Stylistic and critical discourse approaches to the Caribbean’s language use are of paramount importance if, for instance, the region wants to adequately interrogate the evolving nature of power in political and media discourses, decolonisation or imperialist practices in educational policy documents, or the complex interplay of meaning and representation in the artistic fields of literature, film, and television.

Although the Anglophone Caribbean has had a large output in varied and localised discourse/ text types in the post-independence era, there has been little linguistic scrutiny of them (exceptions tend to be stylistic analyses of literary works such as those collected in Lalla, D’Costa and Pollard (2014), though such work is also not common). There have also been few avenues where practitioners/creators within the region’s language-related fields can discuss what they think about the linguistic choices that they make in their work. This has been the case even though more recent linguistic work done on English in the Caribbean has clearly shown a tendency towards endonormativity and more local forms within several countries’ developing standards (Schneider 2011; Deuber 2014; and Hackert, in press). Language varieties which have histories of being minoritised or peripheral in many spheres of public life have also gained increasing acceptability – particularly the region’s Creoles. The present conference recognises the specific, unique, and complex nature of the evolving Caribbean language milieu, and the need for more rigorous descriptions of discourse types arising out of this space.

We therefore invite papers and panel presentations applying stylistic or critical discourse approaches to the analysis of written or oral Caribbean texts, but also extend our call for experts working in the production of such texts. This conference’s focus, then, is two-fold: the academic scrutiny of language use in the Caribbean, and the actual role that practitioners’ language-related choices play in their production.

The conference will be hosted online by The University of Trinidad and Tobago’s Centre for Education Programmes from April 2nd - 3rd, 2021.

Submission Guidelines
Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) are to be sent to scda@utt.edu.tt by February 12th, 2021 in PDF format. The emails, but not the PDFs, should include: (1) a title, (2) name, status, and institutional affiliation of the presenter(s), and, (3) a contact email address. Abstracts should be for either:

Paper presentations (10 minutes long)
OR
Expert discussion panels focussing on the praxis of language within, but not limited to, the domains listed below (lasting for 30 minutes).

Topics
Panel presentations are invited which focus on stylistic or critical discourse approaches to Caribbean texts such as (but not limited to):
● Educational/pedagogical documents
● Literary texts (written or oral)
● New media
● Political discourses
● Film and television
● Press reporting
● Academic writing
● Adapted works across media
● Translated texts
● Historical documents
● Popular writing

Publication
The organisers envision a prospective volume of selected papers arising out of the conference.

Registration fee
Registration will be free.

References
Deuber, D. (2014). English in the Caribbean: Variation, Style and Standards in Jamaica and Trinidad. Studies in English Language. Cambridge University Press. https://books.google.tt/books?id=9MwNAwAAQBAJ
Hackert, S. (2021). Standards of English in the Caribbean. In N. Eberle (Ed.), Varieties of English Around the World: G64. Bermudian English (G57, pp. 85–112). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g57.05hac
Lalla, B., D'Costa, J., & Pollard, V. (Eds.). (2014). Caribbean literary discourse: Voice and cultural identity in the Anglophone Caribbean. The University of Alabama Press.
Schneider, E. W. (2011). English around the world: An introduction. Cambridge introductions to the English language. Cambridge University Press.