Program
Across all sessions, the conference features 150 presentations, bringing together almost 200 participants from over 30 countries and four continents, and covering almost every aspect of current research on English.
The program is organised into one General Session (running as four parallel sessions) and seven Thematic Sessions. In addition, there will be five plenary talks and three social events, all promising to make this an exceptionally lively and wide-ranging conference.
The tables below provide an overall breakdown of the conference program and its main events, still preliminary and unpolished. They include the general conference schedule, the individual programs for the General-Session parallel slots, and the programs for the seven Thematic Sessions.
CONFERENCE OPENING
While the registration desk will be open as of 8h, the official conference opening will take place at 8:45h in HSB, with a short address by the Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Klagenfurt and a brief welcome from the conference organisers and Chair, before we move straight into our first plenary talk.
Overall conference schedule
The table below provides an overview of the conference program. It begins with the pre-conference get-together and then presents the overall schedule for the three conference days. It also includes links to the individual programs for each Thematic Session and for the parallel General-Session slots.
Book of Abstracts
The Book of Abstracts presents the contributions in a shortened format, with keywords and references omitted for reasons of space and searchability. It is intended as a practical companion to the conference programme, allowing readers to look up the content of individual presentations quickly and easily. The presentations are ordered alphabetically by the first name of the first author, in line with the structure of the table of contents. This ordering is meant to make cross-checking with the programme as straightforward as possible. In the electronic format, each author name in the table of contents is linked directly to the corresponding abstract, so that readers can move quickly from the programme to the relevant presentation description.
General Session
The program below presents the General Session, which runs across the three conference days in several parallel strands. With over eighty individual talks, it forms the broadest part of the conference program and brings together work from across the full range of current English linguistics. The papers cover World Englishes, ELF, language contact, sociolinguistic variation, pragmatics, politeness, corpus linguistics, grammatical change, pronunciation, EMI, pedagogy, digital discourse, metaphor, AI, multilingualism, language attitudes and English in shifting geopolitical and educational contexts.
Thematic Session 1: Exploring contemporary English(es) using the BSLVC database
The table below presents the program for Thematic Session 1, exploring contemporary English(es) using the BSLVC database. The session consists of three slots, with eight talks, five poster presentations, and a closing discussion. The contributions focus on variation in contemporary Englishes, learner Englishes, grammatical preferences, agreement patterns, register differences and the use of the BSLVC database as a tool for comparative research across English varieties.
Thematic Session 2: English as a catalyst of change? Gender inclusivity, cross-linguistic dynamics, and colonial legacies
The table below presents the program for Thematic Session 2. The session consists of an introductory talk, five presentations, and a concluding roundtable. The contributions explore gender-inclusive language, multilingualism, language contact, and the role of English in shaping linguistic change across diverse social and cultural contexts.
Thematic Session 3: Comparing the incomparable – Exploring the synchronic relevance of historical sociolinguistic insights
The table below outlines the program for Thematic Session 3. The session is organised into three slots, with eight talks and a final roundtable. Its contributions examine how historical sociolinguistic evidence can inform present-day debates on English, lingua-franca development, standardisation, cosmopolitanisation, language stewardship and the wider comparison of ‘world languages’ across past and present.
Thematic Session 4: Social variation and norms in Outer Circle Englishes
The program below gives an overview of Thematic Session 4. Across three slots and nine talks, the session addresses patterns of variation, norm development, prestige, gender, indigenisation, diasporic Englishes and the continuing relevance and limits of the “Circles” model. The papers cover a broad range of Outer Circle and related Englishes, including Namibian, Nigerian, South Delhi, Tongan, Indigenous, Trinbagonian and Toronto Haitian English.
Thematic Session 5: A matter of concord: English agreement across varieties and registers
The program below brings Thematic Session 5. The session comprises two slots and six talks, focusing on agreement phenomena in English from corpus-based, experimental, grammatical, phonetic, and methodological perspectives. Topics include subject-verb agreement in World Englishes, variation in cleft constructions, perfect agreement in modal predicates, emotional processing in agreement tasks, acceptability judgments, and verbal concord with collective nouns.
Thematic Session 6: When English is no longer a ‘foreign’ language – Signifiers, attitudes and didactic approaches
The program below introduces Thematic Session 6. Organised into three slots, the session brings together seven talks and a conveners’ roundtable. The papers consider how English enters learners’ everyday lives through ordinary, adopted, and digital uses, how extramural English can be connected to classroom practice and how English pedagogy and teacher education may need to change when English is no longer experienced simply as a traditional foreign language.
Thematic Session 7: The applied linguistics of ELF communication
The program below presents Thematic Session 7. Across three slots, the session combines eight talks with conveners’ introductions, grouped Q&A slots and a concluding discussion. The papers address ELF communication in a range of applied contexts, including deaf international communication, anti-discriminatory discourse, cultural repertoires, curriculum development, pragmatic competence, health care and the practical constraints that shape ELF interaction.
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