36.2769, Calls: Expressivity 2: Social Variation and Processing (Germany)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2769. Tue Sep 16 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2769, Calls: Expressivity 2: Social Variation and Processing (Germany)

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Date: 15-Sep-2025
From: Katharina Turgay [katharina.turgay at ruhr-uni-bochum.de]
Subject: Expressivity 2: Social Variation and Processing


Full Title: Expressivity 2: Social Variation and Processing
Short Title: Ex2:SoVaPro

Date: 19-Mar-2026 - 20-Mar-2026
Location: Bochum, Germany
Meeting Email: expressivity at rub.de
Web Site:
https://www.expressivity.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/expr/expressivity-2-social-variation-and-processing/index.html.en

Linguistic Field(s): Neurolinguistics; Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics;
Semantics; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2025

Call for Papers:
Workshop Description:
Expressivity is a category in natural languages that concerns the
direct expression of emotions and attitudes (in contrast to their
description). Expressive meaning can be conveyed at all linguistic
level: by lexical expressions, special syntactic constructions,
intonation or on the pragmatic level by expressive speech acts.
While expressivity has been approached from many different angles and
has been studied in almost all disciplines of linguistics (see the
Oxford Handbook of Expressivity to be published by the end of 2025),
there are still a lot of areas in which our knowledge is lacking
behind the progress that has been made in other areas of expressivity.
After a very successful Expressivity 1 workshop in March 2025 on
Variation and Change
(https://www.expressivity.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/expr/expressivity-1-variation-and-change/index.html.en),
we want to focus on Social Variation and Processing for an
Expressivity 2 workshop in March 2026. This workshop aims to bringing
together research on these two axes of research expressivity.
Questions that may be addressed at the workshop include (but are not
limited to) the following:
 - How does the use of expressive language between different social
groups based on social factors like age, region, social status, and so
on?
 - How do speakers vary and adjust their use of expressive language
between different social situations (i.e. formal vs. informal;
in-group vs. out-group)?
 - How do speakers strategically employ expressivity to project
certain social personae?
 - Which influence does the social context have on the meaning of
certain expressives, like, for instance, the in- an out-group usage of
slurs or forms of banter.
 - While expressivity is often taken to be very different from
descriptive language, how does this manifest itself in the processing
of expressive language?
 - Are in-group vs. out-group uses of slurs processed differently?
 - Are there processing differences between different kinds of
expressives (i.e. expletives like “damn” vs. slurs vs. particularistic
insults)?
 - Is the projection behavior of expressives processed differently
than the one for presuppositions?
 - What are the processing effects of “wrongly” used expressives (i.e.
the use of “damn” without a negative attitude or of “oops” if no
mishap was occurring)? Does this differ from “wrong” descriptives that
make an utterance false?
Contributions are encouraged to take broader views (and are invited to
be a bit speculative in their conclusion), but studies on single
expressive phenomena are also welcome.
Call for Papers:
We invite contributions addressing the social variation and processing
of expressive phenomena at all linguistic levels and working in all
linguistic frameworks.
 - Please submit your abstract by November 15, 2025 to
expressivity at rub.de.
 - Abstracts should not exceed two pages (DIN A4, 2.5cm margins, 12pt
font, minimum of 1.2 linespacing)
 - You can include up to one additional page for examples and
graphics.
 - You can include up to one additional page for references.
Important Dates:
 - Submission deadline: November 15, 2025
 - Notification: December 1, 2025
 - Workshop: March 19–20, 2025



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