When I discovered Facebook in 2007, after watching my interns chat on it day and night, I thought it was a kids’ thing and didn’t pay much attention….Then my teenage daughter joined, as a result of which, her whole address book was invited to join and unfortunately for her I was among the names.
As a good Mum, and thinking she had intentionally invited me, I immediately subscribed and open an account…then forgot all about it! …until Christmas 2007 with a bit of time ahead of me and not much to do…and that’s when I discovered what a great tool Facebook could be in the hands of scholars and communicators….Furthermore, I discovered millions of groups, but none related to my academic field…
That’s how I had the idea of creating the group Sociolinguists on Facebook, one of the achievements I truly take pride! We gather almost 6400 great scholars from all over the world…just check for yourself our wonderful Group…join us …and participate to the overview of the languages we speak! Click here to get the Doodle image of our results. PDF HERE: Doodlesociolinguists!
COSMO POLITIQUE 
CALL FOR PAPERS:
This is a call for papers for the International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL). The theme of this issue will be: “Language and Religion.”
The aim of this issue is to bring into focus the complex cultural, social and political relationships between Language and Religion. Both the terms may be interpreted widely to include dialects, lost languages, religious sects/cults, non-institutional faiths.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
• religion and literacy – how the spread of religions may be accompanied by spread of a language or a certain kind of literacy,
• how the coming of a religion to another land changes the discourse, definitions of religious faith,
• translations, – how cross-cultural interactions affect interpretations of terms when a religion is adapted from one culture to another,
• language and religion impacting each other as tools of social mobility, or as areas of competition,
• how religious conversion may be influenced by the social status of a language,
• consequence of words and terms from the more powerful religious groups finding their way into secular language,
• the question of the choice of language in religious practices,
• religion being used to establish failing/flagging languages,
• how language used in religious texts/preaching uses the social context – the power dynamics of nationalism, society, conversion, etc,
• effects of migration leading to influence of language upon religion, or vice versa, altering language and religion demographics of a society,
• struggles over the status of a certain language within the larger multi-linguistic religious group,
• the discourse of secular power used by most religions (king, crown, battle) which has, in some cases, allied religious discourse with nationalistic struggles.
Please submit an abstract of 300-500 words (with ‘IJSL’ as the subject) along with a short CV to the editor of this issue Sipra Mukherjee (mukherjeesipra@gmail.com , and sipram@yahoo.com) by 10th Dec, 2009.
Decisions regarding relevant proposals will be completed by 20th Dec., 2009. Completed papers of approx 10,000 -12,000 words will be required by 1st August, 2010 to be considered for inclusion.
The IJSL is a peer-reviewed journal of international scope.
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