AIA INTERVIEWS In this video of the AIA Interviews series, Caterina Daolio sits down with Sabrina Fusari, University of Bologna, to discuss her latest book, A Corpus Linguistic Approach to Analyzing ‘Empathy’, available in OPEN ACCESS at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003632399
Identity is not something we have, it is something we do. It emerges in discourse, takes shape through interaction and becomes legible through the semiotic resources we bring into play across contexts. From everyday conversation to institutional communication, from digital platforms to embodied practices, identity is continuously performed, negotiated and contested. In contemporary societies marked by mobility, digital mediation and ecological crisis, identity is increasingly fluid, relational and multimodal. Language is no longer the sole site of meaning-making: images, sounds, spaces, algorithms and bodies all participate in the production of identities. These processes are never neutral. They are embedded in relations of power, shaping who can speak, how they are represented and whose voices are legitimised or marginalised. At the same time, identities are constituted through intersecting and shifting dimensions, including gender, sexuality, race, class, age and ability, which are not fixed categories but positions continuously reconfigured in discourse. In this sense, identity is always situated: it is produced within specific socio-cultural, political and ecological conditions, and it remains open to transformation, resistance and re-articulation. This conference invites contributions that explore how identities are constructed, performed and reimagined in and through English, across a wide range of contexts and modalities. We are particularly interested in work that pushes beyond established frameworks, interrogates dominant assumption and engages critically with the relationship between language, meaning and power. Rather than treating identity as a stable object of analysis, we encourage approaches that foreground its processual, performative and semiotic nature, as well as its entanglement with material, digital and ecological realities.Possible areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to: discourse and the construction of self and other in media, institutional and public communication gender, sexuality and intersectional identities as discursive and embodied practices multimodal and visual representations of identity across digital and non-digital environments identity work in English language teaching and learning contexts translation, subtitling and dubbing as sites of identity mediation and transformation language variation, attitudes and ideologies in relation to belonging and social positioning corpus-based approaches to identity in authentic and digitally mediated data online identities and digital practices across social media, gaming and virtual spaces ecocritical discourse analysis and ecolinguistic perspectives on identity and the more-than-human world Conference venue and date: The conference will be hosted by the University of Naples Federico II and will take place on 3–4 December 2026. The exact venue will be communicated in the coming weeks. Abstract submission: To contribute to the conference as a speaker, please submit an abstract to the following email addresses: fcavalie@unina.it; aureliana.natale@unina.it; fabio.cangero@unina.it; and performid2026@gmail.com. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words and should include a maximum of 5 references in APA style. The deadline for abstract submission is 15 July 2026. Conference fee and social dinner:€100 for senior scholars (RTDB, RTT, Associate Professor and Full Professor)€80 for junior scholars (PhD student, Research Fellow, Adjunct Professor and RTDA)€45 for participation in the social dinner.The conference fee should be paid using the following link: https://www.frcongressi.it/pay/user/areapersonale.php?token=5c23b24205a6acf83e2915485bd4226dPayment for the social dinner will instead be made on site. Keynote Speakers:Giuseppe BALIRANO (University of Naples L’Orientale)Encarnación HIDALGO TENORIO (University of Granada) Scientific Committee:Giuseppe BALIRANO (University of Naples L’Orientale)Fabio CANGERO (University of Naples Federico II)Flavia CAVALIERE (University of Naples Federico II)Paolo DONADIO (University of Naples Federico II)Antonio FRUTTALDO (University of Sannio)Encarnación HIDALGO TENORIO (University of Granada)Aureliana NATALE (University of Naples Federico II)Katherine E. RUSSO (University of Naples L’Orientale) Organising Committee:Fabio CANGERO (University of Naples Federico II)Flavia CAVALIERE (University of Naples Federico II)Paolo DONADIO (University of Naples Federico II)Aureliana NATALE (University of Naples Federico II)
