37.1497, Confs: (Im)politeness on the Page (Italy)

Mon Apr 20 18:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1497. Mon Apr 20 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1497, Confs: (Im)politeness on the Page (Italy)

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Date: 18-Apr-2026
From: Mariaconcetta Mirto [m.mirto at unior.it]
Subject: (Im)politeness on the Page

(Im)politeness on the Page

Date: 14-Dec-2026 - 15-Dec-2026
Location: Naples, Italy
Meeting URL: https://centroargo.unior.it/en/node/175

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Ling & Literature;
Pragmatics; Translation
Subject Language(s): English (eng)
                     Italian (ita)

Submission Deadline: 30-May-2026

The conference continues the tradition of previous events on
linguistic (im)politeness hosted by the Argo Research Centre.
Following the respective conferences on cinema, TV series and theatre,
this year’s edition aims to investigate (im)politeness in fictional
and scientific texts that use the page as their medium from a
philological, linguistic and literary point of view.
Since the idea of textuality has gradually encompassed a wide spectrum
of written forms, the term “page” is understood as any material medium
bearing written language. The purpose of the conference is to adopt a
cross-disciplinary approach to non-book media, such as urban spaces,
the human body, and digital environments.
In light of these conceptual horizons, while the methodological
frameworks of (im)politeness have been traditionally applied to
textual forms related to dialogue (drama, screenplays, spoken
language), the conference addresses underinvestigated textualities:
fictional prose, scientific-argumentative texts, forms of urban
writing (textual graffiti), lettering and quotations in tattoos,
acronyms and abbreviations, online written interactions and comments.
We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations. The main topics of
interest include, but are not limited to, (im)politeness phenomena in:
 - Prose fictional texts (novels, short stories, comics, fanfictions,
etc.);
 - (Im)politeness within narratives and narratological frameworks;
 - Scientific treatises and specialised texts (legal, administrative,
contractual documents, etc.);
 - Linguistic (im)politeness across heterogeneous writing supports
(walls, the web, the body, etc.);
 - Linguistic “economies” (acronyms and abbreviations) as forms of
exclusion, identity markers, or demanding shared prior knowledge from
the addressee;
 - Linguistic (im)politeness in/of translation.
Abstracts should not exceed 300 words (excluding title, bibliography,
and keywords) and should be sent as e-mail attachments in .doc or
.docx to roberto.esposito at unior.it, m.mirto at unior.it, and
a.marino105 at unior.it by 30/05/2026.
Proposals should include:
- full name;
- academic position;
- affiliation;
- e-mail address;
- keywords (5 max.);
- references (5 max.).
Notice of acceptance will be sent by 30/06/2026.
Scientific and Organising Committee:
Bianca Del Villano, Giuseppe Balirano, Roberto Esposito, Mariaconcetta
Mirto, Alessia Marino, Chiara Ghezzi, Aoife Beville, Emma Pasquali.
Selected References:
Bousfield, D. (2008). Impoliteness in Interaction. John Benjamins.
Brighenti, A. M. (2010). At the Wall: Graffiti Writers, Urban
Territoriality, and the Public Domain. Space and Culture, 20(10),
1-18.
Brown P. & Levinson S. C. (1987 [1978]). Politeness. Some universals
in language usage. Cambridge University Press.
Bruti, S. (2013) La cortesia. Aspetti culturali e problemi traduttivi.
Pisa University Press.
Carver, E. H (2018) Graffiti Writing as Urban Narrative. Literary
Geographies, 4(2), 188-203.
Chmielewska, E. (2007). Framing [Con]text: Graffiti and Place. Space
and Culture, 10(2), 145-169.
Culpeper J. (1996). Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of
Pragmatics 25, 349–367.
Culpeper, J. (2001). Language and Characterization: People in Plays
and Other Texts. Longman.
Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness. Using Language to Cause Offence.
Cambridge University Press.
Culpeper, J., Haugh, M. & Kádár, D. Z. (2017). The Palgrave Handbook
of Linguistic (Im)politeness. Palgrave Macmillian
Goffman, E. (1967), Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face to Face
Behaviour. Penguin.
Kizelbach, U. (2023). (Im)politeness in McEwan’s Fiction: Literary
Pragma-Stylistics. Palgrave Macmillian.
Jucker, A. H. (2020). Politeness in the History of English: From the
Middle Ages to the Present Day. Cambridge University Press.
Short, M. (2013 [1996]). Exploring the language of poems, plays and
prose. Routledge.
Vandendorpe, C. (2009 [1999]). From Papyrus to Hypertext. Toward the
Universal Digital Library. (translated by P. Aronoff & H. Scott).
University of Illinois Press.

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