37.3561, Confs: International Conference on Language, Medicine & Allied Health (France)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3561. Thu 29 Oct 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3561, Confs: International Conference on Language, Medicine & Allied Health (France)

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: 27-Oct-2026
From: Marine Riou [marine.riou at univ-lyon2.fr]
Subject: International Conference on Language, Medicine & Allied Health


International Conference on Language, Medicine & Allied Health
Short Title: MedLang 2027

Date: 08-Jul-2027 - 09-Jul-2027
Location: Lyon, France
Meeting URL: https://medlang2027.sciencesconf.org/

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

Submission Deadline: 14-Jan-2027

This international conference explores how language specialists and
healthcare professionals can learn and benefit from each other,
creating a stimulating space in which to discuss scientific and
professional practices and open up avenues for interdisciplinary
collaboration.
By their very nature, language and health are interconnected: most if
not all health-related activities and contexts require the use of
language to be conducted, whether speech is written, spoken, or
signed.
The quality of clinical examination, history-taking, diagnostics,
patient adherence, and doctor-patient relationship are all impacted by
how all parties speak and interact with each other. Healthcare
professionals also rely on language to communicate with their peers
and colleagues, for example when participating in a clinical handover,
a medical staff meeting, or providing care as part of a team, such as
in the Intensive Care Unit or an operating room. The training of
healthcare professionals therefore requires a focus on communication
going beyond bedside manners. Besides, patients also develop their own
practices in their search for medical information. These practices
entail a linguistic dimension, whether they are related to the use of
the internet and generative AI, to exchanges within patient
communities (online forums, associations, support groups), to peer
support, or to the role of expert patients.
At a time when the focus is on interdisciplinarity, mutual
understanding, information sharing, and cross-sector collaboration,
language and communication are often overlooked despite being so
pervasive and central to healthcare.
There are many bridges between these fields, yet interdisciplinary
dialogue is not always easy. Few linguists read the scientific
literature published in medical journals, even when it addresses
language-related topics. Conversely, few healthcare researchers or
professionals are aware of the large body of research in applied
linguistics which could resonate with their own interests and
practices. Given the significant scientific, methodological, and
cultural differences between the fields of linguistics and medicine or
allied health more generally, collaboration requires extra work and
care to achieve mutual understanding. The aim of this first edition of
the MedLang conference is to build bridges—and to highlight existing
ones—between specialists of language and health, so as to foster a
lasting and mutually profitable dialogue.
We invite linguists and health researchers to submit an abstract for a
20-minute (+ 10 minutes for questions) oral presentation in English or
French at this new scientific event. We welcome proposals presenting
empirical research exploring the links between language and health,
with no restriction on the language(s) under study. We particularly
encourage abstracts focusing on the following themes:
 - Doctor-patient interaction, clinical encounters, and
healthcare-related interactions;
 - Challenges related to translation, interpreting, and intercultural
communication in healthcare;
 - Communication training for healthcare professionals;
 - Health discourse, narrative medicine, illness narratives, patient
communities, and peer support;
 - Health literacy, and the use of language-related digital tools and
AI by patients and healthcare professionals (e.g., tools used to
transcript, summarize, and translate).


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

********************** 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

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

University of Toronto Press https://utppublishing.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3561
----------------------------------------------------------