Concept Note

Humberto Maturana in “Biology of Language: The Epistemology of Reality” raised crucial questions pertaining to the process that must take place within an organism to establish a linguistic domain with another and the linguistic interaction that permits an organism (us) to describe and to predict events that it may experience. These questions transcend the notion of language outside the precincts of linguistic verbiages towards a multi-contextual, multidisciplinary and cognitive platform of ‘languaging’ in which language becomes a “process of making meaning and shaping knowledge and experience” (Swan 96). According to the 2011 census, there are only 22 scheduled languages spoken by nearly 96.71 percent of the Indian population but there are more than 19500 existing languages or dialects that are spoken by the remaining population. Given, the kind of role language plays in its social discourse, it may be inferred that they are not only a tool for communication but help a great deal in social integration, historical documentation, development and so on and so forth. It may not be exaggeration to also infer that language makes literature and in turn literature also becomes the savior of the language in which it is written, expanding its horizon and not just being a tool of thought-transference. In such a context, it becomes imperative to investigate the methodologies in which one realizes that languaging has always been seminal towards validating and authenticating various forms of epistemological and ontological existence, within and beyond words.

2019, has already been declared the ‘International Year of Indigenous Languages’ that stridently echoes the 2008 sentiment “languages matter” and plays a pivotal role in ‘sustainable development, peace-building and reconciliation’(2019). It insisted that retaining the diversity of language was of extreme importance for it adds to the vantage point of multilingualism, a key feature of Indian mental, emotional and intellectual make-up. Till date, research on languages has been underpinned with multifarious approaches by scholars from diverse academic backgrounds. Scholars from linguistics, literature, translation and computational linguistics have adopted different independent methodologies and incompatible styles but in current scenario there is an imperative need to look into the possibilities of a collaborative framework that sustains the language, especially the indigenous ones. 2019 has already set the tone towards this mélange and an extension of the same vision and mission with an enthusiastic fervor from academia will benefit society at large and languages in particular. Keeping these arguments at the backdrop, this conference takes up the Fanonian challenge of turning a new leaf by bringing together various groups whose objectives are similar in generating new concepts which will reinvent the existing process of languaging and translating and explore its de-hierarchized dimension.

In this conference the participants are invited to contribute in the following areas:

  • Languaging and translation
  • Language and literature
  • Language acquisition and learning
  • Interpreting language: beyond linguistic associations
  • Language as/and power
  • Indigenous languages and folk literature
  • Language and capitalism
  • Academic and non-academic languages
  • Social, cultural, and political contexts of language teacher education
  • Coloniality and social justice in revitalization of language
  • Language as a decolonial pedagogy
  • Intercultural education
  • Language and existence
  • Digitalization and language preservation
  • ‘Endangered’ and/or ‘less implemented’ / ‘less spoken’ / ‘only spoken and not written’
  • Machine translation
  • NLP applications
  • Phonology, Morphology and word segmentation
  • Semantics: lexical, sentence level, textual inference and other areas of semantics
  • Sentiment analysis, Stylistic analysis, and Argument mining
  • Syntax: Tagging, Chunking and Parsing
  • Innovation in language teaching and learnings
  • Language teaching methodology
  • Corpus Linguistics
  • Forensic Linguistics
  • Historical Linguistics
  • Neurolinguistics and Psycholinguistics
  • Orthography, Pragmatics, Rhetoric and Stylistics
  • Language in every day use, social media and virtual communications
  • Sociolinguistics and Dialectology
  • Politeness and Discourse Analysis

In addition to the above mentioned broad areas, we also solicit papers suitable to the theme of the conference. Selected presenters will be invited to contribute to an edited volume to be brought out by a reputed publisher. The edited book in four volumes will broadly comprise chapters from Literature, Linguistics, Translation and Computational Linguistics. Along with the conveners, Dr. Asif Ekbal will be co-editing the volume. Further details will be provided after the conference.

