Calls for papers

Epistemology and history Every historical period produces and reconfigures knowledge, depending on which of its elements are valued or repressed, in ways that can often seem arbitrary. What are the reasons behind choosing specific texts and authors, and how are these texts translated? How is the way we conceptualize and grasp the world transmitted from one culture to the next, from one generation to the next? How does translation contribute to paradigm shifts in various sciences and technologies? Does it contribute to scientific revolutions (Kuhn)? What distinguishes the different historical contexts that have facilitated or blocked the importation or exportation of scientific or technical texts? Lastly, to what extent is translation intertwined with the history of science and ideas? Discourse and terminology Scientific and technical knowledge is not homogenous, nor are writing practices. Hence, editing standards and the value attributed to certain discursive forms vary from one domain to the next: one does not publish and write the same way in physics, biomedicine or computer science. Furthermore, the type of scientific discourse and the target readership impose functional restrictions: how does translation deal with these? What role does it play in the transmission of technoscientific codes originating from dominant language-cultures? Is there a resistance? Does translation have an influence on writing conventions? As concerns terminology, the last 20 years have brought to light its dynamic aspects and its various influences. There are in fact economic advantages linked to mastering scientific terminology and lexicons, but questions of identity can also be at stake. What are the consequences of linguistic interference? Can translation still pass on knowledge to different social strata when scientific and technical training is given in a language other than the vernacular? Ideology Following the victory of positivism at the beginning of the 20th century, the universality of scientific knowledge and its truth value came under close scrutiny, kindling a major debate. Between Lyotard (The Postmodern Condition) and Sokal (Intellectual Impostures), where do we stand now? What legitimacy should be given to scientific discourse? And to its translation? Do we translate objective accounts of scientific facts or merely hypotheses considered to be true by the scientific or even non-scientific community? Which rhetorical and discursive devices are used not only by scientists but also, and especially, by those who exploit science for their own ends? How does translation contribute to the strategies used in the supposedly neutral and objective texts that it disseminates? Sociology Lastly, the social role of translators as well as their relationship with different social actors have sparked strong interest these last few years. Who sponsors the translation of scientific books and technical texts? For whom do translation firms and freelance translators work and what are their standards? What are the working conditions in various contexts where translation is practised? Through which structures are texts published and circulated? To what extent does translation contribute to the scientific establishment and to the popularization of science? Pedagogy and teaching of scientific and technical translation Must one be a scientist or an engineer to translate scientific or technical texts? How does one become a specialized translator? Though these questions are classic, they can be revisited in original ways. What role is played by Internet—part blessing, part curse—in helping learners? Are there new ways of teaching? And last but not least, how can the old dichotomy between practice and theory find a fruitful outcome in order to better equip the entire profession and help its members to promote their expertise?     Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Your proposal must contain the following documents:1)    An abstract in Word format not exceeding 300 words, to be included in the conference program. 2)    The following form duly filled out. The information it contains will be incorporated in the grant application that CATS will submit to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and will not be used as evaluation criteria for your proposal. Please submit your proposal to the organizers, Pier-Pascale Boulanger and Sylvie Vandaele, at actcats2013@gmail.com no later than September 14, 2012. Family name    First name Affiliation country Affiliation Degrees (starting with the most recent and specify the discipline) MAXIMUM 4 LINES Recent positions and those relevant to the event (starting with the most recent) MAXIMUM 5 LINES Recent publications and those relevant to the event (starting with the most recent) MAXIMUM 10 LINES Title and outline of the presentation (100 to 150 words) Explain why your presentation is relevant to the Conference theme (100 to 150 words) -------------------------- For more information, please contact Pier-Pascale Boulanger or Sylvie Vendaele at actcats2013@gmail.com.