The contemporary landscape of Legal English is increasingly defined by a shift from a monolithic entity to a diverse array of Legal Englishes, reflecting the role of English as a global lingua franca in legal, judicial and institutional settings. Within multilayered legal systems, practitioners and professionals from various fields (e.g. lawyers, judges, translators and interpreters, but also public servants) must navigate national, supranational, and international varieties, which often leave linguistic “traces” in texts, such as when supranational law is transposed into national legislation or when international case law interacts with national legislation. The interaction between varieties, and the need for translation in many communicative settings, may lead to significant hurdles for Legal English terminology, but also to a (rapid) evolution beyond terminology of both Legal English and other languages for legal purposes. In recent years, the awareness of the wide audience which legal and judicial written and spoken communication may reach has been driving simplification in legal drafting, translation, and institutional communication to ensure that information is accessible to laypersons. This focus on inclusion encompasses the implementation of plain language and easy-to-read language, which require a detailed profiling of the target audience, as well as the use of gender-neutral and gender-sensitive language. Furthermore, the dissemination of legal knowledge has been expanding through knowledge mediation, popularization, transmediation, and transcreation, recurring for instance to visual design and modern media entertainment/infotainment to explain complex law to the general public. These shifts present profound challenges in both using and teaching Legal English(es) and legal translation, which are changing at an incredibly fast pace due to the incorporation of innovative technologies, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs). Despite the benefits brought by AI and LLMs, their application in specialized legal translation raises critical concerns regarding accuracy, data reliability, and ethical implications. Given the variety of aspects that fall within the broad areas of Legal English(es) and legal translation in and to English and the need to adopt interdisciplinary and mixed-method approaches to study them, this seminar is intended as a platform where scholars with different expertise engage in scholarly dialogue aimed at fostering research interaction and possibly collaboration. Possible topics include but are not limited to: · Defining the boundaries of Legal English(es); · National, supranational and international varieties of Legal English; · English as a lingua franca in legal and judicial discourse; · Legal English terminology; · Simplification in legal drafting, legal translation and institutional communication; · Inclusion in Legal English (plain language, easy-to-read language, gender-neutral and gender-sensitive language); · Legal knowledge mediation, popularization, simplification, transmediation and transcreation involving Legal English; · Legal English in modern media entertainment and audiovisual translation; · Benefits and challenges of innovative technologies (e.g. AI and LLMs) in Legal English and legal translation in and to English; · The challenges of teaching Legal English and Legal translation in and from English. Keynote speakers Jan Engberg (Aarhus University) Giuliana Garzone (IULM) Presentation Guidelines Papers will be allotted 20 minutes, plus 5 minutes for discussion. Abstract Submission Please send your anonymous abstract of no more than 300 words (including max 5 references) to the following addresses: g.digregorio@unict.it and kperuzzo@units.it. Please do not include any self-identifying information in the abstract; indicate only the title and the abstract itself. In a separate file, include: Title: Author(s): Affiliation(s): Postal mailing address (for primary author): E-mail (for primary author): Important dates Abstract submission: 30 June 2026 Notification of acceptance: 31July 2026 Information on registration will be provided in due course. Organising Committee Cristina Arizzi, Massimiliano Demata, Giuseppina Di Gregorio, Maria Teresa Musacchio, Giuseppe Palumbo, Katia Peruzzo, Giuliana Russo, Marco Venuti, Francesca Vigo, Raffaele Zago. Scientific Committee Cristina Arizzi (Università di Catania) Giuseppe Balirano (Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”) Maria Bortoluzzi (Università di Udine) Gloria Cappelli (Università di Pisa) Paola Catenaccio (Università di Milano) Costanza Cucchi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) Massimiliano Demata (Università di Catania) Olga Denti (Università di Cagliari) Giuliana Diani (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia) Giuseppina Di Gregorio (Università di Catania) Roberta Facchinetti (Università di Verona) Daniele Franceschi (Università di Roma Tre) Antonio Guidara (Università di Catania) Jean Marguerite Jimenez (Università della Calabria) Stefania Maci (Università di Bergamo) Denise Milizia (Università di Bari) Renzo Mocini (Università di Roma Sapienza) Maria Teresa Musacchio (Università di Trieste) Jekaterina Nikitina (Università di Milano) Giuseppe Palumbo (Università di Trieste) Giulia Adriana Pennisi (Università di Palermo) Katia Peruzzo (Università di Trieste) Douglas Ponton (Università di Catania) Carla Quinci (Università di Padova) Giuliana Russo (Università di Catania) Katherine Russo (Università di Napoli L’ Orientale) Christina Samson (Università di Firenze) Maria Grazia Sindoni (Università di Messina) Girolamo Tessuto (Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli) Marco Venuti (Università di Catania) Francesca Vigo (Università di Catania) Christopher Williams (Università di Foggia) Raffaele Zago (Università di Catania)
