37.551, Confs: Reading Between the Humorous Lines. The Hidden Message of Laughter (Italy)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-551. Tue Feb 10 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.551, Confs: Reading Between the Humorous Lines. The Hidden Message of Laughter (Italy)

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Date: 09-Feb-2026
From: Margherita Dore [margherita.dore at uniroma1.it]
Subject: Reading Between the Humorous Lines. The Hidden Message of Laughter


Reading Between the Humorous Lines. The Hidden Message of Laughter
Short Title: RBHL

Date: 16-Sep-2026 - 18-Sep-2026
Location: Rome, Italy

Linguistic Field(s): Discipline of Linguistics; Discourse Analysis;
Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics; Translation

Submission Deadline: 28-Feb-2026

While humour is commonly seen as a form of entertainment, its role
often extends beyond mere amusement. It can, in fact, be a powerful
vehicle for social critique, raising cultural awareness, and fostering
civic engagement. However, for every instance of harmless or
well-intentioned humour (Raskin 1985; Norrick 1993; Dore 2022 here),
there are cases where it acts to reinforce, disseminate, and normalise
social discrimination, including racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, and
bullying, across a wide range of settings.
Recent research in sociolinguistics has shown that people frequently
use humour as a strategy to soften verbal attacks aimed at minorities
or marginalized groups. While these jokes may be framed as socially
acceptable, they can mask hostile intent and function as a covert form
of hate speech (Billing 2005; Lockyer & Pickering 2008; Weaver 2016;
Ervine 2019; Tsakona 2019, 2020; Pérez 2022).
Therefore, it is vital for audiences, especially adolescents and young
adults, to develop the ability to decipher the discriminatory
undertones hidden within seemingly innocent jokes and to build the
critical skills needed to challenge and analyse them. It is equally
important for the direct and indirect targets of such humour to
recognise the value of actively resisting its use in both public and
private settings, all while cultivating personal resilience.
With this goal, the conference aims to critically examine real-world
examples of these practices and explore a diverse array of contexts,
from education and broadcast media to social networks and everyday
interpersonal interactions (such as those between doctors and patients
or employers and employees) within which humour is employed not only
as a means of entertainment, but as a tool for direct and indirect
discrimination. Contributors will offer perspectives and tools to
identify and address discriminatory humour in social, professional,
and educational environments.
To this end, the Scientific Committee would like to consider 20-minute
paper proposals engaging with the following key topics (this list is
intended to be descriptive, not exhaustive):
 - Humour and ableism
 - Humour and racism
 - Humour literacy and pedagogy
 - Smear politics
 - Humour and intercultural communication
 - Humour and translation
 - Humour in educational settings
 - Intergenerational differences in humour
 - Sexist and feminist humour
 - Humour and language ideologies
 - Humour in the workplace
Proposals will be subject to a double-blind peer-review process.
Please send your proposals in Word format to BOTH Margherita Dore
(margherita.dore at uniroma1.it) and Giovanni Raffa
(giovanni.raffa at uniroma1.it)
Please also note that the conference will feature a half-day session
dedicated to engaging high school (head)teachers, and potentially
students, in a roundtable discussion on Humour Literacy.
This session aims to:
1.      Foster a deeper understanding of the role of humour in social
interaction, exploring its key advantages and pitfalls as a
communicative tool.
2.      Provide educators and learners with practical tools to
recognize and decode humour that perpetuates social inequalities—such
as racist, sexist, or ableist content—whether delivered through
explicit or implicit means across various channels, including social
media.
3.      Empower participants to identify discriminatory messages
embedded within humorous discourse.
To achieve this, the seminar will involve the analysis of humorous
materials from diverse real-world
contexts, designed to boost engagement and sharpen critical analytical
skills.
Working language: English
References:
Billig, M. (2005). Laughter and ridicule: Towards a social critique of
humour. Sage.
