Speaker & Abstracts

Conversations with Ghosts: Hauntology of Partition and Linguistic Spectrality in the Literature and Languages of Postcolonial Cyprus

Arcin Celikesmer, University of Kent

After an intense period of inter- and intra-communal conflicts following a British colonial rule, the postcolonial island of Cyprus is geopolitically partitioned in 1974 between its Greek-speaking Cypriot (GsC) and Turkish-speaking Cypriot (TsC) communities. The landscape of the Mediterranean island is transformed by the resulting mass displacement; missing persons and commemorations; abandoned houses and villages; and a dividing No Man’s Land. The trauma, memory, and experiences of these events materialise within the political discourses, literatures, and visual cultures of both communities in the shape of ghosts, with certain political volitions, and forms impacted by cultural depictions of spectres. My cross-communal literary, linguistic, and cultural research aims to face these spectral and phantasmic forms that are politically managed (Papadakis 2005, 150) and pragmatically utilised across various nationalist and post-nationalist narratives. With a post-human focus on the narratives of spectral objects, spaces, and languages of postcolonial Cyprus, I unpick the “economy of ghosts” (Joseph 2018, 22) that establishes both divisive and unifying discourses across Cypriot communities. For this project, I utilise various reconstructions of Jacques Derrida’s conception of “hauntology” (1994, 9), across object-oriented, spatial, and linguistic fields of inquiry.

For Conversations with Ghosts, I will mostly be focusing on the linguacultural aspects of my research, after providing some context on my study of haunted objects and landscapes. For my literary-linguistic analysis of the ‘hauntology of language’ (Joseph 2018, 25) in the case of partitioned and postcolonial Cyprus, I utilise Ana Deumert’s framework of “sociolinguistics of the spectre” (2022, 137), which classifies translinguistic practices that attempt to break through hegemonic ideas of a “standard” (138) language within postcolonial time-spaces. Using this analytical lens, I focus on linguistic motifs of absent-presence and ghostliness within the literatures of Cypriot writers such as Mehmet Yashin, Stephanos Stephanides, Yiannis Papadakis, and Alev Adil. By studying the ghostly reputation and depictions of the Cypriot communities’ colonially- and hegemonically-oppressed linguistic varieties, I obtain two strands of analyses. Firstly, through ‘Languages of Ghosts’, I explore how TsC/GsC writers evoke the ghosts of pre-partition Cyprus through linguistic hybridity and utilisation of their non-standardised Cypriot mothertongues, rather than the hegemonic standards of their ‘Step-mothertongues’ (Yashin 2000) of Turkish and Greek, to establish a polyglottic, cosmopolitan, postcolonial Cypriot identity. Secondly, through ‘Ghosts of Languages’, I discuss the now-extinct language variety of Karamanlidiki, and its stylistic utilisation and revival by Yashin in Sınırdışı Saatler (TR) /Σηνηρδησ̇ι Σαατλερ (KAR) /The Deported Hours (ENG) /Ώρες Aπέλασης (GR) (2007;2024). Through the hauntology of this ghost-tongue, I discuss the use of linguistic spectrality for the creation of post-nationalist, anti-hegemonic, and unificationist narratives and literary identities in partitioned Cyprus.

Through these analyses, I hope to emphasise the overall importance of attending to the speech and register of ghosts for furthering our understanding of colonial, partitional, and hegemonic projects’ attempts of making-invisible, that force individual and collective voices and experiences to the margins during nation-building and ethnic-identity creation processes. Going forward, this talk invites further considerations of the role of hauntology in postcolonial (lingua)cultural studies.

