Month: December 2023

Call for Papers, Special Issue: “Towards a neurodiverse sociocultural linguistics”

Call for Papers, Special Issue: “Towards a neurodiverse sociocultural linguistics”
Editors Ayden Parish and Kira Hall
Neurodiversity, understood as the range of human cognitive and neurological variance, has been classically marginalized as only of interest through a medicalized, pathologizing lens. The neurodiversity movement, however, advocates that these differences should not be seen as biomedical entities to be first and foremost cured, but as variation to be accommodated and as lived experiences whose perspectives should be recognized and valued. Across the social sciences, neurodiversity-affirming approaches have come to demonstrate that a sociocultural angle is necessary, both in order to improve theorization of neurodiverse conditions and also to bring a new critical eye to current theories that only account for normative relationships with language and sociality. Crucially, these critiques make important steps in asserting the agency of neurodivergent individuals. We hope to further enrich these discussions with specific attention to sociocultural linguistics as a site for neurodiverse intervention.
We invite papers for a special topics issue on neurodiversity to be submitted to Language in Society. Our aim is to demonstrate the necessity of incorporating neurodiversity into the study of language in social life and to showcase the productive new directions engendered by such approaches. We welcome a broad vision of neurodiversity that includes not only neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism, ADHD, and Tourette syndrome, but also other neurological conditions like dementia and aphasia, as well as mental illnesses, including but not limited to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and OCD.

We are interested in papers from a diversity of disciplinary viewpoints, including linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, socially-oriented discourse analysis, crip linguistics and related perspectives, among others. Possible topics include:

  • Analyses of interactions amongst neurodiverse speakers
  • Ethnographic approaches to language and embodiment in neurodiverse communities
  • Discourse analytical approaches to the construction of neurodiversity and neurotypicality
  • Critical reframings of traditionally pathologized linguistic behaviors such as echolalia or “disorganized” speech
  • Other creative, socially-oriented approaches to the intersection of neurodiversity and linguistics
We are especially interested in hearing from early career scholars and those examining neurodiversity’s intersections with race, gender, sexuality, and other disabilities.

If you are interested in submitting a paper to the special issue, please email an abstract of up to 500 words by January 8th to the editors. Full drafts of selected papers will be due in May of 2024. Please feel free to write the editors with any inquiries: Ayden Parish (ayden.parish@colorado.edu) and Kira Hall (kira.hall@colorado.edu).

About Names: Dr. Evans on the name “Mary”

Mary Todd Lincoln, former First Lady of the United States of America (Photo: public domain)

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his December 3rd column, he discusses the name “Mary”.

Today is my younger sister Mary Elizabeth Evans Elliott’s birthday. I won’t get into trouble telling how old she is, but it’s a milestone ending in “0”.

Mary’s the English form of Latin Maria, derived from Hebrew Miriam, name of Moses’s sister in the Old Testament. No one really knows Miriam’s meaning. Because Mara means “bitter” in Hebrew, “bitter sea” used to be a common guess. Today “longed-for child” (ma-râma) is thought a more likely Hebrew meaning. However, since most experts now think Moses was an Egyptian name, many believe Miriam’s from Egyptian mry, “beloved.”

Mary is revered by Christians as the name of Jesus’s mother. Six other Marys are mentioned in the New Testament, including Mary Magdalene and Mary, sister of the resurrected Lazarus.

Mary was rare in medieval Britain. Most thought it too sacred to give a daughter. The first known example was Mary, daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland and his English wife Margaret, born in 1082.

In 1380 Mary ranked 49th in England. It only became common after the Reformation. Though one might think Mary I (r.1553-1558), called “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestants, along with Puritan disdain for what they saw as Roman Catholic “idolatry” of the Virgin Mary, would make the name unpopular, all those New Testament Marys prevailed. Mary, second to Elizabeth after 1600, reached No. 1 during the 1650s, when radical Puritan Oliver Cromwell ruled.

In the 19th century Mary’s popularity was overwhelming. The 1850 United States census found 1,352,362 Marys — 13.5% of all girls and women, nearly one out of seven. In Britain in 1851, it was 16.6%, or one out of six. It’s hard to imagine what life was like when multiple Marys of all ages lived on every street in town.

In 1880, when Social Security’s yearly data starts, 7.24% of newborn girls were named Mary. Though the percentage steadily decreased, Mary stayed No. 1 until 1947, when Linda displaced it. In 2022, Mary only ranked 136th, its lowest in 700 years.

It’s surprising Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-1882) was the only sitting President’s wife named Mary. Two others were acting first ladies — Mary McElroy (1841-1917) for widowed brother Chester Arthur (1881-1885), and Mary Harrison McKee (1858-1930) for father Benjamin Harrison after mother Caroline’s death in October 1892.

“Mary is a Grand Old Name” was written by George M. Cohan for musical “Forty-five Minutes to Broadway,” which debuted Jan. 1, 1906.

Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name “Mary”!