The Research Centre for Ambient Intelligence and Accessibility CAIAC at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is pleased to announce the 4th International Symposium on Live Subtitling: Live subtitling with respeaking and other respeaking applications, to be held on March 12th 2013. This symposium will be the fourth in a series of symposiums on live subtitling and respeaking technology. Its predecessors were held at Forli, Barcelona and Antwerp respectively (see: www.respeaking.net). The symposium will bring together specialists from academia, software development, broadcasting and the service industry as well as consumers and others interested in cutting-edge developments in media accessibility. Now consolidated as the preferred means of providing live subtitles on TV, respeaking is currently facing a number of challenges as European broadcasters struggle with new legislation and subtitling quotas as well as critical cuts in their budgets.  These challenges will shape the future of this relatively young translation mode and test its aim to make audiovisual media accessible for viewers with hearing loss. In countries where respeaking has been used for over a decade and where the quantity of live subtitling is no longer a problem, the issue of quality has become increasingly important, as has the application of respeaking to other contexts such as public events and classrooms. In those countries where respeaking is not yet being used or not used consistently, the further development of speech recognition technology plays a fundamental role.  Generally speaking, technological progress is bound to have a significant impact on the nature of respeaking in all contexts, not least with the potential introduction of speaker-independent speech recognition and automatic subtitling. Research in this area is more pertinent than ever. We therefore welcome contributions on the following topics as well as related issues: -        Accuracy and delay in respeaking-        Respeaking in contexts outside TV broadcasting-        Respeaker training-        Software development and training-        Speaker-independent speech recognition and automatic subtitling-        Reception research-        Other areas related to respeaking

The history of these developments in Russia remains largely unexplored. Although a few disciplines, such as philosophy (almost by definition), sociology, linguistics, psychology, economics and history (particularly Begriffsgeschichte), have been covered by this sort of examination and research, Russia has been little involved in these approaches, except for those fields where major discoveries were made that transcended “Russian”, such as the literary and linguistic studies of the first third of the 20th century. But this examination is sparse, fragmentary and, not least, not sufficiently supported by close diachronic study of phenomena often thought of as beyond time and space. The history of scholarly translations is at best touched upon in monographs on the reception in Russia of a particular author (philosopher, say, or historian). The history of the key concepts that were used to constitute scientific discourse, translated or transcribed from “scholarly” languages and then gaining a life of their own in Russian, is virtually a blank sheet.The conference will be a first step to remedy this. Its relative novelty encourages us to cover a vast field both in chronology and number of disciplines. The chosen period stretches from the mid-18th century up to and including the 1920s. These dates (also those of the ANR “Schusocru” research project to which the conference belongs) cover the beginnings of the human sciences in Russia and the invention of the social sciences just before the Great Turn of the 1930s and display a certain continuity for our purposes. The disciplines covered are the human and social sciences as a whole.The papers we expect may be devoted to micro-study(a word, a concept, a book, an author, etc.) or wider views, including cross-disciplinary work. Without restricting the scope of possibilities for specialists interested in this project for their own field, we would emphasise the following points: The presence of foreign books and foreign languages in scholarly centres. This type of research does not concern only the early period. Even at the start of the 20th century, the question of acquiring basic works and learning essential languages was still sufficiently problematic for the topic to remain relevant. The study of libraries, both university and private, and of modes of acquisition, standard matters for book historians, has much to contribute here. And the scholarly use of Latin, German and Russian in certain institutions exposed to multilingualism by their design (Academy of Sciences) or location (Universität Dorpat ) is another way of addressing the same topic. It may be possible to establish a general or more detailed periodization for a given scholarly field as a function (among others) of the rise and fall of interest in foreign publications. Periodization and background of translations. It is particularly important to examine the early period of translation, when it was argued to be necessary for educational purposes (by the historian Pogodin in the early 1830s, for example), but the question remains valid even when, at the end of the 19th century, translations from French, German and English were to some extent commonplace. The choice of books to be translated, the identity of the translator, the translator’s resources, the choices made in translating words difficult to transpose (neologism by use of the original word or calque, use of an existing Russian word, transcription) are often of interest. A simple bibliographical or statistical analysis of translations may lead on to further questions. For example, did the emerging nationhood that affected the human sciences to an extent as yet unknown, including scientific discourse, have any influence on translation and if so of what sort? This “national” angle may also lead to other periodizations, as mentioned above.•    Translation as access to universality. When citing foreign authors or describing realities outside Russia, specialists would sometimes deliberately choose terms taken from a specifically Russian lexical field, referring to specifically Russian realities. This approach (equivalent terms = equivalent realities) may form the foundation for constructions that transcend national borders. It was adopted, for example, by the historian Pavlov-Sil’vanskij, to assert the existence of a Russian “feudalism” equivalent to the “feudalism” in Western Europe. This goes beyond the issue of translation and is rather an attempt at breaking down boundaries (or generalising or deleting local features), which may be particularly significant in the social sciences (history, sociology, ethnography), with many examples in the early 20th century. Translation of Russian texts in Western languages was a part of the same process. •    Cross-disciplinary diffusion. The importance of a given discipline at a given moment in the study period may have played a part in the adoption of words and phrases, and consequently topics from other fields. The dominance of linguistics around the year 1900, of French and British sociology in Russian social sciences, are reasons to consider transfers not only, and not so much, from one language to another, one discipline to another, but more transversally (several languages, several disciplines). It would be instructive to examine to what extent vigorous scientific movements such as Russian formalism, “social” history and Orientalism, were largely determined by linguistic configurations specific to Russian universities.    The conference will be held in Paris on 24-25 May 2013. Conference languages will be French, Russian and English. Those who wish to take part are invited to send us the topic of their paper and a brief description (between 10 lines and a page) by 30 September 2012 at the latest.Elena Astafieva and Wladimir Berelowitch,  Schusocru project coordinators,  Members of CERCEC (Centre d’études des Mondes russe, caucasien et centre-européen), EHESS/CNRS(astafok@hotmail.fr, berelowi@ehess.fr )   