The Secret Diary of a Novice Researcher: Including Failure in the Complexity of Research Design 

Nathan Speirs, University of Glasgow

This 15 minute talk will center itself around the conference’s theme of Inclusion by presenting a radically honest take on the experience of being a novice researcher attempting data collection for the first time. For context, my PhD research project is centered around investigating how students use their bodies as communicative resources in university seminars. To investigate this, approximately 9 hours of classroom interaction from five different postgraduate seminarclassrooms across multiple colleges were recorded for analysis over Semester 2 of 2024/2025 at the University of Glasgow. The data is now being analyzed using multimodal conversation analysis as pioneered by Charles Goodwin, Christian Heath and Lorenza Mondada and other researchers (Goodwin, 2013; 2018, Heath & Mondada, 2019; Mondada, 2016; 2019). Collecting this data involved challenges both practical, ideological and personal in nature; this talk is thusly centered not around the data itself but the experience of designing research and conducting field work for the first time as a novice researcher.

The talk will cover three areas: the experience of designing research appropriate to a research question, the experience of conducting that research through engagement with participants and ‘helpers’, and finally the deeply emotional and personal experience of experiencing failure when conducting research. This presentation will display my personal diary entries from my research journal which I kept while conducting my data collection and seek to establish a dialogue on failures and challenges in the Q&A section. The talk will seek to reorient our attitudes toward failure as PhD students, and to include failure as part of our research design but also more broadly as an essential part of the experience of initiation into the world of research. 

Sources

Goodwin, C. (2013). The co-operative, Transformative organization of human action and knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics, 46(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.09.003

Goodwin, C. (2018). Why Multimodality? Why Co-Operative Action? (transcribed by J. Philipsen). Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.7146/si.v1i2.110039

Heath, C., & Mondada, L. (2019). Transparency and Embodied Action: Turn Organization and Fairness in Complex Institutional Environments. Social Psychology Quarterly, 82(3), 274–302. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272519843303

Mondada, L. (2019). Contemporary issues in conversation analysis: Embodiment and materiality, multimodality and multisensoriality in social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 47–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.01.016

(Re)Negotiating Identities: A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of ‘Home’ Multimodal Patterns in Picturebooks 

Maria Bîrlea, Department of English Studies, University of Salamanca

Picturebooks on migration have become an increasing genre in children’s literature since these narratives can foster empathy and offer insights into the experiences that migrants undergo (Hope, 2008). Existing literature on displacement and language acquisition argues that there is an undeniable connection between mobility, place and identity given that identities are neither fixed nor stable (e.g., Hall, 1996; Easthope, 2009). This proposal analyses the discursive construction of ‘home’ and how it is linked to the development of a new identity in migrants’ narratives. 

Drawing on a corpus of 60 picturebooks written in English, the study employs Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (Gillings, Mautner & Baker, 2023), systemic-functional multimodal discourse analysis (Serafini, 2022) and collustration analysis (McGlashan, 2016). It critically analyses visual and verbal patterns of salient lexical words such as <home> and <house> to trace their role in shaping migrants’ feeling of belonging. A model of degrees of ‘entry’ was also adopted (Budyta-Budynska, 2011) that distinguishes between assimilation, adaptation, integration and separation. This has shown to be essential for analysing migrants’ identities and their views of “home” since it varies according to how assimilated migrant characters are or wish to be. The study continues by looking at how naming reflects identity, noting that some characters think about how changing their names can help them fit within the host country. 

The analysis shows that <home> is a place were the migrants feel safe: they are looking for a place to call home (a lived space). Sometimes, this home is America, which is portrayed as either a country with many of options where the characters readily integrate or as a routine setting where they initially dislike it but eventually come to accept it. Results show that, in these narratives, characters undergo a process of questioning where they fit in a different country, realising that “home is within” any type of space they occupy. 

References 

Budyta-Budzyńska, M. (2011). Adaptation, integration, assimilation – an attempt at a theoretical approach. In Integration or assimilation: Poles in Iceland, edited by Małgorzata Budyta-Budzyńska, 43-64. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. 

Easthope, H. (2009). Fixed Identities in a Mobile World? The Relationship Between Mobility, Place, and Identity. Identities 15(1), pp. 61-82. 

Gillins, M., Maunter, G., and Baker, P. (2023). Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies. Cambridge University Press. 

Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs “identity”? En Hall, S. y P. du Gay. (Eds. ). Questions of Cultural Identity. pp. 1-17. Sage. 

Hope, J. (2008). “One day we had to run”: The development of the refugee identity in children’s literature and its function in education. Children’s Literature in Education 39: 295-304. 

McGlashan, M. (2016). The representation of same-sex parents in children’s picturebooks: a corpus-assisted multimodal critical discourse analysis. Doctoral dissertation. 

Serafini, F. (2022). Beyond the visual: An introduction to researching multimodal phenomena. Teachers College Press. 

Transactivity as a means of inclusion of learners through the extension of talk

Janine McNair, University of Glasgow

This paper focuses on the notion of inclusion in spoken interaction by exploring how transactivity in group talk can foster participant involvement through dialogic openness (Sawyer, 2013, p. 126). Aligning with the premises of dialogism, transactive discussion among learners can lead to heightened levels of intersubjectivity whereby speakers engage with each other’s ideas (Teasley, 1997, p. 363). Studies in the field of Collaborative Learning claim that such engagement leads to the extension of talk (van Heijst et al., 2019) and enhances collective knowledge construction.

This paper describes a study which uses a Conversation Analysis (CA) approach to facilitate a focus on the linguistic methods whereby speakers collaboratively construct knowledge within their interaction (Koschmann, 2013, p.150). The study aims to “understand (the) understanding” that speakers build together during collaborative learning situations (Koschmann, 2011, p.436). It examines the visible transactive aspects of the discourse, to discover the more tacit intersubjective aspects of communication which underlie group task-based talk (Heritage & Atkinson, 1984).

Transactivity comprises uptake from one speaker to another (Suthers et al., 2010). If participants show acceptance of alternative ideas (Trausan-Matu et al., 2021, p. 222-223), this encourages the extension and development of topics. Through its focus on sequencing, Conversation Analysis reveals how speakers pick up on each other’s points during a group discussion task, even when these turns are non-adjacent (Stahl, 2006; Zemel et al., p.429). Thus, CA may highlight the efforts made by participants to co-construct knowledge (Paulus & Wise, 2019; Damsa, 2014).

Due to its focus on synchronous learner interaction, this paper responds to the need for more scholarship to focus on speaking as a key mode of communication in higher education settings (Basturkmen, 2016). It is also timely in the digital age where AI-related issues (Rodrigues et al., 2025)

of scholarly integrity are increasing the stakes of spontaneous interaction as a means of ensuring authentic engagement.

Bibliography

Basturkmen, H. (2016). Dialogic interaction from: In K. Hyland, (Ed.) The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes (1st ed.) (pp. 152-164). Routledge. doi-org.ezproxy2.lib.gla.ac.uk/10.4324/9781315657455

Damşa, C. I. (2014). The multi-layered nature of small-group learning: Productive interactions in object-oriented collaboration. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 9(3), 247-281. doi.org/10.1007/s11412-014-9193-8

Heritage, J., & Atkinson, J. M. (1984). Introduction. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.) Structures of social action (pp.1-16). Cambridge University Press. doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511665868.003

Koschmann, T. (2011) Understanding understanding in action. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 435-437.

Koschmann, T. (2013). Conversation analysis and collaborative learning. In C. Hmelo-Silver, C. Chinn, C. Chan, & A. O’Donnell (Eds.), International handbook of collaborative learning (pp. 149–167). Routledge.

Paulus, T. W., & Wise, A. F., (2019). Looking for insight, transformation, and learning in online talk. Routledge

Rodrigues, M., Silva, R., Borges, A. P., Franco, M., & Oliveira, C. (2025). Artificial intelligence: Threat or asset to academic integrity? A bibliometric analysis. Kybernetes, 54(5), 2939-2970. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-09-2023-1666

Sawyer, R. K., (Ed.), (2013) Qualitative Methodologies for Studying Small Groups. In C. Hmelo-Silver, C. Chinn, C. Chan, & A. O’Donnell (Eds.), International handbook of collaborative learning (pp. 126–148). Routledge.

