1st Poznań Historical Sociopragmatics Symposium, May 15th 2014 - announcement

The aim of the symposium is to bring together the most significant researchers in the field: Dawn Archer, Marcel Bax, Jonathan Culpeper, Daniel Kadar and Irma Taavitsainen will participate in the event as keynote speakers. A small group of scholars from Poland and abroad will be invited to give regular presentations. We hope to create a panel of experts in order to lay some grounds for a publication collecting cutting edge research in the in the field of historical sociopragmatics.

Recent advances in historical pragmatics and historical sociopragmatics have clearly delineated the focus of these new areas on contextualised interaction-oriented micro and macro studies based on the linguistic evidence from the past. In particular, historical (im)politeness/facework and ritual as well as specific discourse domains, such as the courtroom, medical discourse and epistolary texts have received a lot of attention. Historical sociopragmatics has also prompted significant paradigm shifts in historical linguistics, among others, by foregrounding the importance of a new unit of analysis: the community of practice derived from the contemporary discursive framework. Nearly two decades that have passed since Andreas Jucker’s seminal publication (Historical Pragmatics 1995) provide an excellent opportunity for inviting researchers in the area to join us in Poznań for a non-profit symposium devoted to the most recent advances in the discipline.

The symposium will host contributions falling within the scope of historical sociopragmatics, and involving interactive data and settings.