The life-cycle of stereotypes
19th & 20thOctober 2017, Université de Poitiers, MSHS
Organizers Estèle Dupuy (FoReLL A EA 3816) & Victor Millogo (Espé et Cerca)
The conference will address the question of how linguistic stereotypes emerge and develop in text and discourse. “Stereotype” is taken as referring to an open-ended, non-finite sequence of phrases consistently associated with a given noun, conferring upon it a meaning that is shared within a specific socio-cultural context by a specific group of people (see Fradin, 1984; Anscombre, 2001). Such stereotypes play an important part in language in so far as they are one of the means of assigning meaning.
We wish to examine the ways in which stereotypes appear or are kept alive through language use, especially with respect to referential and valency relations (important function of primitive and second verbal semantic) and the mechanisms of categorization. It can be observed that some referential choices or processes may lead to the emergence of a stereotype which then goes on to be shared and/or kept alive: associative anaphora, indirect anaphora and cataphora – including extended cataphora – contribute to stabilizing new stereotypes in the ways that the referential universe is represented. These questions will be addressed through a French-language corpus covering a spectrum from medieval to contemporary texts, both diachronic and synchronic approaches being considered.
The one-and-a-half-day conference will be an opportunity to bring together various approaches – linguistic, psycholinguistic, cognitive and didactic, with papers addressing the questions of the appearance, consolidation and sustaining of stereotype from those perspectives, as suggested non-exhaustively below:
- The circulation of stereotypes: in literary or non-literary texts from a linguistic point of view, in school textbooks from the early learning years onwards, in social and/or professional groups and communities, in the digital age.
- Ways of referring that lead to a stereotypical presentation of a referent, which in its turn gradually becomes a stereotype (referential expressions, associative and indirect anaphora…), seen from a linguistic, psycholinguistic, cognitive or developmental perspective.
- Openings towards comparaisons between spoken language and sign language would also be welcome.
All submissions connected to the broad topic of the conference will be considered.
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