Stahl, G. (2006). Group cognition: Computer support for collaborative knowledge building. MIT Press.

Suthers, D. D., Dwyer, N., Medina, R., & Vatrapu, R. (2010). A framework for conceptualizing, representing, and analyzing distributed interaction. International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, 5 (1), 5–42.

Teasley, S. D. (1997). Talking about reasoning: How important is the peer in peer collaboration? In L. B. Resnick, R. Säljö, C. Pontecorvo, & B. Burge (Eds.), Discourse, tools and reasoning: Essays on situated cognition (pp. 364–384). Springer.

van Heijst, H., de Jong, F. P. C. M., van Aalst, J., de Hoog, N., & Kirschner, P. A. (2019). Socio-cognitive openness in online knowledge building discourse: Does openness keep conversations going? International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 14(2), 165-184. doi.org/10.1007/s11412-019-09303-4

Zemel, A., Xhafa, F. & Çakir, M. (2009) Combining Coding and Conversation Analysis of VMT Chats. In Stahl (Ed.) Studying virtual math teams. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0228-3

Agency, initiation and power: A case of participatory development paradox in local government development policy framework in Malawi

Peter Mayeso Jiyajiya, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow

Studies on community development have lauded participation as a means of providing meaningful involvement of the poor and giving them voice that accords them the platform to exert greater influence on the decisions and institutions that affect their lives, hence ensuring that the outcomes are helpful and impactful to them (Chambers, 1994; Cornwall & Pratt, 2011; Duraiappah et al., 2005; Head, 2007; Mathur, 1997; Nicholson, 2023; Paul, 1987). In response to these ideals, the government of Malawi enacted legal and policy frameworks that provide direction in terms of development processes vis-à-vis the issue of agency and the exercise of power in local development. As part of the PhD research project examining the emergent discourse practices in Neno district in Malawi, this paper explores the construal of participatory development and the distribution of agency and power in the Malawi’s Decentralisation Policy. So far, the linguistic analysis of the policy has shown that the government of Malawi positions itself as the instigator of empowerment, inviting local communities to exercise their agency and authority by demanding services from duty-bearers while building partnerships with the other development players. However, while the policy provides space for community initiation and stakeholder collaboration, power to control development processes is left in the Councils, thereby raising questions as to whether the conditions in the ‘invited spaces’ guarantee community agency and control given the power asymmetries.

References

Chambers, R. (1994b). The Origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Development, 22(7), 953–969.

Cornwall, A., & Pratt, G. (2011). The use and abuse of participatory rural appraisal : Reflections from practice. Agriculture and Human Values, 28(2), 263–272.

Duraiappah, A. K., Roddy, P., & Parry, J.-E. (2005). Have Participatory Approacches Increased Capabilities? International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), June, 1–31.

Head, B. W. (2007). Community engagement: Participation on whose terms? Australian Journal of Political Science, 42(3), 441–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361140701513570

Mathur, H. M. (1997). Participatory development : Some areas of current concern. Sociological Bulletin, 46(1), 53–95.

Nicholson, H. (2023). A sensitivity to sensitisation: a case study of participatory approaches within government-mandated climate resettlement in Malawi. Third World Quarterly, 44(3), 442–459. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2022.2147820

Paul, S. (1987). Community Participation in Development Projects. In World Bank Discussion Papers (Vols. 87–2183). http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1999/09/21/000178830_98101903572729/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf

Visual Borders and Cultural Bridges: Fostering Intercultural Competence Through the Lens of Thi Bui’s Graphic Novel The Best We Could Do

Nadia M. Arias González, Universidad de Salamanca

In today’s globalised context, promoting the complex skills that allow students to navigate culturally diverse encounters while exercising their empathy and solidarity toward individuals whose experiences differ from their own has become essential (Clouet et al., 2022; Deardorff, 2012). Thi Bui’s graphic novel The Best We Could Do (2017) narrates her family’s journey from war-torn Vietnam to the United States and addresses key issues such as post-colonial borders, the refugee experience, cultural assimilation, and the emotional landscapes of trauma, loss, and hope. Accordingly, the present work explores the use of this graphic memoir as a pedagogical tool for fostering intercultural competence within the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom.

