The primary aim of the congress is to explore ways in which the theory and practice of Discourse Studies can bring about social change. A secondary aim and proposed practical outcome of the congress is to develop an active network (a possible sub-network / working group of DiscourseNet) comprising individual researchers, representatives of academic and other research producing organizations, publishing organisations, and cultural practitioners interested in coordinating and streamlining their activity towards effecting social change for disenfranchised individuals and groups.

 

 

●flagging social issues and societal concerns the handling of which can particularly benefit from the methodology, theory and practice of Discourse Studies;

●exploring the social, economic, political, legal, behavioural, institutional, historical, cultural or linguistic dimensions of a given social issue;

●identifying discursive practices and processes as well as actors in bringing about social / technological / political change;

●ensuring independence, impartiality, objectivity and consistency in the evaluation and / or criticism of social / technological / political processes;

●(critical) discourse analysis of discursive strategies and social figurations;

●the role of discursive strategies and value judgements in perpetuating social configurations;

●strategies of disseminating research findings to a broader, non-academic public.

 

 

●language acquisition inside and outside institutional settings (first and second language acquisition, EFL, TESL, etc.);

●cross-cultural communication;

●institutional discourse, organizational culture, dispositif, apparatus analytics;

●business communication (as both cross-cultural communication and institutional discourse);

●interviewing techniques (e.g. with a view to providing advice for gatekeepers);

●the theory and practice of translation and interpreting;

●psychology and psychoanalysis (e.g. the contribution of narrative discourse analysis);

●literary theory and literary analysis;

●gender studies;

●discourses of technology and design. 

 

Elizabeth Peterson, University of Helsinki

Lauren Hall-Lew, The University of Edinburgh

 

 

Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted in English by February 21st, 2021. The submission Web page for DNC4 is https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dnc4 . 

Notifications of acceptance are expected to be communicated by February 29th, 2021. If accepted, applicants will have to pay the DiscourseNet Association membership fee of EUR30 (https://discourseanalysis.net/DN) before registering for the DNC4 congress to confirm their participation. 

After the conference, a book proposal for a thematic volume (or possibly two) based on selected conference papers will be submitted to Palgrave Macmillan for the “Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse” series.

 

 

To support the range of options and flexibility needed in our current climate, we will offer a blended conference experience at the DN4 Congress. At the time of submission participants do not need to commit either to a place-based or virtual presentation. Participants can present their papers either on-site or in the form of pre-recorded video files and will be able to change their mode of the presentation if their preferences change. This way we build for our DN4 participants flexible, and at the same time resilient, spaces for communication, engagement, and participation. As a result, we have decided to offer registration fees that are the same for on-site and off-site presenters/participants. 

 

 

At the time of submission participants do not need to commit either to a place-based or virtual presentation. As a result, we have decided to offer registration fees that are the same for on-site and off-site presenters/participants, that is a registration fee of EUR 60 will apply in either case (in addition to the DN Association’s membership fee) and a reduced registration fee of EUR 40 for enrolled students without access to institutional funding. The DiscourseNet Association membership fee of EUR30 (https://discourseanalysis.net/DN) needs to be paid before or while registering for the DNC4 congress, in the latter case it needs to be added to the registration fee (60+30=90 EUR in case of regular registration, 40+30=70 EUR for reduced registration).