Put 'Macau Crossings' in the subject line of your message and author'slast name. To insure prompt notification, please include your e-mailaddress on your submission. If you are willing to chair a session,please note this at the top of your abstract.Conference Organising Committee:Carlos GohnFernanda Gil CostaJohn MiltonMárcia SchmaltzRaquel Abi-SâmaraYao Jingming.Conference Advisory Panel:Ana Cristina Alves (Centro Cultural e Científico de Macau em Lisboa, Portugal)Carlos Gohn (Universidade de Macau)Fernanda Gil Costa (Universidade de Macau)John Milton (Universidade de São Paulo)Maria Antónia Espadinha (Universidade de Macau)Martha Cheung (Hong Kong Baptist University)Zhang Meifang (Universidade de Macau)

Extended call for papers - deadline for abstract su888bmission 22 June Research Models and Methods in Legal Translation LINGUISTICA ANTVERPIENSIA, NEW SERIES (12/2013) -Themes in Translation Studies Guest editors: Łucja Biel (University of Gdańsk, Poland) & Jan Engberg (Aarhus University, Denmark) 

CALL FOR PAPERS   CECC – The Research Centre for Communication and Culture announces: 3rd Graduate Conference in Culture Studies December 3-4, 2012 Faculty of Human Sciences – Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon   Report from the Pop Line: On the Life and Afterlife of Popular   The concept of the popular, or popular culture for that matter, has never ceased to be an ambivalent one. Although it has come to occupy a particular place under the spotlight over the past decades within the broad study of culture, such apparently privileged position has not deprived it of the manifold ambiguities, complexities or misconceptions that have often involved its general understanding.   Since its emergence within the context of the processes of industrialization and the changes they brought about, namely in terms of cultural relations and the development of the capitalist market economy, the concept of popular culture has been, not only utterly rejected by intellectuals and scholars alike, but also denied any possibility of constituting a serious and valid topic for academic debate. Up until the mid twentieth-century, popular culture was often reduced to a poor and simplistic form of entertainment and pleasure, and was even deemed morally and ethically questionable (not to mention aesthetically). However, and particularly after the 1950s, new perspectives would soon alter this perception in very significant ways, especially with the emergence of Cultural Studies and the influence their project had on both sides of the Atlantic. From severe condemnation, popular culture quickly evolved into a period of positive reception and celebration, which resulted from critical work developed inside the academia, but also popular demand outside it.   The concept of the popular was then adopted both as an intrinsic feature, and as topic in its own right of artistic creation developed under the sign of pop. From pop art to pop music, a new understanding of culture has been put forth, building from what is embedded in the ambivalence of the popular and its many possibilities of intersection with new artistic forms of expression.   At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, popular culture finds itself at a crossroads: has the concept been drained of its meaning because of its overwhelming popularity? After the euphoria around the popular, what afterlife can be expected from it? Should we still be discussing the popular as opposed to high and folk culture? And where and how do pop art forms intersect with the current notion of the popular?   This conference wishes to address the complexities surrounding the debate around the notions of both pop and the popular and discuss the possibilities of their afterlife.     This conference wishes to bring together doctoral students, post-doc researchers and international key scholars from different areas and disciplines, to share research interests and works-in-progress, engage in fresh intellectual discussion and build a community of young scholars.   Papers are welcome on the topics listed below, amongst others:   §  Popular Culture in Theory §  Life and Afterlife of Popular Culture §  Popular, Power and Politics §  Popular Culture: Globalization, Centres and Peripheries §  Material Culture §  Popular Arts §  Celebrities and Fans: The Dynamics of Popularity §  Representation, Mediation and Mediatisation of the Popular §  Cultures, Subcultures, Scenes and Tribes §  Pop and Popular: Overlap, Dissemblance and Divergence    Confirmed keynote speakers:   §  John Hutnyk (Goldsmiths College, University of London) §  Luísa Leal de Faria (Catholic University of Portugal)   Speakers should be prepared for a 20-minute presentation followed by questions. Please send a 300-word abstract, as well as a brief biographical note (100 words) to email popline2012@gmail.com by July 15th, 2012. Proposals should list paper title, name, institutional affiliation and contact details. Successful applicants will be notified by July 31st, 2012.     Please note there is a conference registration fee of 30€ due by October 30th. We regret that travel and accommodation funding for conference participants is not available at this time.

