À propos de l'événement
The circulation and the dissemination of knowledge rely in essential ways on forms of linguistics transformation, alteration and manipulation. An apparently simple act such as adding a lexical gloss next to a term can potentially reveal the complex interpretative and translational processes that are needed in order for a specific verbal structure to continue to operate as a meaningful sign in a new setting. Furthermore, it can encapsulate the individual and contextual factors and constraints that might affect the way those processes are carried out.
Historically, practices of linguistic transformation and manipulation, from the writing of glosses and paraphrases to the elaboration of full-fledged commentaries and rewritings, have served as important vehicles for the transmission and dissemination of knowledge. They have contributed to the development of a rich body of secondary literature in a wide range of new scholarly and popular genres and textual formats, aimed at catering to different audiences and for different needs.
In a similar way, nowadays, the ever-increasing specialization of language use within large sectors of knowledge (e.g. in the fields of law, medicine, science, technology etc.) is often counterbalanced by efforts to make the language more readily understandable and to improve textual comprehensibility, for example in the case of mass communication texts. On the other hand, a certain opacity of language still maintains an indisputable relevance in many situations (cf. e.g. the presence of classical forms in the standard language). Such asymmetries in the field of communication and usages have a pragmatic relevance in terms of education, popularization, audience empowerment, and they imply questions on aspects of language variation and identity.