The semiotic resources that graphic novels employ to narrate a story (Eisner, 1985; McCloud, 1994) help convey tone, evoke emotions, and emphasise meaning (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021). In this vein, Bui’s use of graphic elements such as fragmented panelling, a water-colour effect with varying degrees of saturation, and shifting angles and perspectives, underscores the instability and arbitrariness of borders. This study argues that by analysing such an integration of various modes of meaning-making (Jewitt, 2014), students can develop their critical thinking, visual literacy, and intercultural awareness (New London Group, 1996).

To demonstrate how The Best We Could Do can serve as an effective tool for building intercultural competence in the EFL classroom, this presentation outlines a pedagogical framework that leverages the graphic novel’s visual-textual interplay to promote empathy and intercultural understanding. Suggested classroom activities include interpreting visual metaphors, reflecting on diverse cultural perspectives, and encouraging students to create their own graphic narratives. Ultimately, this proposal advocates for the integration of multicultural graphic novels as a meaningful instrument to engage EFL learners in understanding global histories and fostering deeper human connection across cultural boundaries.

Key words: intercultural competence, EFL, migration, multimodality, graphic novel

REFERENCES

Bui, T. (2017). The Best We Could Do. Abrams ComicArts.

Clouet, R., García-Sánchez, S., & Fidalgo-González, L. (2022). Developing Intercultural Competence and Intelligence in the ESP Classroom: Challenges in Higher Education. In S. García-Sánchez & R. Clouet (Eds.), Intercultural Communication and Ubiquitous Learning in Multimodal English Language Education (pp. 128–145). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-8852-9.ch007

Deardorff, D. K. (2012). Intercultural Competence in the 21st century: Perspectives, issues, application. In B. Breninger & T. Kaltenbacher (Eds.), Creating Cultural Synergies(pp. 7–23). Cambrige Scholars.

Eisner, W. (1985). Comics and sequential art. Poorhouse Press.

Jewitt, C. (2014). Multimodal approaches. In Interactions, Images and Texts: A Reader in Multimodality (pp. 127–136). De Gruyter, Inc.

Kress, G. R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2021). Reading Images: The grammar of visual design(Third edition). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. HarperPerennial.

New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.66.1.17370n67v22j160u

Listening In: Power, Language, and Care in Multilingual Healthcare Settings 

Simona Maisano, University for Foreigners of Siena, Department of Humanities

Cultural diversity in contemporary societies has posed significant challenges in health communication These challenges are particularly visible in the context of multilingual medical visits, which provide a dense setting for observing how language and its use are embedded in structural dynamics and systems of value within a given socio-cultural space. This contribution explores the complex interactions within multilingual healthcare settings, focusing on how language, power, and care intersect in clinical encounters with non-native-speaking patients. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork within a clinical team caring for torture victims, I reflect on how linguistic and cultural barriers contribute to shaping the experience of care. In doing so, I take into account both the cultural nature of health and its definitions (Napier et al. 2014), and the ways in which power is enacted and negotiated where linguistic competence, medical knowledge, and cultural sensitivity meet (Quaranta 2017). 

Through an analysis of ethnographic vignettes and excerpts of conversations between the actors involved that were noted down in the field diary of a participant observation day, the research focuses on how power is acted and negotiated in the setting. To do so, the study aims at building a bridge between the analysis of the micro level of the language’s role in constructing the patient’s identity and the healthcare professional’s authority, and the macro level of the structural dynamics in which the language is produced and reproduced. 

The research employs ethnographic methodologies, considering the role of language not only as a tool for communication but also as a mechanism through which social hierarchies and identities are negotiated (Bourdieu 1991). In particular, I focus on moments of miscommunication and the negotiation of medical and cultural knowledge, and how these moments illuminate the broader dynamics of inclusion, exclusion, and power in healthcare settings. 