Organized by Francesca Bianchi (University of Salento), Valentin Werner (University of Bamberg) & Janina Wildfeuer (University of Groningen) The study of mass-media-distributed pop-cultural artifacts – such as songs, films, television series, comics, video games, and so on – is becoming increasingly widespread in academia due to their enormous reach and the fact that they constitute a significant portion of contemporary everyday communication with potentially significant social influence. In this regard, it should be noted that language, as a central creative component of pop-cultural communication, has received increased attention, and that the linguistic analysis of relevant uses has established itself as a branch of research known as Pop Cultural Linguistics, dedicated to the study of performed language and its specific conditions of production and reception in relevant contexts. Within this emerging paradigm, approaches that focus on the interaction of linguistic, social, and cultural factors play a particularly important role, among other things to highlight that pop-cultural artifacts are not simply commercial (entertainment) products but always also convey and construct social meaning. Another evident form of interaction in these artifacts occurs with other modalities (music, images, gestures, etc.) and the overall meaning-making potential these multimodal ensembles create. To take account of the increasing relevance attributed to the study of performed language and to highlight how current research contributes to its analysis and theorization, the conference Pop Cultural Linguistics: Researching and Theorizing Performed Language and Communication invites contributions from all linguistic subdisciplines (comprising, for example, sociolinguistics, stylistics, pragmatics, register studies, cognitive linguistics, translation studies, applied linguistics, etc.) using qualitative and quantitative as well as multi-method approaches (corpus analysis, conversation analysis, surveys, discourse analysis, etc.). Papers that revolve around the following guiding research questions/topics are sought: ● How are various semiotic resources dynamically combined in pop-cultural artifacts to create meaning(s)? ● How do pop-cultural artifacts contribute to the construction and stylization of social identities (e.g., ethnicity, gender) and to the creation of (cultural) authenticity? ● How are languages, varieties and the representation of multilingualism used for purposes of characterization? ● How does performed language reproduce or resist ideologies and power structures? ● How is humor and irony created linguistically and multimodally in pop-cultural artifacts? ● Which conceptual metaphors and cognitive frames are prevalent in performed language? ● Which linguistic and multimodal features are (consciously) employed to make pop-cultural artifacts resonate with audiences and to potentially create emotional experiences? ● How are the aforementioned concepts addressed in the context of the localization/translation of pop-cultural artifacts, and what implications does this have for applied linguistic areas? ● How can pop-cultural artifacts be used in the context of institutional first and additional language education and what is their role in informal language learning/acquisition? ● How can insights from other disciplines, like sociology, semiotics, literary and cultural studies, film studies, intermedial studies, multimodality studies, etc. inform the study of performed language? ● How can analyses of pop-cultural products be meaningfully triangulated with research on producer and audience perspectives? ● Which role does the use of LLMs and/or LMMs play in the creation of pop-cultural artifacts and which implications does this have? ● How does the analysis of performed language and its specific production circumstances impact on the conceptualization of longstanding linguistic dichotomies like written-spoken or formal-informal? The following scholars have kindly agreed to deliver plenaries: ● Astrid Ensslin, University of Regensburg ● Maria Pavesi, University of Pavia ● Roman Schneider, Leibniz Institute for the German Language & University of Mannheim ● Raffaele Zago, University of Catania While the main working language of the conference will be English, contributions on other languages are especially encouraged. The organizers will further organize dedicated sessions where contributors can present in languages other than English (e.g. Spanish, Italian, French, etc.) if applicable. This conference is planned as an in-person event with presentation slots comprising 20 minutes + 10 minutes Q&A. There will be an award for best paper by a junior researcher, kindly sponsored by John Benjamins. Please submit your abstracts (300 words + references in APA7 format) by 15 September 2026 from the Call for Abstracts page of the conference website (https://pop2027.unisalento.it). You will receive a notification on the outcome of the review process in November 2026. If accepted, the final/revised abstract is due 20 January 2027. Further information on the conference website: https://pop2027.unisalento.it