The concept of “epistemicide” was coined in the 1990s by the Portuguese sociologist, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, to refer to the destruction of "other” knowledges by hegemonic Western science (eg. Santos 1996, 2001, 2007). This volume is designed to draw attention to the extent to which the process occurs during the practice of translation (Bennett 2007). Hence, it aims to attract contributions that chart this trend in different linguistic contexts, disciplines and academic genres, or which bring a fresh new perspective to the question. Suggestions as to how translators might act to combat this problem are especially welcome. References: Bennett, Karen, 2007. ‘Epistemicide! The Tale of a Predatory Discourse’, in Sonia Cunico and Jeremy Munday (eds), Translation and Ideology: Encounters and Clashes, special edition of The Translator, Vol. 13, No. 2:151-169. Cronin, Michael, 1998. ‘The Cracked Looking Glass of Servants: Translation and Minority Languages in a Global Age’, The Translator, Vol. 4, No. 2:145-62. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, 1996. "The Fall of the Angelus Novus: Beyond the Modern Game of Roots and Options" (Working Paper Series on Political Economy of Legal Change, 3, University of Wisconsin-Madison. ----- 2001. “Towards an epistemology of blindness: Why the new forms of ‘ceremonial adequacy’ neither regulate nor emancipate”, European Journal of Social Theory 4(3): 251-279 ----- 2007. “Beyond Abyssal Thinking: From global lines to ecologies of knowledge”, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 78. 3-46. Proposals of between 1000 and 1500 words should be sent by August 31st 2012 to: karen.bennett@netcabo.pt Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15th September. Deadline for completed articles: 15th December.

Viceversa is a broad-based journal whose aim is to publish refereed, well-written originalresearch articles, and studies that describe the latest research and developments in the areaof translation. The areas of interest include (but are not limited to):· History of translation and interpreting theory and practice· Theory of translation and interpreting· Development and use of translation and interpreting tools (dictionaries, glossaries,software, etc.)· Critical reviews of literary and non-literary translations· Critical reviews of translation and interpreting tools· Translators' reflections on their work· Specific translation and interpreting problemsManuscripts may be sent to the Editor, Viceversa, via e-mail (alugris@uvigo.es). Detailedinstructions on how to prepare your manuscript are available from the editor or under"Committee-Author Instructions" at http://webs.uvigo.es/webatg/viceversa/consello.htmPapers may be submitted in any major European language but will be translated intoGalician for the print publication. The electronic version of Viceversa will contain both theoriginal and Galician versions.

CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN TRANSLATION AND TRANSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ENGLISH/FRENCH - FRENCH/ENGLISHCALL FOR PAPERS AND /OR TALKS   The Issue of Discursive Coherence: Translation and HomogenisationPalimpsestes 26 / Conference: 12-13 October 2012Recreating the balance of a literary text in translation means that the discursive space be taken into account as a whole and that the issue of homogenisation, which affects any translative process, be addressed. How do we translate texts that are based on a principle of plurality, dispersion or rupture? Does the translative process heighten or lessen such stylistic and narrative traits? What about Lawrence Venuti’s heterogenising approach which is meant to reduce the ethnocentrism prevalent in translation?  On a linguistic level, the contacts between languages in areas and countries where bilingualism prevails could be examined, as could the instances when different age groups or social classes interact. John Lyons’s “fiction of homogeneity” relative to speakers of the same linguistic community could be looked at in relation to the manner in which it manifests itself in translation and in the critique of translation. Moreover, it would also be interesting to test the well-documented principle of homogeneity of the English language, in which, we are told, an inanimate subject and an animate predicate do not fare well together as compared to what takes place in the French language.  On a socio-critical level, the possible editorial reasons behind such textual and stylistic homogenising could be a further matter of investigation. In what ways, for instance, do the audiences and markets aimed at by the publishers or editors commissioning translations influence the process of homogenisation? Does the separation of audiences (young readers, high brow audience, mainstream audience, and so on) lead to retranslations or competing translations of the same texts? What happens when one author’s oeuvre is translated by different translators, both diachronically and synchronically? Finally, on a socio-historic level, it might be useful to investigate the ways in which translations and transcultural transfers generate a rather homogeneous—or on the contrary heterogeneous—vision of other/foreign cultures.Proposals (a half-page summary in English or French) plus a short CV should be sent, by 15th April 2012 at the latest to: Christine Raguet Pascale Sardinc.raguet@univ-paris3.fr pascale.sardin@univ-paris3.fr