Cited references 

Bourdieu, P., 1991, Language and symbolic power. Harvard University Press. 

Quaranta, I., 2017, Cura e significato: dalla competenza alla consapevolezza culturale, in: Consapevolmente. Prendersi cura di adolescenti e giovani adulti in onco-ematologia, Bologna, Baskerville, pp. 246 – 272. 

Napier D., et. al., 2014, Culture and health, “The Lancet”, 384(9954), pp.1607–1639 

Conceptual metaphor ILLNESS IS WAR in medical discourse in English, French and Russian.

Daria Kaneva, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

The paper that I would like to propose explores the conceptual metaphor ILLNESS IS WAR and its linguistic realisations in English, French, and Russian. Grounded in cognitive metaphor theory, it examines how metaphor helps conceptualise abstract domains like illness.

Specialised medical corpora in the three languages were created and analysed using Sketch Engine, focusing on war-related vocabulary used metaphorically. To collect the vocabulary, several overviewed studies that contained linguistic realisations of the metaphor ILLNESS IS WAR were used. The methodology is a combination of corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches, starting with the theoretical framework of the conceptual metaphor ILLNESS IS WAR and then using corpus data to analyse its linguistic expressions and identify patterns.

The study found that many war-related words were indeed used metaphorically in medical discourse. Some, however, appeared in other metaphorical domains (e.g., SPORT IS WAR, ARGUMENT IS WAR), showing the productivity of WAR as a source domain.

Key quantitative findings:

• French showed the highest frequency of metaphorical use (100% of 20 lemmata), followed by English (81%) and Russian (54.5%)
• Lemma war/guerre/война was only 7%, 8% and 5 % metaphorical respectively
• The most prominent across three languages was the pair noun/verb fight (to fight)/lute(lutter)/борьба(бороться)
• Nouns attack/attaque with 21% and 19%contrasted withатака used metaphorically in 100% cases
• Lemmata used exclusively metaphorically in English and Russian were identified (e.g., to combat/сражаться)

Despite some technical limitations, the corpus analysis confirmed the widespread use of ILLNESS IS WAR across the three languages, with variation in frequency and form depending on the language and lemma.

Bibliographic references

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Dada, Sara, Ashworth, Henry Charles,  Bewa, Marlene Joannie, Dhatt, Roopa  2021. Words Matter: Political and Gender Analysis of Speeches Made by Heads of Government During the COVID-19 Pandemic. BMJ Global Health 6: e003910. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003910.

Deignan, Alice. 2005. Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Dedaic, Mirjana N and Nelson Daniel N. 2003 At war with words. Hawthorne, New York : Mouton de Gruyter.

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Fusari, Sabrina 2016. The Role of Corpus Annotation in the SFL-CL Marriage: A Test Case on the EU Debt Crisis, in: Systemic Functional Linguistics in the Digital Age, 246-259. Sheffield: Equinox.

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Yanush Olga B, 2014. Russian Language in the Eastern Europe: Сurrent Condition and Foreign Policy Practices. Gosudarstvennoe Upravlenie. Elektronnyi Vestnik. No 47 December 2014. Moscow State University

Zheltukhina M.R. and Magomadova T.D. 2012.  Lexico-Phraseological Nature of a Military Metaphor in Modern Press. Vestnik RUDN, series Teoria Yazyka. Semiotica. Semantica No 1 . Mocsow: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

Zyryanova E. V., Ichigeeva D. M. 2021 Metaphor of War in the Discourse Covering Pandemic (on Material of Russian Media). Bulletin of Buryat State University. Philology 1: 3‒10 (In Russ.). Ulan-Ude: Buryat State University.