Submissions

We invite abstract submission from scholars of all backgrounds for regular presentation. Individual abstracts of about 200-250 words on the above mentioned themes must be submitted on/by 30 November 2019 to hssconferenceiitpatna@gmail.com. The selected presenters will be notified by 20 December 2019. The selected participants are required to register by 10 January 2020 and submit their full paper by 31 January 2020. All the documents need to be prepared according to the MLA 7th Edition format. To encourage student’s participation, there will be a student “works-in-progress”/poster session. Questions and requests for more information should be directed to Dr. Priyanka Tripathi (priyankatripathi@iitp.ac.in)

Committee

Patrons

Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya
Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Patna
Prof. D G Rao
Director, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru

Conveners

Dr. Priyanka Tripathi (Convener), IIT Patna
Dr. Tariq Khan (Co-Convener), CIIL, Mysuru
Dr. Sayan Dey (Co-Convener), Yonphula Centenary College, Royal University of Bhutan

Advisory Committee

Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Director, IIT Patna
Prof. T.S. Satyanath, Delhi University
Prof. Panchanan Mohanty, University of Hyderabad
Prof. Sushant Kumar Mishra, JNU Delhi
Prof. Udaya Narayana Singh, AMITY University, Gurgaon
Prof. H S Komalesha, IIT Kharagpur
Prof. M S Pandey, BHU, Varanasi
Prof. Su-ming Khoo, National University of Ireland
Mr. Tshering Wangdi, President, Sherubtse College, Royal University of Bhutan
Mr. Tshering Thinley, Dean of Academic Affairs, Yonphula Centenary College, Bhutan

Confirmed Speakers

Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Director, IIT Patna
Prof. Panchanan Mohanty, University of Hyderabad
Prof. Su-ming Khoo, National University of Ireland
Prof. Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni, University of South Africa
Prof. M S Pandey, BHU, Varanasi
Prof. Sushant Kumar Mishra, JNU Delhi
Prof. H S Komalesha, IIT Kharagpur
Prof. T Ravichandran, IIT Kanpur
Prof. S. Chitra, Yonphula Centenary College, Bhutan
Prof. Asif Ekbal, IIT Patna

Registration

Registration fee will have following categories
Faculty members and others (with accommodation): 5000 INR (Five thousand only)
Faculty members and others (without accommodation): 3000 INR (Three thousand only)
Students (with accommodation): 2500 INR (Two thousand five hundred only)
Students (without accommodation): 1500 INR (One thousand five hundred only)
Students from abroad: USD 40 (including food, accommodation and conference kit)
Faculties from abroad: USD 75 (including food, accommodation and conference kit)

You can submit your registration/ participation fee by NEFT/Bank transfer:
Name of the account holder: Registrar
Bank name: State Bank of India
Account number: 30957551934
IFSC code of the bank: SBIN0017164
MICR Code: 801002005
Address: IIT Bihta (17164), IIT Bihta Campus, Admin., Bihta - 801103
After successful completion of your payment process, you should send scanned copy of NEFT transaction ID proof /confirmation slip along with filled and duly signed registration form to hssconferenceiitpatna@gmail.com

Registration Form

Travel and Accommodation

Nearest Airport is Patna (31 KM). Cabs are available from Patna to the Venue. Nearest Railway stations: Bihta (4 KM), Patna (35 KM), Danapur (23 KM). Participants who require accommodation will be provided the same from 20th evening to 23rd February evening. While faculty members will be accommodated from 20th evening to 23rd evening in the Guest House of IIT Patna, students will be provided hostel accommodation in Girls hostel and Boys hostel of IIT Patna.

Contact Us

Dr. Priyanka Tripathi
Room No 513, Block 6
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Patna
Bihta- 801 103 (Bihar), INDIA
Phone: +91 612 3028182 (Office)
Email: hssconferenceiitpatna@gmail.com