33rd APEAA Meeting in Lisbon, Catholic University of Portugal: 20-22 September   Markets are crumbling. States are (going) bankrupt. Power and politics are more and more estranged. Unemployment is rising. Social inequalities are growing. Amidst the general climate of anxiety, political discourses on culture, identity and difference are changing, in Europe as in the United States, often relegating social disparities and cultural diversity to "the status of collaterality (marginality, externality, disposability, not a legitimate part of the political agenda)" (Bauman, 2011). This collaterality produces tensions and stereotypes - the reenactement of a 'no future worldview' generates an overall loss of confidence, which, in turn, feeds on new exclusions and old and new (ir)rational fears. This conference wishes to address the extant crisis as a landscape of cultural and aesthetic possibilitiesas well as of constraints and perils: how will finantial instability affect the self-image of the Western world as well as its relationship with its many others?, how will fear and anxiety determine translatability both in a literal and in a metaphorical sense?, what images and representations of identity and alterity will literature, film, tv, music produce at a time of distress and unrest?, how will the new-found desire for authority and authenticity articulate with the plurality of contemporary societies? Papers are welcome on the following areas: Culture and Representation, Gender Studies, Linguistics, Literature, Literary Theory, Film and Other Media, Peace and War Studies, Translation, among others. Please send a 250-word abstract, as well as a brief biographical note (100 words) to authorityvsalterity@gmail.com by 30 April 2012. Proposals should list paper title, name, institutional affiliation and contact details. The conference languages are English and Portuguese.

