English in a Global Context: Postcolonial Intersections in Literary and
Linguistic Studies
A one-day conference at the School of English Literature, Language and
Linguistics, Newcastle University.
Date: Sunday 25 November
Venue: G5 Percy Building, Newcastle University
The linguistic aspects of postcolonial writing and the stylistic aspects of language in
postcolonial contexts are under-researched areas.
These domains engage creative writers and academic scholars in equal measure,
and this conference aims to map some of the new research that is being done at the
intersections between postcolonial writing, linguistics and criticism. Some of the
topics covered will include: Caribbean poetics and linguistics, African pidgins and
language contact, postcolonial theories of translation, Indian and African postcolonial
literature and heteroglossia.
This one-day conference will showcase research in these areas at Newcastle as well
as invited papers from key researchers in these domains both nationally and
internationally. The idea would be to ask all speakers to present material that is
accessible to a wide audience drawn from both literature and language studies in
order to facilitate discussion between the two 'camps', which we hope would lead to
cross-pollination.
In order to do justice to the fact that this conference aims to provide a platform for
work at the interface of 'disciplines', the conference will be divided evenly between
language-oriented and literature-oriented talks (bearing in mind that the division is
often moot or arbitrary).
Registration fees:
Non-concess rate including conf dinner: £85
Non-concess rate without conf dinner: £55
Concess rate including conf dinner: £60
Concess rate without conf dinner: £30
Conference Programme
10 - 11
Registration
11.00 – 12.00
Session One: Caribbean Literature
Gemma Robinson , Stirling University
Maria Cristina Fumagalli, Essex University, "It have some things worth more than a
dollar: Language as a Place of Struggle"
12.00 - 1.00
Lunch
1.00 - 2.00
Session Two: Caribbean Creoles
Alicia Beckford Wassink, University of Washington
Mark Sebba, Lancaster University, "Postcolonial Orthography"
2.30 - 3.00
Coffee
2:30 - 3:30
Session Three: Narrating India in English
Namrata Bhawnani, writer-in-residence Stirling University, "Whose India is it
Anyway?"
Neelam Srivastava, Newcastle University "From Linguistic Nationalism to Linguistic
Globalization: The Evolving Language of the South Asian Novel in English"
3:30 - 4.00
Tea
4.00 - 5.00
Session Four: World Varieties of English
Markku Filppula, University of Joensuu, "Global and Local Perspectives on the Irish
Dialects of English"
Kaycey Ihemere, Westminster University "English in Africa: Imperialism or
Pragmatism"