37.2528, Confs: Panel at IPC20: Pragmatics for the Public Sphere (Finland)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2528. Fri Jul 31 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2528, Confs: Panel at IPC20: Pragmatics for the Public Sphere (Finland)

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, 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: 29-Jul-2026
From: Jef Verschueren [jef.verschueren at uantwerpen.be]
Subject: Panel at IPC20: Pragmatics for the Public Sphere


Panel at IPC20: Pragmatics for the Public Sphere
Short Title: IPrA2027

Date: 27-Jun-2027 - 02-Jul-2027
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact: Jef Verschueren
Contact Email: jef.verschueren at uantwerpen.be
Meeting URL: https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP2027

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics

Submission Deadline: 15-Oct-2026

This is a panel that will be part of the 20th International Pragmatics
Conference, It is organized by Jef Verschueren (Univ of Antwerp),
Michael Meeuwis (Univ of Ghent), Jan-Ola Östman (Univ of Helsinki),
Rui Zhang (Dalian Univ of Technology)
Abstract:
As a realm of publicly accessible discourse and as an arena for
struggles over meaning, the public sphere (cf. Habermas 1989) has been
undergoing drastic technologically driven changes during the past
couple of decades. These changes include:
 - a significant weakening of the boundaries between public and
private
 - more problematic assignment of responsibilities for message content
 - historically unrivalled world-wide connectivity and (in theory)
universal access to channels of communication
 - automated and algorithm-guided fragmentation and polarization
The resulting communicative architecture raises new problems for a
pragmatic approach to (semi)public discourse. In general, the question
is: How can we cope with cohesion, coherence, and incremental
understanding in a communicative realm characterized by the fragmented
connectivity of the personalized use of internet-based communication
tools? The complexity of this question increases in a multilingual
context when messages may still be interpreter-mediated (cf. Zhang
2025) but increasingly pass through the filter of AI-assisted
computational translation.
We invite contributions that yield insights into meaning-making
communicative processes that constitute newly emerging public spheres
in a global context that does not confine public communication to an
easily identifiable locale or a single speech community. We are
motivated by the conviction that, as students of language, we cannot
avoid taking responsibility (cf. Ädel & Östman2023, Haugh & Márquez
Reiter 2025) for the risks involved in changing meaning-making
processes that may be detrimental to the healthy functioning of
societies. But in order to take responsibility, we must first
understand.
This is an open call. Contributions to this panel, sharing this
overall perspective, may deal with any type of public discourse
reflecting (some of) the characteristics hinted at above. We hope to
attract papers on a wide variety of data representing a diversity of
analytical approaches. They may be situated in political, judicial,
media, or education contexts. The focus may be on any aspect relevant
from a pragmatic point of view, in the widest sense of linguistic
‘pragmatics.’ More theoretical papers relevant to the theme of the
panel will also be considered.
References:
Ädel, Annelie & Jan-Ola Östman (eds.). 2023. Risk Discourse and
Responsibility. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public
Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Haugh, Michael & Rosina Márquez Reiter (eds.). 2025. Morality in
Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zhang, Rui. 2025. “A public sphere of meaning negotiation: The
interpreter-mediated Chinese Premier’s Press Conference.” In Meaning
Generation in Chinese Official Media Discourse, ed. by Lut Lams, Rui
Zhang & Emma Lupano, 8-27. London: Routledge.



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

********************** 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:

Australian Linguistics Society https://als.asn.au/Home

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

European Language Resources Association (ELRA) http://www.elra.info

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

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

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

MDPI Languages https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages

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-37-2528
----------------------------------------------------------