Research models and methods in legal translation   LINGUISTICA ANTVERPIENSIA, NEW SERIES (12/2013) -Themes in Translation Studies Journal of translation and interpreting studies published by the Department of Translators and Interpreters of Artesis University College Antwerp   CALL FOR PAPERS (see also: www.lans-tts.be)    Guest editors: Łucja Biel (University of Gdańsk, Poland) & Jan Engberg (Aarhus University, Denmark)    This special issue of LANS TTS intends to track recent developments in legal translation studies triggered by new methodologies and to test the explanatory power and potential of such approaches to uncover the nature of legal translation.     One such promising new approach is represented by corpus-based methodologies and their combination with other methods, for example, critical discourse analysis. Corpora have been intensely applied in linguistics as an empirical and data-driven approach which allows for reduced speculation and offers the potential to verify hypotheses systematically on large collections of texts. Corpus-based methodologies have changed the way we handle data but, above all, have shifted attention from the study of words to the study of patterns, emphasizing that language use is highly patterned and that such patterns are cognitively motivated (Stubbs, 2004). Legal language, which is notorious for its formulaicity, standardization, petrification and rituals, seems to be well suited for this type of analysis. Corpus-based methodologies have also been embraced by Translation Studies, although relatively little research involves legal translation. The main focus is on the hypotheses of translation universals – distinctive features of translation resulting from constraints unique to the translation process, researched on comparable corpora (Baker, 1993), which have not satisfactorily been tested on legal translation. What also seems appealing is the textual fit of translations, that is, how translated law and other legal texts differ from non-translated language. Parallel corpora may be applied to address topics such as term/phraseme distinction, recurrent patterns, translation strategies and techniques and variability/stability of equivalents in legal translation.   Equally important is the systematic description of actual translation practice, translation process and professional aspects of legal translation. This trajectory covers process studies of legal translation, involving Think-Aloud Protocols (TAPs), keystroke logging or eye-tracking software, which may help map different stages of the translation process, understand cognitive processes in the translator’s mind and improve the translation process and product by developing adequate resources. Translation practice is also researched through workplace studies and ethnographic approaches.   Another trajectory of research is legal translation in multilingual and institutionalized settings, which, as emphasized in the literature, is a rare object of study within Translation Studies. In the enlarged European Union, legal translation participates in the construction of new societies, having a social, cultural and political dimension. Owing to its unprecedented multilingualism, institutionality and hybridity, EU translation has challenged some central concepts of Translation Studies with its fluid and non-final source texts, concurrent drafting and translation, collective translation processes, and the replacement of source text and target texts by authentic language versions. The translation process is complicated by the fact that EU law is still developing and that its supranational conceptual network relies on national conceptual systems (cf. Kjær 2007). Kjær argues that translation of EU law should become an independent research field with its own theoretical framework because traditional theories of legal translation are inadequate to account for it (2007). Does legal translation require a new theory in such settings? Another pertinent question is how EU law influences the language of national law at the conceptual, syntactic and textual level and how it can be tested empirically.   These are just a few topics which may be addressed. We invite proposals that investigate patterns and processes of legal translation from a new angle and contribute to mapping current developments and projecting future trajectories of research into legal translation.   We invite proposals dealing with one or more of the following topics: 1. ·        Corpus-based studies of legal translation: potential and limitations, translation universals, parallel corpus studies on strategies and techniques, etc. ·        Differences between legal translation and comparative law. ·        Legal translation and discourse analysis. ·        Legal translation as knowledge mediation. ·        Theory of legal translation in multilingual settings. ·        Semantics of legal concepts and translation. ·        Process studies of legal translation. ·        Workplace studies of legal translation. ·        Intertextuality and interdiscursivity in legal translation. ·        Legal term/phraseme distinction; multi-word terms, phraseology and recurrent patterns in translation. ·        Emergence of new globalizing genres through translation. ·        Any other innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to legal translation. 9.  References Baker, M. (1996). Corpus-based translation studies: the challenges that lie ahead. In H. L. Somers & L. Harold (Eds.), Terminology, LSP and Translation. Studies in Language Engineering in Honour of Juan C. Sager (pp. 175-186). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kjær, A. L. (2007). Legal translation in the European Union: A research field in need of a new approach. In K. Kredens & S. Goźdź-Roszkowski (Eds.), Language and the Law: International Outlooks (pp. 175-186).  Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Stubbs, M. (2004). Language Corpora. In A. Davies & C. Elder (Eds.) Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp. 106-132). Oxford: Blackwell.   Practical information and deadlines Proposals: abstracts of approximately 500 words, including some relevant bibliography, should be submitted by 1 June 2012 . Please send your proposals  to: Łucja Biel anglb@ug.edu.pl.  Acceptance of proposals: 1 July 2012 Submission of articles: 1 February 2013 Acceptance of articles: 30 April 2013 Publication: November-December 2013 Style sheet: www.lans-tts.be

The Taboo Conference – TaCo2012 Forlì (Italy), 25-27 October 2012 http://taco2012.sitlec.unibo.it   Third call for papers   In a world that seems continuously to be pushing the envelope of what is acceptable to the inhabitants of specific linguistic and cultural contexts, this interdisciplinary conference acknowledges the importance of investigating taboos and their reinforcement/breaking in various areas of language, culture and society, and across different cultures. We propose to explore the delicate balance and subtle boundaries between the need for inclusion and respect for different ethnic, religious, sexual, etc. backgrounds – which seems to be at the basis of modern multicultural societies – and a (un)conscious push towards the breaking of existing taboos, for example for shock value, as in the case of humour. In such context, investigation of the linguistic, cultural, social, institutional and personal implications of taboo reinforcement/breaking appears of extreme value.   We welcome individual proposals or pre-organized panels from different disciplines pertaining – but by no means limited – to the following thematic areas:   Sex and sexuality Nudity Death and the afterlife Sickness and disability Scatology/bodily fluids Deformity/otherness Blasphemy Altered states/drug culture Body modifications Fat Prostitution   Keynote speakers include:   Christie Davies – University of Reading Don Kulick – University of Chicago Brett Mills – University of East Anglia Jessica Milner Davis – University of Sydney The working language for the conference is English. Each paper presentation should be scheduled for 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes for questions. Abstracts should be submitted through the conference website http://taco2012.sitlec.unibo.it by 31st March 2012. If you are interested in submitting a panel, please contact us by the same deadline at dipsitlec.taco2012@unibo.it Notification of acceptance for both abstracts and panels will be given by 15th April 2012.