Zoom Link: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/88359278626?pwd=YlpHT0p4b1VGM1JHRGF4c1puOTZpUT09
Talk’s title: Chronotopization and Meaning-making: A Sociolinguistic Theory of Context, Complexity, and Coherence
Abstract:
In this talk, I will outline a novel framework for theorizing and analyzing language-in-motion -- what I call, a chronotopic-scalar system of images and resolutions (Karimzad 2021). Theoretically, this system foregrounds the inseparability of context and meaning—or socio- and -linguistic, so to speak. Analytically, it argues for a shift of focus in the study of meaning-making from language (and/or linguistic behavior) to context and the images of these contexts that social actors invoke and/or construct in situated interactional events. I will draw on data from my ethnographic research on Iranian Azerbaijanis to lay out the different components of this system and its utility in capturing the variability and complexity of sociolinguistic practices. I will specifically zoom in on the case of multilingualism to highlight the significance of attending to chronotopic-scalar arrangements in the study of multilingual language use and to address the controversies among scholars regarding the ‘realness’ of languages and the hybridity of multilingual practices. Finally, I will zoom out to present the implications of this system for sociocultural- and applied linguistic studies of behavior and meaning-making and its potential to provide a coherent lens for the analysis of a wide array of sociolinguistic phenomena beyond disciplinary boundaries.
