37.663, Calls: Italiano LinguaDue - "Special Issue: La lingua del conflitto / The Language of Conflict" (Jrnl)

Tue Feb 17 14:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-663. Tue Feb 17 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.663, Calls: Italiano LinguaDue - "Special Issue: La lingua del conflitto / The Language of Conflict" (Jrnl)

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Mara Baccaro, Daniel Swanson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Valeriia Vyshnevetska <valeriia at linguistlist.org>

================================================================

Date: 16-Feb-2026
From: Gloria Comandini [comandini at studigermanici.it]
Subject: Italiano LinguaDue - "Special Issue: La lingua del conflitto / The Language of Conflict" (Jrnl)

Journal: Italiano LinguaDue
Issue: La lingua del conflitto / The Language of Conflict
Call Deadline: 30-Apr-2026

Special Issue: The Language of Conflict
Contemporary societies have to deal with conflict and its linguistic
management from a variety of perspectives and domains,  from
journalistic prose to political communication, from social media
dialogue to court trials. The umbrella-term “language of conflict” can
describe the language of war, which can be analysed not only as the
language used in military environments (Siegel et al. 2024), but also
as the narration of war in journalism (Abbadi et al. 2024) and in
politicians’ speeches (De Castella & McGarty 2013; Chiluwa & Ruzaite
2025). Moreover, the language of war can also be used as a metaphor to
describe other kinds of stressful and prone to crisis situations, such
as social work (Beckett 2003), and the COVID-19 pandemic (Pietrini
2021).
In this perspective, the proposed special issue aims at bringing
together scholars that investigate how linguistic practices generate,
narrate and transform conflict in a wide array of domains. This issue
will offer a space for research on the role of conflict in current
language and communication.
The theme of the language of conflict can also be explored in the
context of the studies on hate speech, which has seen a proliferation
of research over the last ten years. In this regard, of particular
interest for this issue is the analysis of the fine line that
separates hate speech, which is a threat to the freedom of speech
(West 2012) and degrades social cohesion (Wettstein 2021), from the
legitimate expression of dissent and criticism.
Moreover, this issue will also analyse the use of mitigation and
euphemism in the context of the language of conflict. Mitigation is a
psycholinguistic tool that offers the opportunity not to involve a
taboo topic in the discourse by overcoming it with, for example, a
euphemism (Benveniste 1949; Caffi 2007). In fact, conflict is a
semantically problematic issue, which often needs to be covered with
less impactful linguistic strategies not to directly involve the
speakers’ negative emotions or to manipulate reality for propaganda
purposes (Reutner 2014).
A key focus will be devoted to discussion of data-collection
methodology and contributions to the development of theoretical
frameworks for analysis that can spread across different linguistic
approaches, such as natural language processing (Sanguinetti et al.
2020), critical discourse analysis (Austin 1962; Fairclough 2001) and
forensic linguistics (Heydon 2019).
Proposals may address one or more of the following topics:
- Polarization of public discourse, also in the context of populist
rhetoric (Sauer et al. 2018)
- The narration of war and conflicts as made by the press, politicians
and by users on social media;
- De-humanization and otherization strategies used towards
marginalized groups (i.e. immigrants, queer people, ethnic minorities,
etc.), in order to deprive them of linguistic and social power
(Reisigl / Wodak 2001);
- Hate speech, micro-aggressions and the different strategies to
counteract them;
- War as a metaphor to describe other crisis situations;
- The narration of violent crimes and violence, especially femicide
(Minnema et al. 2022);
- The use of euphemism and mitigation strategies within the semantic
area of conflict and war.
Abstract should clearly include the theoretical framework of the
paper, data and results (albeit preliminary) of the intended
contribution. Abstract maximum length is 5,000 characters,
space-included, Times New Roman, 12 pt, single spaced; an extra page
for references could be added. Author’s personal information,
including affiliation and contact address, should not be included in
the abstract but specified in the submission email to the first
editor, dr. Gloria Comandini at comandini at studigermanici.it, with
another guest editor in CC.
Proposed Timeline:
Deadline abstract submission: April 30th, 2026
Notification of acceptance: May 30th, 2026
Full paper submission (1st draft): November 1st, 2026
Revision: December 1st, 2026
Revised paper submission (2nd draft): January 30th, 2026
Publication: March 2027
Guest Editors:
Gloria Comandini, Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici
(comandini at studigermanici.it)
Irene Caiazzo, Università per Stranieri di Siena
(i.caiazzo at dottorandi.unistrasi.it)
Lili Katona-Kovács, University of Debrecen (lilikrisztina at gmail.com)
Chiara Meluzzi, Università degli Studi di Milano
(chiara.meluzzi at unimi.it)
Elena Pepponi, Università di Cagliari (elena.pepponi at unica.it)

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis
                     Forensic Linguistics
                     General Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List, a U.S. 501(c)(3) not for profit organization:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Brill https://www.degruyterbrill.com/?changeLang=en

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com

SIL International Publications http://www.sil.org/resources/publications

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-37-663
----------------------------------------------------------