35.2022, Calls: Language in Fantastic Film Worlds: Exploring Fictional Telecinematic Discourse

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-2022. Fri Jul 12 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.2022, Calls: Language in Fantastic Film Worlds: Exploring Fictional Telecinematic Discourse

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Date: 12-Jul-2024
From: Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer [christina.sanchez at phil.tu-chemnitz.de]
Subject: Language in Fantastic Film Worlds: Exploring Fictional Telecinematic Discourse


Full Title: Language in Fantastic Film Worlds: Exploring Fictional
Telecinematic Discourse

Date: 19-Mar-2026 - 20-Mar-2026
Location: Chemnitz (hybrid), Germany
Contact Person: Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer
Meeting Email: christina.sanchez at phil.tu-chemnitz.de
Web Site: https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/english/sections/edling/rese
arch/filmwords.php

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Call Deadline: 31-Oct-2024

Meeting Description:

This workshop aims to probe various facets of language use in
fantastic films and TV shows, which commonly show linguistic
creativity and innovation. The attribute “fantastic” is conceptualized
here in a wide sense, referring to all genres that portray fictional
characters in settings that blatantly deviate from everyday reality in
a framework of estrangement. Accordingly, the workshop is interested
in the use of language e.g. in science fiction and fantasy, mystery,
superhero, fairy tale and horror movies as well as animated films and
movie adaptations from comics.

Call for Papers:

Language in Fantastic Film Worlds: Exploring Fictional Telecinematic
Discourse

Chemnitz University of Technology (hybrid)
March 19–20, 2026

Organizers:
Christian Hoffmann (University of Augsburg)
Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer (Chemnitz University of Technology)
Christoph Schubert (University of Vechta)

Keynote speakers:
Monika Bednarek (The University of Sydney)
Susan Mandala (University of Sunderland)
Roberta Piazza (University of Sussex)

Films and television shows that depict alternative realities and
fantastic universes are among the most popular genres worldwide, as
underlined by the status of James Cameron’s "Avatar" (2009) as the
highest-grossing movie to date (imdb.com). Fantastic films commonly
show linguistic creativity and innovation, including idiosyncratic
language use by exotic characters, so that these pop cultural
discourses are a highly promising subject for linguistic study
(Mandala 2010). The attribute "fantastic" is conceptualized here in a
wide sense, referring to all genres that portray fictional characters
in settings that blatantly deviate from everyday reality in a
framework of “estrangement” (Adams 2017). Accordingly, the workshop is
interested not only in science fiction (Rüdiger & Lange 2023) and
fantasy (Castro 2024), but also in mystery, superhero, fairy tale, and
horror movies (Schubert 2020), as well as in animated films and movie
adaptations from comics (Sanchez-Stockhammer 2020). Although
telecinematic research has been gradually gaining momentum in
linguistics (see, for instance, Piazza et al. 2011; Beers Fägersten
2016; Bednarek et al. 2021; Sanchez-Stockhammer & Hoffmann, to appear
2024), fantastic films and their discursive characteristics have
received surprisingly little attention as yet.
Filling this intriguing gap in research, this workshop aims to probe
various facets of language use in fantastic films and TV shows
(Bednarek 2018; Kozloff 2000). More specifically, we argue that four
linguistic subdisciplines are particularly relevant for an in-depth
exploration of language in the worlds of fantastic films:

(i)     Cinematic stylistics investigates meaningful linguistic
choices and stylistic markers that can be associated with fantastic
genres and achieve specific contextual effects (Hoffmann &
Kirner-Ludwig 2020).
(ii)    Pragmatics is concerned with innovative character speech and
characterization with respect to (im-)politeness, communicative
(non-)cooperation, conversational structure, or implied meaning
(Locher & Jucker 2017) that transcend everyday situational contexts.
(iii)   Sociolinguistic studies may concentrate on creative varieties
of English (Boberg 2021; Hodson 2014) or on the stereotypical
representation of social or ethnic groups in fantastic settings.
(iv)    Multimodal studies reveal how visual storytelling is a
constitutive part of telecinematic discourse and is often co-deployed
with verbal language to create significant cinematic effects (Janney
2012; Wildfeuer 2014), such as suspense (Schubert 2023) or humour
(Frobenius & Gerhardt, to appear 2024), and for the purpose of
characterization (Bednarek 2023; Reichelt 2018).

While the workshop will centre on case studies of selected films and
television shows within the fields and approaches outlined above, we
also welcome contributions approaching the topic from a theoretical or
methodological perspective. The abstracts should be in English (ca.
300 words plus references) and include the name(s) of the author(s),
the title of the paper, the affiliation as well as postal and email
address(es). The format will be 20-minute hybrid talks followed by
10-minute discussions. Please send your abstracts to all three
organizers by October 31, 2024:

christian.hoffmann at philhist.uni-augsburg.de
christina.sanchez at phil.tu-chemnitz.de
christoph.schubert at uni-vechta.de

Please see full call at https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/english/sectio
ns/edling/research/filmwords.php.



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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-2022
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