SHESL 2022 symposium "Documenting and describing Asian languages", January 26-28

Event organized under the scientific responsibility of the Société d'histoire et d'épistémologie des sciences du langage (SHESL), the Histoire des Théories Linguistiques-HTL laboratory (CNRS), the Identités, Cultures, Territoires-ICT (Université de Paris) and the UMR Pays germaniques (Ecole Normale Supérieure-CNRS).

From Wednesday January 26 to Friday January 28, 2022 - Maison de la recherche - Auditorium Georges Dumézil
Inalco - 2, rue de Lille - 75007 Paris
Information and registration: http://shesl.org/index.php/colloque-shesl-2021/
Contact: shesl@shesl.org
Vaccination pass and mask mandatory.
Schedules:
Wednesday, January 26: 9:30am-7:00pm
Thursday, January 27: 9:30am-8:00pm
Friday, January 28: 9:30am-4:30pm

Documenting and Describing Asian Languages: History and Epistemology

This symposium proposes to address, from a historical and/or epistemological point of view, the activities of documenting and describing Asian languages. "Asia" is to be taken here in the broad sense given to it by the Asiatic Society, i.e. as designating an area from the Maghreb to the Far East.

By "activities for the documentation and description of Asian languages" we mean:

- on the one hand, the collection of linguistic data, in all its forms (word lists, constitution of archives, fonds, "linguistic surveys", questionnaires, audio and/or video recordings, corpora, databases, etc.);

- on the other hand, the collection of linguistic data, in all its forms (word lists, constitution of archives, fonds, "linguistic surveys", questionnaires, audio and/or video recordings, corpora, databases, etc.).);

- on the other hand, the elaboration of tools for representing, synchronously or diachronously, a language: writing systems, grammars, monolingual dictionaries, lexicons, translation instruments (e.g. bi- or trilingual dictionaries), manuals, treatises on poetics, rhetoric, etc.

All knowledge relating to Asian languages will be considered as a historical reality, i.e. as an act of knowledge implemented by instances anchored in a "here", a "now", a "horizon of retrospection" or even a "horizon of projection" (Auroux 1989: 13). The aim is therefore to study the various forms that linguistic knowledge and documentation practices relating to Asian languages have taken over time, as well as the evolutions or transformations of these forms, from a fundamentally reflexive perspective.

In this context, the colloquium will welcome papers on:

- the "actors" in the documentation/description of Asian languages (and their cultural environment), whether individuals (Asian scholars, missionaries, orientalists, philologists, grammarians, linguists, translators, etc.) or institutions (Fort William College in Calcutta, etc.);

- projects or undertakings related to the documentation/description of Asian languages: founding of institutions (Asian societies in various Western countries, congresses, French Institutes in the Near and Middle East, etc.The methods and strategies used to learn Oriental languages: interaction with local scholars, reliance on Asian scholarly traditions, the myth and reality of the "self-taught" approaches of European scholars, access to the materials needed to learn languages (manuscript collections and their circulation, libraries, etc.); reliance on an Asian language already known to gain access to another (e.g. Manchu and Chinese, Chinese and English). theoretical backgrounds to the documentation/description of Asian languages: recourse to Western descriptive categories or incorporation of "indigenous" categories into European works; extension of the Greco-Latin model to Asian languages or from one Asian language to others (the phenomenon of "extended grammars", cf. Auroux 1989 and 1994, Aussant 2017, Guillaume 2020); strategies adopted in the face of difficult-to-treat phenomena, blind spots in descriptions, etc.;

- methodologies for documenting/describing Asian languages: the different types of grammars/dictionaries/manuals, transcription, translation, annotation, etc.

- objectives of Asian language documentation/description: institution of a language, organization and regulation of a literary language, development of a language expansion policy for internal or external use, language learning, census, cartography, preservation of endangered languages, cultural interest, etc.

- the tools and methods used to transmit knowledge about Asian languages (didactic uses and concrete teaching practices: interlinear translation, repetition, etc.).

This symposium will therefore focus on a detailed analysis of linguistic knowledge about Asian languages, produced both inside and outside Europe, while paying close attention to the importance of the contexts in which this knowledge is produced and circulated. The aim is to clarify the way in which knowledge is conditioned, more or less directly, by the complex identities of the actors and institutions within which it is produced. The very category of "Asian language" in Asia/East (does it exist there?) and in Europe will also be questioned, notably through the omnipresent category of "Oriental languages", whose various declensions may be considered (languages of biblical exegesis, languages of diplomacy and commerce, etc.).

Partners:
ANR IndesLing
EA Identités, Cultures, Territoires (Université de Paris)
École Française d'Extrême-Orient
Inalco
LabEx Empirical Foundations of Linguistics
Société d'Histoire et d'Épistémologie des Sciences du Langage
UMR 7597 Laboratoire d'Histoire des Théories Linguistiques
UMR 8547 Pays germaniques
UMR 8202 SeDyL