Call for papers

POLITICAL LINGUISTICS III

(Re)construing nationhood in ‘(un)doing Europe’ today?

Warsaw, 8-10 May 2014

Contact: pl.ils@uw.edu.pl

Conference theme and foci
The conference will examine the current nexus between national and European thinking (in talk and text). Our focus is on the various discursive (re)constructions of national identification vis-à-vis Europe (and the contemporary world in the background): whether, and if so, then how, where and why, the ongoing discourses of European integration (and disintegration) invigorate, mute, or simply redefine national talk in (semi)public practices and domains, whether domestically or internationally. Relational, dynamic and integrative perspectives on nationhood are welcome in particular: how does the national element interact with other social dimensions and categories, especially those based in regional, global, political, professional or gender and age-related variation? What is the role of ideologies and policies of multiculturalism, employment, race and immigration? Do national (and nationalistic) arguments correlate with parameters of social diversification (economic, educational; elitist and egalitarian attitudes)?

The conference will address discursive (texts, genres, metaphors, etc.), and more broadly, semiotic (artifacts, images, icons, etc.) manifestations of nationhood in how Europe is being ‘done’, but also‘undone’ today This, we hope, will reveal various aspects, sites and styles of interdiscursivity and dialogization of difference (in the sense of Bakhtin) over issues involving national, European and international concerns. We welcome contributions examining interactions marked by power differential (esp. among citizens, politicians, experts and authorities).

We invite papers exploring various contexts, domains and practices (politics, media, business, research and education, religion, sports and entertainment, tourism, health and environment protection), as well as different media and technologies (old and new media; translation and interpretation; sign language; school and academic teaching).We envision the conference as an international and interdisciplinary forum of discussion, gathering scholars working within or (preferably) at the intersection of different methodologies: discourse analysis, critical discourse studies, pragmatics, (new) rhetoric, Systemic-Functional Linguistics, Register & Genre Theory, narrative theory, ethnography, social semiotics, multimodal analysis, and related approaches with communication at the forefront.

We are pleased to announce the following plenary speakers:

Prof. Peter Berglez, Örebro University, Sweden

Prof. Elżbieta Hałas, University of Warsaw, Poland

Prof. Leszek J. Korporowicz, Jagiellonian University, Poland

Prof. Michał Krzyżanowski, Örebro University, Sweden

Prof. John E. Richardson, Loughborough University, UK

Prof. Carlo Ruzza, University of Trento, Italy & University of Leicester, UK

The conference languages are English, German and Polish. Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. Abstracts of no more than 300 words including references should be sent as MS Word attachment to pl.ils@uw.edu.pl by 31 December 2013. Please include in the body of the email but not in the abstract itself your name, affiliation and email address. Notifications of acceptance will be communicated by 15 January 2014.

Organizers

University of Warsaw
Institute of Applied Linguistics
Dept. of Discourse Studies
Prof. Anna Duszak
Dr. Łukasz Kumięga

University of Łódź
Institute of English
Dept. of Pragmatics
Prof. Piotr Cap
Dr. Monika Kopytowska

In cooperation with University of Nottingham
School of Sociology and Social Policy
Dr. Christian Karner