GURT 2018: Approaches to Discourse
Discourse analysis, or the study of language in use or language “beyond the sentence,” has long been recognized in linguistics as one of its most expansive, yet least defined, areas. It also transcends the field, fitting comfortably in disciplines as varied as communication studies, anthropology, sociology, and education (among many others). In recent years, discourse analysis, both in linguistics and in related fields, has grown exponentially, and that growth has been accompanied by a proliferation of approaches, each with its own foci, key concepts, methods, and touchstone publications. In 1994, Schiffrin identified the following approaches to discourse: Speech Act Theory, Interactional Sociolinguistics, The Ethnography of Communication, Pragmatics, Conversation Analysis, and Variation Analysis. To this list, we might now add Critical Discourse Analysis, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Mediated Discourse Analysis, Discursive Psychology, Visual Analysis, Cultural Discourse Analysis, Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis, and Action-Implicative Discourse Analysis, as well as multiple integrated approaches that are not easily classified.
GURT 2018 will bring together leading researchers from around the world and from various disciplines to take stock of current research and foster communication across approaches to discourse. In keeping with the spirit of diversity, we welcome abstracts for individual papers, posters, and colloquia that engage with the field’s various topical and theoretical foci, types and sources of data, methodological questions, and practical applications. The conference will take place March 9 – 11, 2018, in the Bunn Intercultural Center, on the main campus of Georgetown University. Click here to download the conference schedule in PDF format.
Plenary speakers will include:
Donal Carbaugh – University of Massachusetts, Amherst
John Heritage – University of California, Los Angeles
Susan Philips – University of Arizona
Jürgen Streeck – The University of Texas at Austin
Deborah Tannen – Georgetown University
Ruth Wodak – Lancaster University
If you require English-ASL interpreting services, please contact us and indicate this on your Eventbrite registration. The deadline for requesting ASL interpretation is Friday, February 9th.