37.2454, Confs: Panel at IPC20 - The Pragmatics of Organized Crime and Conflict: Identity, Ritual, and Transnational Mediations (Finland)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2454. Thu Jul 23 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2454, Confs: Panel at IPC20 - The Pragmatics of Organized Crime and Conflict: Identity, Ritual, and Transnational Mediations (Finland)

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Date: 21-Jul-2026
From: Takako Kawabata [tk70 at soas.ac.uk]
Subject: Panel at IPC20 - The Pragmatics of Organized Crime and Conflict: Identity, Ritual, and Transnational Mediations


Panel at IPC20 - The Pragmatics of Organized Crime and Conflict:
Identity, Ritual, and Transnational Mediations
Short Title: IprA2027
Theme: The Pragmatics of Organized Crime and Conflict: Identity,
Ritual, and Transnational Mediations

Date: 27-Jun-2027 - 02-Jul-2027
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact: Takako Kawabata
Contact Email: tk70 at soas.ac.uk
Meeting URL: https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP2027

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Discourse Analysis;
Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Submission Deadline: 15-Oct-2026

The Pragmatics of Organized Crime and Conflict: Identity, Ritual, and
Transnational Mediations
Convenors:
Takako Kawabata (SOAS University of London)
Daniela Cesiri (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Panel Description:
Organized crime groups such as the Italian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza,
and the Hong Kong Triads are not merely criminal enterprises; they are
communicative communities sustained through highly ritualized
linguistic and semiotic practices. Existing research has shown that
Mafia-type organizations possess distinctive social, cultural, and
institutional characteristics (Paoli, 2020), while studies of Triad
societies have demonstrated the importance of language, secrecy, and
social regulation in criminal or semi-secret organizations (Bolton &
Hutton, 1995). Their internal relationships are shaped not only by
violence and institutional hierarchy but also by language,
interaction, and symbolic performance. Address terms, honorifics,
ritual greetings, silence, apology, threats, oath-taking, and
expressions of loyalty all contribute to constructing social
identities and maintaining organizational order. These communicative
practices can be understood as forms of relational work (Locher &
Watts, 2005), through which participants negotiate interpersonal
relationships and institutional identities.
One particularly distinctive feature shared by many criminal
organizations is the construction of pseudo-family, or fictive
kinship. Rather than relying solely on biological relationships, these
organizations establish alternative kinship systems through language.
The Japanese Yakuza, for example, employ specialized kinship
terminology such as ojiki and anesan, while the Italian Mafia
emphasizes concepts such as famiglia, compare, and brotherhood.
Similar systems of symbolic kinship can also be found in Hong Kong
Triads and other organized criminal groups. This panel welcomes
studies examining how such linguistic practices contribute to the
negotiation of authority, solidarity, loyalty, identity, and
organizational membership.
The panel explores how conflict, authority, loyalty, exclusion,
betrayal, and reconciliation are negotiated through linguistic and
multimodal practices in organized crime discourse Drawing on
pragmatics, discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, interactional
sociolinguistics, and related approaches, the panel welcomes research
investigating how language constructs, negotiates, and represents
criminal identities and social relationships across different
communicative contexts.
We welcome analyses based on a broad range of publicly available data,
including both fictional and non-fictional representations of
organized crime. Possible data sources include films such as Francis
Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Hideo Gosha’s Yakuza Wives (Gokudō no
Onna-tachi /極道の妻たち), and John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow (Yīngxióng Běnsè
/英雄本色); television dramas such as The Sopranos and Gomorrah; manga
including Shizukanaru Don - Yakuza Side Story (Shizukanaru Don
/静かなるドン) and The Way of the Househusband (Gokushufudō / 極主夫道); as well
as novels, documentaries, courtroom interaction, legal discourse,
