted, which need not relate to the topic at issue.
Deadlines:
Submission of abstract: March 31st, 2021
(via e-mail, to the addresses indicated under Contacts)
Notification of acceptance: April 15th, 2021
Submission of contribution in
extenso: July 15th, 2021
(via e-mail, to the addresses indicated under Contacts)
Abstracts:
¨ should be submitted in English and not exceed 150 words
¨ should include 5 keywords as well as a short Bionote, also in English (indicating author’s/s’ name, affiliation, academic/research areas of interest, etc), and e-mail address(es)
¨ should indicate section preferred (Comparative Literature; Contrastive Linguistics; Cross-Cultural Strategies; Translation Strategies; Cross-Artistic Approaches; Reviews and presentations) and language of submitted manuscript (English, French, German, Italian or Spanish).
Both Abstracts and Contributions in extenso should be sent no later than the dates specified above to the mail addresses indicated under CONTACTS
Guest editor of the issues: Emma Tămâianu-Morita (Kindai University, Japan)
Editor-in-chief: Gina Măciucă (Stefan cel Mare University, Romania)
CONTACTS
Gina Maciuca: ginamaciuca@litere.usv.ro
Lavinia Ienceanu: lavinia.ienceanu@yahoo.es
