Date: 26-Nov-2025 – 29-Nov-2025
Location: Clarens, South Africa
Contact Person: Chrismi Loth
Meeting Email: kongresETFB@ufs.ac.za

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

2nd Call for Papers:

Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/10047495/
Submit your abstract (250 words) by 4 April to kongresETFB@ufs.ac.za

The Department of South African Sign Language and Deaf Studies at the University of the Free State (RSA), in partnership with the Joint ICA/IGU Commission on Toponymy as well as the ICOS Working Group on Toponymy, is pleased to announce the next biennial international symposium on place names – ISPN 2025.

Place names serve a dual purpose. On the one hand, they are geospatial indicators of physical locations and geographical features. On the other hand, place names are artefacts of cultural heritage and serve to connect people to places. This two-fold function creates tension from a place-names management perspective. Standardisation is required for effective public communication and record-keeping. However, standardisation inherently requires a selection of one or limited forms of names. This is in contrast to the reality of most societies, whereby multiple names are assigned to one location by different socio-lingual-cultural groups. The challenge is to create an internationally-recognised standardisation system, while retaining the colourful local diversity. With the theme for this symposium, we wish to explore issues around standardisation and toponymic diversity. We need to consider the symbolic importance of place names, and examine the challenges of developing best practices for research and management that are sensitive to local diversity. Papers with a focus on minority and indigenous names, including sign languages, are encouraged in particular.

Potential subtopics
Only a limited number of papers can be accommodated, as all sessions will be plenary. Abstracts (250 words) can be submitted by 4 April 2025 to Dr Chrismi Loth at kongresETFB@ufs.ac.za in the following
(but not limited to) categories of research:
•Recognition beyond standardisation, especially for indigenous and minority place names.
• Best practices for the standardisation, management, and research of multiple place names.
• Diversity in place names stemming from multiple socio-lingual-cultural groups.
• Harmonising toponymic heritage in multicultural and multilingual societies.
• Adequate representation of place-name diversity in texts and on maps.
• Approaches towards standardisation.
• Other dimensions of place names: administrative, commercial and/or economic, cultural and historical/commemorative, physical, political, and linguistic.

Keynote speakers
• Prof Sambulo Ndlovu (University of Eswatini, Eswatini)
• Bill Watt (PlaceNames Australia)

Workshop
Signed Toponymy: Conducting Ethical Research in Deaf Communities
Presenter: Dr Patrick Sibanda (University of the Free State, RSA)

Language of the symposium and workshop
English, with professional South African Sign Language interpreting available. Please indicate requirement for SASL interpreting with abstract submission and registration.

Publication
Depending on the number and quality of papers an accredited publication in our regular proceedings series will be considered: https://ujonlinepress.uj.ac.za/index.php/ujp/catalog/series/ISPN.

The ANS panel at the Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention #mla26
8-11 January 2026, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ONOMASTIC RHETORIC: ACTS OF NAMING IN REAL AND/OR IMAGINED WORLDS

Acts of naming people, places, and things are acts of power, whether for good or ill and whether in the real world or in imagined worlds. Sometimes names change, through other acts of power. Does it necessarily follow that accepting a given name is an act of weakness? What acts of naming occur in the liminal space between the real and the imagined? In this panel, we will consider acts of naming people (anthroponyms), characters (charactonyms), places (toponyms), theonyms (divine beings), events, and more in the real world and/or in imagined worlds from any era, from any place, as recorded or found in any media. Useful resources include, the archives of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/issue/archive), the
ANS list of terminology (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/keywords), Dorothy Dodge Robbins’ edited collection Literary Onomastics (2023), Star Medzerian Vanguri’s edited collection Rhetorics of Names and Naming (2016), and the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (2018).

Proposal Submission Process:
1. Email Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com) as follows:
a. Subject Line: Use “MLA 2026 proposal” in the subject line.
b. Email body: In the email body include the title and first line of the abstract, the
full name(s) of the author(s), their affiliation(s), and their email address(es).
c. Proposal: Attach a PDF file that includes the proposal title, an abstract of up to
350 words, and a list of works cited. Do NOT include author identification in the
PDF.

2. DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 11:59 pm EST on Monday, 17 March 2025.
Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 27 March 2025.
3. Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers; MLA membership must be obtained by 7 April 2024.
4. Questions? Please contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com).