Registrations are open! Please check the programme and registration procedures here: AIA Summer School 2026 Programme Practical information: Hotels close to main station and centro storico Hotel 4 stelle Montestella – camera singola – € 114,00 Hotel 3 stelle BnB
Relatore: Prof. Esterino Adami – Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche, Università di Torino Docente promotrice: Prof.ssa Giuseppina Balossi 19 maggio 2026, ore 14:00-16:00 Aula Magna, Liceo Scientifico e Musicale “G. B. Grassi” – L.go Montenero 3 – 23900, Lecco Destinatari/e Il seminario è rivolto ai/alle docenti di lingua inglese, ma aperto anche a docenti di altre discipline, in un’ottica di raccordo multidisciplinare nell’ambito delle aree umanistiche. L’iniziativa è destinata non solo ai/alle docenti del Liceo Scientifico e Musicale “G.B. Grassi”, ma anche a docenti degli istituti secondari di secondo grado della provincia di Lecco. Descrizione del seminario Il seminario ha lo scopo di promuovere un dialogo interdisciplinare nell’ambito delle Humanities e mostra come campi di studio quali l’ecostilistica e l’ecolinguistica possano contribuire a una migliore comprensione del discorso ecologico contemporaneo nelle sue molteplici forme, sia letterarie sia non letterarie. Esso introduce inizialmente teorie linguistiche e metodi di analisi, per poi affrontare tematiche ambientali attraverso l’analisi di una selezione di generi e testi provenienti dalla più ampia Anglosfera. Seminar description Promoting an interdisciplinary dialogue within the Humanities, this seminar shows how fields such as ecostylistics and ecolinguistics can contribute to a deeper understanding of contemporary ecological discourse in its many fictional and non-fictional forms. It first introduces key linguistic theories and analytical methods, and then addresses environmental issues through the analysis of a selection of genres and texts from the broader Anglosphere.
University of Brescia, Italy 2-3 October 2026 The 5th International ELT Conference “New Trends in English Teaching, Learning and Education” will be held at the University of Brescia on 2-3 October 2026. The event follows the international debate launched by the four editions of the Conference hosted by the “L’Orientale” University of Naples (2022), the “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara (2023), the University of Ferrara (2024) and the “Parthenope” University of Naples (2025). The fifth International ELT Conference aims to foster ongoing debates on the challenges of language teaching, language learning, and special needs education with a particular focus on variants of English for Academic and Professional Purposes. Conference Theme: English(es) for Academic and Professional Purposes English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and training is focused too often on general disciplinary skills rather than the specific professional needs required by the workplace. The conference intends to address emerging and developing variants of “English Linguistics for Academicians and Professionals” (ELAP) resulting from innovative approaches to teaching and learning, new needs and skills of the job market, and the increasingly complex implementation of interactive technology and Artificial Intelligence in all phases of course planning, delivering, and applying in the professions. Key speakers • Prof. Ofelia Palermo – Professor of Relational Leadership, MSc International Business Leader – Nottingham Trent University Ofelia Palermo | Nottingham Trent University • Prof. Helen Xanthaki – Professor at the Faculty of Laws, UCL London, Dean of the Postgraduate Laws Programmes of the University of London (Worldwide) Helen Xanthaki | About | University College London • Prof. David Tual – Professor of Language Education, Director of the Centre for Languages and Inter-Communication at the University of Cambridge David Tual | Department of Engineering Key topics We welcome contributions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes related to ELAP: • Changes in teaching methods, approaches, and strategies in view of novel and growing professions • New skills and learning needs of students within a professional perspective • Innovations in online, blended, and hybrid courses • Uses of AI in implementing ELAP • Interdisciplinary methodologies for innovative ELT (English Language Teaching) • Higher Education (HE) and the professions • Best practices in English language communication in professional contexts • Reskilling and upskilling in HE • ELAP in lifelong learning Submission Guidelines We invite submissions of abstracts relevant to the conference themes at the e-mail address elt2026@unibs.it. Word count: 300 words, excluding bibliography. Language: English. Format: Include title, author(s), affiliation(s), e-mail address(es), and 3-5 keywords. Key Dates Abstract submission deadline: 30 June 2026 Notification of acceptance: 15 July 2026 Registration deadline: 20 September 2026 Conference dates: 2-3 October 2026
Dear AIA members, please consult the website for the AIA Seminar published by our generous colleagues here! https://sites.google.com/view/aia-seminar-2026/home You can find the programme of this important event of our Association here
AIA Seminar 2026 – University of Genova 14-15 May 2026 Read More »