Social Media as Linguacultural Spaces of Inclusion, Extension, and Identification: An Ecolinguistic Analysis of the Climate Crisis as a Social Phenomenon 

Vincenzo Amendolara, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures 

The ever-increasing sociocultural complexities, technological innovations (such as AI), economic and environmental upheavals of the current global scenario have profoundly impacted the narratives, actions (and inactions) of modern society, further exacerbating the already established concept of a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world. The current, pervasive sense of endemic entropy perfectly fits the definition of a multicrisis. Among the many crises of the Anthropocene, the climate crisis unarguably emerges as one of the most daunting challenges threatening both present and future societies. Furthermore, growing concerns about the detrimental effects of social media (see brain rot, Oxford-Word-of-the-Year-2024) on users also encompass the amplification of eco-anxiety and eco-indifference, often resulting in inaction and the resigned acceptance of an inevitable apocalyptic fate. Nonetheless, social media, with 

their multimodal affordances and comment sections, constitute linguacultural spaces of inclusion, extension, and identification and may therefore play a pivotal role in addressing the climate crisis by fostering eco-awareness. The proposed case study is an instance of ecolinguistic and multimodal critical discourse analysis (Machin & Mayr, 2023). The complex concept of the climate crisis has been investigated through an eco-thematic selection of Shorts (in English, Italian, and German) on news media accounts across three social platforms: TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. This study aims to qualitatively and contrastively examine the prevailing econarratives (Stibbe, 2024) on the platforms and within the three languages by analyzing user comment trends to detect specific linguistic and sociocultural framing patterns. 

Cited references 

Machin D. & Mayr A. (2023). How to do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. Singapore: Sage. 

Stibbe A. (2024). Econarrative: Ethics, Ecology, and the Search for New Narratives to Live By. London, New York, & Dublin: Bloomsbury Publishing. 

The languages of Bologna: a sociolinguistic analysis of the linguistic landscape of the famous porticos of the city.

Petrucci Lorenzo, Department of Foreign Languages, literatures and cultures (University of Bologna)

This study, which is ground in a PhD project started in November 2024, aims to study the level of multilingualism in Bologna by means of the analysis of the linguistic landscape of the city. More specifically, this investigation is focused in the famous porticos of the city, declared as UNESCO cultural heritage in 2021, and in the inscriptions/writings present on walls and columns as the main unit of analysis for this project. This choice has two main motivations.

First, it is a conviction of the researcher that the Bolognese porticos are not just a cultural and identitarian symbol of the city, but also a space of encounter and socialization between people with different cultural and linguistic origins. The multilingual inscriptions are in this sense a tangible heritage, although evanescent, of these intercultural exchanges. Secondly, this study seeks to overcome one of the major limitations so far encountered in theoretical research in linguistic landscape: as a matter of fact, while primary investigations in LL (see, for instance, Backhaus 2005; 2007; Ben-Rafael et al., 2001, 2006; Gorter, 2006; Shohamy, Gorter 2009; Shohamy et al., 2010) have focused in documenting the hierarchies of power and prestige between languages in the urban space, they have paid little attention to how the space could reveal something about how speakers actually put these languages into practice, which is one of the breakthroughs of this investigation. By means of a combined quantitative and qualitative methodology, this research thus seeks to explore not just the geographical and sociolinguistic distribution and the hierarchy of the languages, but also the ways in which these languages were actually used by the speakers.

The results of this research aim to shed light on the level of multilingualism in the city of Bologna as well as how this multilingualism is integrated in the linguistic ecology of the city. Moreover, they will offer fresh new perspectives on the relation between language, space and identity as well as on their social and cultural implications.

Bibliography

Backhaus, P. (2005), Signs of multilingualism in Tokyo: A linguistic landscape approach. Unpublished PhD thesis, Universität Duisburg-Essen.

Backhaus, P. (2007), Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Amara, M.H. and Trumper-Hecht, N. (2001), Linguistic landscape and multiculturalism: A Jewish–Arab comparative study. Unpublished manuscript, Tel Aviv University.

Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Amara, M.H. and Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006), “Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel”, International Journal of Multilingualism 3, 7–30.

Landry, R. and Bourhis, R.Y. (1997) “Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study”, Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16, 23-49.