journalistic reporting, autobiographies, memoirs, interviews,
podcasts, digital media, online communities, historical documents, and
other publicly accessible materials. Recent studies of crime
narratives, courtroom discourse, and media representations of
organized crime have demonstrated the value of pragmatic,
discourse-analytic, and multimodal approaches to these forms of
communication (Mısır & Akın, 2024; Olszowska, 2022; Oyeleye et al.,
2024; Pitroso, 2020). The panel brings together diverse perspectives
on the pragmatics of organized crime across languages, cultures,
media, and disciplinary traditions.
Contributions adopting discourse-analytic, conversation analytic,
corpus-based, multimodal, interactional, anthropological,
cognitive-pragmatic, or other interdisciplinary approaches are warmly
encouraged.
Suggested Topics:
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
 - Pseudo-family, fictive kinship, and brotherhood in organized crime
discourse
 - Address terms, honorifics, relational identity, hierarchy, and
organizational membership
 - Speech acts, authority, directives, threats, apologies, promises,
and ritual interaction
 - Loyalty, betrayal, exclusion, and conflict as interactional
achievements
 - Silence, secrecy, coded communication, and omertà
 - Politeness, impoliteness, facework, and relational work in criminal
organizations
 - Identity construction, stance-taking, indexicality, and membership
categorization
 - Initiation rituals, oath-taking, and symbolic performances
 - Gender, family, and female agency in organized crime discourse
 - Multimodal communication, including gesture, tattoos, clothing,
visual symbolism, and spatial practices
 - Translation, intercultural adaptation, and the transnational
circulation of organized crime narratives
 - Comparative studies of Mafia, Yakuza, Triads, cartels, gangs, or
other organized criminal groups
 - Corpus-based, discourse-analytic, conversation analytic,
ethnographic, multimodal, cognitive-pragmatic, or interdisciplinary
approaches to organized crime discourse
We welcome submissions adopting a wide range of theoretical
perspectives, methodologies, and datasets. Studies focusing on a
single linguistic or cultural context, as well as comparative and
cross-cultural research, are equally encouraged.
References:
Bolton, K., & Hutton, C. (1995). Bad and banned language: Triad secret
societies, the censorship of the Cantonese vernacular, and colonial
language policy in Hong Kong. Language in Society, 24, 159–186.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404500018571
Locher, M. A., & Watts, R. J. (2005). Politeness Theory and Relational
Work. 1(1), 9–33. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.9
Mısır, H., & Akın, G. (2024). Navigating power and impoliteness in
criminal court discourse. International Journal of Legal Discourse,
9(2), 289–312. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijld-2024-2013
Olszowska, L. H. (2022). From Hollywood mobster to Russian gangster:
Representations of mafia in Coppola’s Godfather trilogy and
Balabanov’s Brother films. Slovo, 35(1).
https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.0954-6839.1275
Oyeleye, A. L., Sunday, A. B., & Albert L. Oyeleye. (2024). Pragmatic
strategies in the crime narratives of accused rapists in Agodi
Custodial Centre, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Studies in African
Languages and Cultures, 58. https://doi.org/10.32690/salc58.1
Paoli, L. (2020). What Makes Mafias Different? Crime and Justice, 49,
141–222. https://doi.org/10.1086/708826
Pitroso, G. (2020). Mafia and the representation of Italians. Trans.
Digit. Games Res. Assoc., 5. https://doi.org/10.26503/todigra.v5i1.110
Note that IPrA membership is required for submitting an abstract (with
all deadlines in 2026) as well as for presenting during the conference
(in 2027), and that membership always runs from 1 January to 31
December, no matter at what time in the year it is applied for.
Membership can be arranged instantly by clicking ‘JOIN IPRA’ on top of
the IPrA home page and following all the necessary steps.
For the full Call for Papers, please visit:
https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP2027
All submission procedures are web-based (i.e., paper copies, faxes, or
email attachments will not be accepted).
Contributors should submit their abstracts via the IPrA conference
website by 15 October 2026.



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