English Studies 2024: Discourse and Society
International Graduate Student Conference
This conference aims to provide a platform for graduate students to present and discuss their research in English Studies, focusing on the role of discourse in language, literature, and cultural representation. Objectives include fostering interdisciplinary conversations, bringing together students and scholars from various English Studies disciplines, and encouraging critical analyses of language impact on societal norms, values, and cultural narratives. To actively encourage student participation and engagement, the conference is offered free of charge.
Contributions are invited that align with but are not limited to the following thematic areas: linguistics (pragmatics, discourse analysis, media linguistics), literary studies (narratives and discourse in literature, postcolonial discourse, critical theory and discourse), cultural studies (discourse and culture, discourse and identity, representation in popular culture), cross-disciplinary approaches (intersections of language, literature, and culture; multimodal discourse analysis).
Speakers
Ruth Breeze
University of Navarra, Spain
Kotryna Garanašvili
University of East-Anglia, England
Rita Juknevičienė
Vilnius University, Lithuania
Mark Pass
UK Embassy Vilnius, Lithuania
Ovidiu Ivancu
Vilnius University, Lithuania
Davide Castiglione
Vilnius University, Lithuania
Emily J. Hicks
U.S. Embassy Vilnius, Lithuania
Conference Programme
Ruth Breeze
University of Navarra, Spain
About the keynote speaker
↗️ Professor Ruth Breeze is the Principal Investigator of the Public Discourse Research Group at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra.
↗️ She has published widely on political discourse, legal discourse and specialised communication.
↗️ Her most recent books are “Imagining the Peoples of Europe: Populist Discourses across the Political Spectrum” (with Jan Zienkowski, John Benjamins, 2019), and “Pandemic and Crisis Discourse: Communicating COVID-19 and Public Health Strategy” (with Andreas Musolff, Sara Vilar-Lluch and Kayo Kondo, Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
Keynote presentation Researching Emotion in Discourse
↗️ This presentation focuses on the basis for researching emotion in language and explores some applications to (political) discourse. Starting from current theories of emotion/affect, a series of examples from the UK, Germany, Spain and the USA will be presented, showing how emotions are represented, invoked and exploited by political figures, particularly those considered “populist”.
↗️ Some examples will illustrate the key role of anger and resentment in driving the radical impulse for change: politicians use subtle discursive techniques to invoke anger and condone violence without taking responsibility for such provocations. Other examples show how positive emotions associated with in-group identity are harnessed by political leaders in this context.
↗️ The important role of (false) dichotomies and end-scale gradations will be discussed, and linguistic and discourse analytical methodologies that can be used in this context will be suggested.