Dore, M. (2022). Standing-up for a Cause. The Cathartic and Persuasive
Power of Stand-up Comedy. In R. Bhargava & R. Chilana, (eds.) Punching
Up in Stand-Up Comedy Speaking Truth to Power (p. 214-234. Routledge.
Ervine, J. (2019). Humor in contemporary France: Controversy,
consensus, and contradictions. Liverpool University Press.
Lockyer, S., & Pickering, M. (2008). You must be joking: The
sociological critique of humour and comic media. Sociology Compass,
2(3), 808-820.
Norrick, N. R. (1993). Conversational joking: Humor in everyday talk.
Indiana University Press.
Pérez, R. (2022). The souls of white jokes: How racist humor fuels
white supremacy. Stanford University Press.
Raskin, V. (1985). Semantic Mechanism of Humour. Reidel Publishing.
Tsakona, V. (2019). Talking about humor, racism, and anti-racism in
class: A critical literacy proposal. Bulletin of the Transilvania
University of Braşov, Series IV: Philology and Cultural Studies,
12(61)(2), 111-141.
Tsakona, V. (2020). Recontextualizing Humor: Rethinking the Analysis
and Teaching of Humor. De Gruyter Mouton.
Weaver, S. (2016). The rhetoric of racist humor: US, UK and global
race joking. Routledge.
Deadlines and Fees:
28 February 2026 – Deadline for abstracts (max. 300 words) and
biosketch (max. 100 words)
31 March 2026 – Notification of acceptance
16-18 September 2026 – Conference, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Early bird registration (by 30 April 2026)
€150 (Professors and Researchers); €100 (PhD students and independent
scholars).
Regular registration (by 15 July 2026)
€200 (Professors and Researchers); €150 (PhD students and independent
scholars).
BA, MA students: free entry but the must email the organisers for
reservation by 10 September 2026.
Invited Keynote Speakers:
1)      Salvatore Attardo, Full Professor of Applied Linguistics
(English Language) at Texas A&M University–Commerce, USA
(https://www.etamu.edu/people/salvatore-attardo/). Professor Attardo
is internationally regarded as one of the most prominent figures in
the field of humour research. His scholarly work spans a wide range of
topics, including pragmatics, semantics, and grammar. At the
conference, Professor Attardo will deliver a plenary lecture exploring
the complex relationship between humour and political (in)correctness.
2)      Villy Tsakona, Professor of Social and Educational Approaches
to Language at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece (https://www.ecd.uoa.gr/vasiliki-tsakona/).
Professor Tsakona’s research interests encompass theories of humour,
humorous genres, political discourse analysis, and identity
construction. Her recent monograph offers a socio-pragmatic
examination of online humour, also advancing a pedagogical framework
for understanding humour as both a vehicle of offence and a resource
for resisting racism and cultural prejudice. Her plenary lecture will
focus on classist humour as a less studied category of political
humour.
Invited Discussant:
3)      Mihaela-Viorica Constantinescu, Associate Professor of
Linguistics at the University of Bucharest, Romania
(https://unibuc.ro/user/mihaelaviorica.constantinescu/?lang=en).
Professor Constantinescu teaches courses in pragmatics, communication
and text interpretation. Her principal research areas include humour,
parody, and irony, with a particular emphasis on their cultural and
discursive dimensions. As part of the conference’s concluding session,
she will address the interrelations between humour and cultural
prejudice.
Organising Committee:
Margherita Dore
Giovanni Raffa
Irene Ranzato
Mary Wardle
Monika Wozniak
Scientific Committee:
Salvatore Attardo, ETAMU, Texas, USA
Giuseppe Balirano, Università degli Studi L’Orientale, Naples, Italy
Geert Brone, KU Leuven, Belgium
Dorota Brzozowska, Opole University, Poland
Carla Canestrari, Università degli Studi di Macerata, Italy
Wladyslaw Chłopicki, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
Jan Chovanec, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Mihaela-Viorica Constantinescu, University of Bucharest, Romania
Christian Hempelmann, ETAMU, Texas, USA
Agata Hołobut, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
Liisi Laineste, Estonian Literary Museum, Tallin, Estonia
Vicky Mantely, University of Patras, Greece
Will Noonan, Université de Bourgogne, France
Beatrice Priego Valverde, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
Laura Vagnoli, Ospedale Pediatrico Meyer, Florence
Patrick Zabalbeascoa, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain



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