Call for Papers for ICOS 2017:
26th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences / Internationalen Kongresses für Onomastik / Congrès International de Sciences Onomastiques.
27 August – 1 September 2017
University of Debrecen (Debrecen, Hungary)
Locality and globality in the world of names
The central topic of the congress is the linguistic position that proper names occupy in our present globalized world. Proper names as linguistic universals are an ancient linguistic category as old as language itself. They were probably created by the communicational situation in which, relying on linguistic signs fostering distinction, humans wanted to mark the things that were most important in their immediate environment. In fact, this ancient function is the most important reason for the existence and use of proper names even today. Nevertheless, at the same time, proper names may be the most characteristic linguistic representations of the global linguistic situation that has evolved up to our times. Communication in our times does not only make the ever more intensive use of proper names inevitable, but it also endows these with ever newer functions, continuously creating new types and sorts of names.
The wide-ranging central topic of the congress offers a number of possible approaches for speakers. Different questions of onomastic theory will come to the foreground, such as the situation of the variable relationships between particular types of names or their continuous interactions and changes. The presentation of the systematic character of names and their manifestation in different linguistic environments calls both for the study of phenomena and the accurate, thorough analysis of particular names. Besides the (historic and descriptive) aspects traditionally found in linguistics, new aspects may also be raised that have come to the fore over recent decades: e.g. socio- and psycho-onomastic or even cognitive frame sets; and, besides all these, even related disciplines, such as language policies or different approaches of applied science, may come to contribute to our knowledge concerning proper names.
The deadline for paper proposals is 31st October 2016. The program will be finalized in December 2016.