In this interview, we talk to Ingrid Piller about her forthcoming co-authored book Life in a New Language. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 38 Kachru, Braj B. 1985. ‘Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle’, in English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures, ed. Randolph Quirk and Henry George Widdowson, pp. 11–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Piller, Ingrid. 2023. ‘Scholarly sisterhood: Collaboration is our academic superpower’. Language on the Move. https://w ..read more

Floris Solleveld University of Bristol Linguistic fieldwork in the Indonesian archipelago, throughout the 19th century, was largely the province of the Dutch Bible Society (NBG). Two Bible translators stand out for their contributions to linguistic scholarship: J.F.C. Gericke on Javanese in the late 1820s-1850s, and Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk on Toba Batak, Malay, Lampung, Balinese, and various other languages in the second half of the century. Their methods were as similar as their personalities were different. Gericke was pious, deferential, a bit naïve, and well liked by the colonial an ..read more

In this interview, we talk to Dan Everett about the life and work of the American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and Everett’s application of Peirce’s ideas to create a Peircean linguistics. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 38 Cole, David. 2023. “The Chinese Room Argument”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), eds. Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/chinese-room/ Everett, Daniel L. 2012. Language: The Cultural Tool. New York: Pantheon Books. Everett, Daniel ..read more

Drechsel, Emanuel J. 2024. Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics: Resources and Inspirations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 346 p. ISBN 9781108966801. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108966801 Publisher’s webpage Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), an early pioneer in the philosophy of language, linguistic and educational theory, was not only one of the first European linguists to identify human language as a rule-governed system –the foundational premise of Noam Chomsky’s generative theory – or to reflect on cognition in studying language; he was also a major sc ..read more

In this interview, we talk to Michael Lynch about the history of conversation analysis and its connections to ethnomethodology. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 37 Button, Graham, Michael Lynch and Wes Sharrock (2022) Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and Constructive Analysis: On Formal Structures of Practical Action. London and New York: Routledge. Fitzgerald, Richard (2024) “Drafting A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation,” Human Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-023-09700-7 Garfinkel, Ha ..read more

Floris Solleveld University of Bristol Two unpublished histories of the British and Foreign Bible Society were written in the 1820s to 1830s (BFBS Archives, Cambridge University Library, GBR/0374/BFBS/BSA/E3/8/1 and E3/8/2). It is unclear to me why there were two, both by BFBS staff, written at roughly the same time; they cover much the same topics, figures, and languages and do not express notably strong or divergent views. What is clearer is why they were never published. Both manuscripts are very lengthy compilations of excerpts, transcripts, summaries, and in the case of the largest manusc ..read more

Dumarty, Lionel, ed. 2024. Langue idéale, langue réelle. Description et normalisation des langues classiques du IIIe s. av. J.-C. au XIIe s. de notre ère. Turnhout : Brepols. (Corpus Christianorum). 268 p. ISBN 978-2-503-60901-0 Publisher’s website Depuis la naissance de la grammaire, les premiers théoriciens de la langue se sont heurtés à un paradoxe : est-il possible de réduire la somme indéfinie des faits de langue à un ensemble fini de règles ? Ce paradoxe appelle d’autres prolongements : les travaux des grammairiens témoignent-ils tous, et tous de la même manière, du ..read more

In 2024, the eleventh conference on the history of the humanities will be hosted by the Lund Center for the History of Knowledge (LUCK), Lund University between 9 and 11 October 2024. The call for papers and panels is now open: https://www.historyofhumanities.org/upcoming-meetings/the-making-of-the-humanities-xi-lund-2024/ Goal of the Making of the Humanities (MoH) Conferences The MoH conferences are organized by the Society for the History of the Humanities and bring together scholars and historians interested in the history of a wide variety of fields, including archaeology, a ..read more

The deadline for abstract submission to ICHoLS 16 is March 1, 2024.  The submission web page for ICHoLS 16 is  https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ichols16 Here is information about the open thematic workshops (see below).  Please see the attachments and send your abstract to the organizers of the workshops. 1 – Pluricentric Contributions to the Historiography of Portuguese Linguistics: In Tribute to the Scholar Maria Helena de Moura Neves (1931–2022) 2 – Orality and writing in the production of linguistic knowledge 3 – The birth of national languages mirrored by ..read more

Floris Solleveld University of Bristol On 28 May 1940, a group of 33 people met at the British and Foreign Bible Society headquarters (‘Bible House’) in London for a conference on African languages. The evacuation at Dunkirk was under way; the sea was full of U-boats; on the morning of the conference, the news arrived of the Belgian capitulation. What better moment to discuss the state of Biblical translation on the African continent? The conference report contrasted the shared sentiment that “lights were going out one by one in Europe” with the “unquenchable optimism” of those present, “a ban ..read more