CHANSE Call Partner Search Tool

General Information

• Type: Partner looking for project
• Organisation: University of Tartu
• Country: Estonia (EE)

Research area

• Call theme: Crisis - Perspectives from the Humanities
• Keywords:

  language in context; miscommunication; power in language use

• Brief description of your expertise / expertise you are looking for:

  I work in the philosophy of language, specifically on problems that linguistic context-sensitivity poses for communication. I\'m increasingly interested in how documents can share an objective content when disseminated across different contexts of application (e.g. a law across countries; a guideline across a large organization with many departments), even when the document is written in context-sensitive language (i.e. is to some degree, open to interpretation). This relates to how organizational/contextual design shapes the de facto content of a text. I\'m also interested in how power differentials between interpreters of a document result in different abilities to determine the de facto content of the text. I\'m currently running this Summer School which touches upon some of the issues that interest me: https://enlight-eu.org/students/enlight-courses/item/107-blurred-meanings-in-law-regulations-guidelines

• Brief description of your project / the project you would like to join:

  I would like to join any project whose subject-matter includes difficulties of communication or content-sharing that may be arising because the language used to communicate or share content leaves room for context to shape interpretation. For instance, in the application of a law across jurisdictions or across different organizations. Or in real-time interactions where power differentials may shape who gets to determine the meaning of the language used therein. I\'m a philosophy of language--but I\'m keenly interested in studying real contexts of language use, as a means to solving or improving "real world" difficulties. I would also be open to joining any project which touches upon the politics of description -- particularly the description of Eastern Europe by those in Western Europe (language which presumes a spheres of influence framing of countries bordering Russia).

Alex Davies

• Organisation: University of Tartu
• Position: Associate Professor
• E-mail: davies@ut.ee
• Web: philpeople.org/profiles/alex-davies-1