PALA 2012 Malta: Language, Narrative and New Media

We are glad to announce that our Project Leaders, Prof. Grazia Pulvirenti and Prof. Renata Gambino, will attend the PALA 2012 Malta Conference: Language, Narrative and New Media promoted by the Department of English (University of Malta) and Poetics and Linguistic Association.

Plenary Speakers:

Professor Derek Attridge (University of York)

Professor Lesley Jeffries (University of Huddersfield)

Professor David Miall (University of Alberta)

Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham)

Professor Michael Toolan (University of Birmingham)

PALA has constantly sought to encourage research in the intersections between the fields of linguistics and literary studies. The PALA 2012 conference consolidates and extends this by looking at how the modalities and ubiquity of new media compel inquiry into the rapidly evolving technocultural contexts that linguistics and literary studies are themselves implicated in at various levels: institutional, thematic, formal, methodological, metadisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and creative. In particular, the conference is interested in the analysis of the specificities of remediated forms of language use, rhetoric and narrativity that appear to call for rethought protocols and extended repertoires of analysis within linguistics and literary studies. This affords some scope for redefinition of the fields concerned, but also for exploration of how contemporary remediation problematizes our understanding of terms like /language/ and /narrative/ which, never transparent, have now become even more complex. The organizers are confident that the eclectic and adaptable quality of  areas like discourse analysis, stylistics and narratology, and awareness of the broader study of technoculture which is growing apace in various groupings across the humanities, the sciences and information technology, can make for a rich conference that is fully in the spirit of PALA’s long-established traditions of interdisciplinary and innovative inquiry.

Further Info: www.um.edu.mt/events/pala2012