Shohamy, E., & Gorter, D. (2009), Linguistic landscape. Expanding the scenery. New York and London: Routledge.

Shohamy, E. G., Rafael, E. B., & Barni, M. (Eds.), (2010), Linguistic landscape in the city. Multilingual Matters.

METALINGUISTIC REFLECTION ON ERRORS AS A TOOL FOR CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY IN LEGAL DISCOURSE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Anastasia Khustenko, University of Catania

In legal discourse on social media, linguistic and conceptual errors are not merely communicative obstacles but central elements in constructing professional identity and power hierarchies. Metalinguistic reflection on errors—through corrections, evaluations, and sanctions—shapes communicative dynamics, influencing authority and marginalization. This study analyzes error management as a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion in digital legal discourse, affecting access to and recognition of professional expertise.

Textual interactions in professional groups on social play a crucial role in shaping perceived identity (Barton & Lee, 2013). In line with Bucholtz and Hall, identity is “relational and sociocultural phenomenon that emerges and circulates in local discourse contexts of interaction” (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005, p. 585-586). Legal discourse, characterized by strong linguistic normativity, reflects and reinforces professional hierarchies (Giltrow & Stein, 2009). Traditionally seen as deviations from the norm, errors function as ideological control tools (Bourdieu, 1991). Critical Discourse Analysis highlights how linguistic regulation contributes to reproducing structures of dominance and marginalization (Fairclough, 1989; van Dijk, 1998). In legal discourse community, error management reinforces inclusion and exclusion dynamics (Swales, 1990), turning language into symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1982).

The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach integrating linguistic, ethnographic, digital tools, and corpus-based analysis. The research is based on digital interactions from the Facebook group Gli AVVOCATI di Facebook, the largest public community of legal professionals, with 44,590 members and approximately 30 daily posts, showing steady growth. The dataset comprises various types of user-generated content, including informational posts, comments, questions, requests for assistance, exchanges of opinions and professional experiences, and peer recommendations. Data selection was conducted using the keyword error, identifying 100 posts along with their respective comments. Content analysis identifies recurring patterns in error correction and evaluation strategies, while conversational analysis explores legitimacy and exclusion dynamics. CDA reveals that linguistic correction is not merely a normative act but a tool of social control and professional hierarchy consolidation (Gee, 2015). Errors function as markers of belonging and distinction, delineating in-group and out-group boundaries in digital legal discourse.

The study identifies seven types of errors shaping professional identity. Orthographic and punctuation errors signal carelessness and lack of professionalism, while grammatical errors, particularly in subjunctive use and legal syntax, undermine mastery of legal language. Lexical errors, involving terminological inaccuracies or conceptual confusions, compromise technical precision, while syntactic and textual errors affect argument coherence and readability. Conceptual framing errors stem from misinterpretations of legal norms and principles, while pragmalinguistic errors arise from inappropriate register use. Finally, rhetorical-argumentative errors, marked by logical fallacies and weak persuasion, impact credibility. Metalinguistic reflection on errors manifests through three main discursive strategies. Negative judgment can be used to exclude individuals from the professional group, reinforcing in-group boundaries. Conversely, accepted and assimilated corrections serve as signals of integration and recognition. Finally, irony and sarcasm function as tools for delegitimization and ridicule of perceived incompetence.

In legal social media contexts, error regulation is a social and ideological process that defines belonging, recognition, and authority. It shapes professional identities and reinforces hierarchies by distinguishing competence from marginalization.

Bibliografia

Barton, D., & Lee, C. (2013). Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices. Routledge.

Bourdieu, P. (1982). Ce que parler veut dire: L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Fayard.

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. Harvard University Press.

Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4-5), 585-614.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Longman.

Gee, J. P. (2015). How to Do Discourse Analysis: A Toolkit. Routledge.

Giltrow, J., & Stein, D. (2009). Genres in the Internet: Issues in the Theory of Genre. John Benjamins,  ix, 294 pp.

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge University Press.

van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. SAGE Publications.