36.2180, Confs: Critical Language Awareness for Sustainability, Solidarity and Inclusion (Belgium)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2180. Wed Jul 16 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2180, Confs: Critical Language Awareness for Sustainability, Solidarity and Inclusion (Belgium)

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Date: 16-Jul-2025
From: Chloé Lybaert [chloe.lybaert at ugent.be]
Subject: Critical Language Awareness for Sustainability, Solidarity and Inclusion


Critical Language Awareness for Sustainability, Solidarity and
Inclusion
Short Title: CLADES-conference 2026
Theme: Language, Discourse & Social and Ecological (In)Justice

Date: 25-Feb-2026 - 26-Feb-2026
Location: Ghent, Belgium
Contact: Chloé Lybaert
Contact Email: clades at ugent.be
Meeting URL: https://clades.prd.ugent.be/en/call-contributions

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; General
Linguistics; Sociolinguistics

Submission Deadline: 01-Oct-2025

We are delighted to announce the upcoming conference on ‘Critical
Language Awareness for Sustainability, Solidarity and Inclusion’, set
to take place on 25-26 February 2026 at Ghent University. This two-day
event is organised as part of the CLADES Erasmus+ project (Critical
Language Awareness, Democratic Engagement and Sustainability).
This interdisciplinary, critical, and student- and teacher-oriented
conference invites participants to explore how language and discourse
sustain or challenge unsustainable economies, social injustice, and
exclusion. By focusing on language attitudes, linguistic practices,
language policies and discourses in various settings, the conference
will show how language and discourse shape our imaginaries of growth,
nature, democracy, and justice. The aim is to deepen and share our
insights into these dynamics and examine the transformative potential
of language and discourse in shaping more just and sustainable
futures.
We invite contributions from scholars, educators, practitioners,
policymakers, activists, and students in the form of papers, lectures,
dialogue sessions, discussions, and interactive formats. Submissions
should engage with one of the following two thematic streams:
Stream 1. Language, Discourse & Social (In)Justice
This stream focuses on how language and discourse uphold or contest
societal inequalities. It invites contributions that take either more
analytic approaches, examining how discourse naturalises structures of
power, or more transformative orientations exploring how language can
resist, reframe, or reimagine societal norms. We are particularly
interested in work that examines or enacts the constructive,
imaginative, and activist potential of language in shaping more just,
inclusive, and emancipatory futures. Both everyday and institutional
linguistic practices are of interest, particularly in how they
intersect with power, identity, and access.
Topics may include:
 - Linguistic discrimination and language hierarchies (e.g. accentism,
the in- and exclusionary effects of linguistic standardisation)
 - Language and migration (language barriers in access to
rights/services)
 - Discourse, ideology, and symbolic violence in institutions (e.g.
education, media, government)
 - Inclusive and justice-oriented language (gender, queerness, race,
disability, etc.)
 - Counter-discourses and participatory storytelling (e.g.,
challenging neoliberal or extractive metaphors)
 - Discourse in activism and social movements
 - Critical discourse analysis of exclusionary or oppressive
discourses
 - Creative and community-based language practices for social change
 - The politics of multilingualism and language policy
 - Linguistic bias in AI
Stream 2. Language, Discourse & Ecological (In)Justice
This stream examines the relationship between language, nature, and
ecological consciousness. It explores how language shapes our
understanding of the environment, and how linguistic and discursive
practices can either sustain unsustainable systems or open pathways
toward ecological justice. It welcomes both analytic contributions
that critically investigate dominant environmental discourses and
metaphors, and transformative work that explores how language can
nurture ecological awareness and solidarity.
Topics may include:
 - Ecopoetics, ecocriticism, and ecolinguistics
 - Climate change literature and environmental discourse
 - The metaphors we live by in climate communication
 - Indigenous and local ecological knowledges
 - (Un)sustainability in environmental and CSR communication
 - Critical advertising and greenwashing
 - Discourse in environmental activism and movements
 - Participatory and decolonial environmental storytelling
Keynote Speakers:
We welcome the following keynote speakers:
 - Stef Craps (Ghent University, topic: From Apocalypse to Earthrise:
Stories That Make Climate Matter)
 - Joke Daems (Ghent University, topic: Gender bias in Language and
Translation Technology)
 - Veronika Koller (Lancaster University, topic: Raising language
awareness through critical metaphor analysis: the case of corporate
discourse).
Formats:
We encourage proposals to each of the streams in a variety of formats:
(1) Individual Presentations: Each accepted paper is given 20 minutes
for presentation, followed by 5-10 minutes for discussion with the
audience. Individual presentations will be grouped into thematic
sessions of 3-4 presentations based on the thematic stream they are
linked to. Each thematic session lasts 90-120 minutes.
(2) Hands-on sessions and workshops: these may include fieldwork
reports from practitioners with practice-based insights,
demonstrations, or creative sessions – for example, a copywriter
critically reflecting on corporate sustainability messaging, a
developer showcasing a tool or app designed for inclusive
communication, an activist’s account of their struggle for
environmental justice, a workshop on inclusive language in
translation, a workshop in which various types of framing are exposed
via collaborative analyses, or one exploring and imaging alternative
economies.
(3) Symposia: you can also organize a symposium with a focused group
of presentations on a common theme. Symposium goals should include
diversity and integration of perspectives. Symposium organizers are
encouraged to include multiple disciplines, practitioners and policy
makers. A symposium lasts 90 minutes and consists of 3 to 4
contributors and a discussant, who moderates the public discussion.
Each contribution is given 15 minutes, with ample time for discussion.
(4) Dialogue Sessions: a focused session, in which you tackle one of
the topics within the two strands in-depth. Ideally, you bring
different perspectives to the table (e.g. academic vs non-academic,
linguistic vs. non-linguistic, alfa vs. beta sciences) and as such,
you contribute to a deeper understanding of the issue, based on the
interaction of experts with different backgrounds.
(5) Other Formats: We are open to other formats besides the ones
mentioned above, including, but not limited to, artistic
interventions, debates, fishbowl discussions, walkshops, roleplays,
etc. If you have a creative idea to discuss one of the topics, please
get in touch with the organizers: clades at ugent.be.
Since we expect a mixed audience, including students and staff from
diverse disciplines including also stakeholders from outside the
academic world, we encourage participants to think in terms of
accessible approaches and formats for their presentations and
activities, to be able to engage non-experts and youth with their
contributions.
Submission Guidelines:
Deadline for submissions: 1/10/2025
Please ensure that all submissions adhere to the following guidelines:
 - Submissions for individual presentations, hands-on sessions and
workshops should include a proposal or summary written in English of
no more than 500 words. A reference list is not required.
 - Submissions for a dialogue session should include a proposal of no
more than 300 words, including the names of the invitees and the
moderator (if not the organizer). A reference list is not required.
 - Submissions for symposia should consist of an overall short text of
the symposium as a whole (no more than 600 words), and a short
abstract of each of the contributions (each no more than 300 words). A
reference list is not required.
 - All submissions should include the following information:
1. Type of contribution format (e.g. individual presentation, hands-on
session, workshop, dialogue session, symposium)
2. Title
3. Strand: Please indicate the stream in which your contribution is
situated:
Stream 1. Language, Discourse & Social (In)Justice
Stream 2. Language, Discourse & Ecological (In)Justice
4. Contributor details: please provide first and last names, e-mail
address and affiliation of all contributors
Please submit your proposals for contributions in Word-format to:
clades at ugent.be
Notification of acceptance by 15/10/2025.



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