This is a post about an academic event that took place in 2014. The content of this post is no longer current, but I have retained it here as part of the historical record of this blog.
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The fifth biennial conference Explorations in Ethnography, Language and Communication (EELC5), co-organised by the universities of Manchester and Leicester, will be held in Manchester on 11-12 September 2014. This year’s conference theme is ‘Linguistic Ethnography: Benefits and Challenges’.
Invited plenary speakers include Laura Ahearn (Rutgers U.) and Mariette de Haan (University of Utrecht). Interactive workshops on researching multilingualism, adults and children in virtual environments, healthcare settings, and classroom discourse will take place on the first day of the conference. On the second day, papers will be presented (30 minutes, plus 10 minutes discussion), and posters will be displayed and discussed in a dedicated time and space.
Call for papers
Contributions are invited from across disciplines and topics (e.g., health, education, culture and identity, and communication in digital environments). The conference especially welcomes submissions which look into the methodological benefits and associated challenges of ethnographically-informed research into language and communication. The conference also aims to generate a state-of-the-art account of linguistic ethnography (LE), and therefore submissions are encouraged which discuss the affordances of LE, and papers that are look into difficulties and limitations associated with it.
Interested authors are asked to submit 300-word abstracts (as MS-Word files) to eelc5conf[at]gmail[dot]com. Two files should be submitted: one containing the abstract and the author’s name, affiliation and email address, and one containing an anonymous abstract. Four keywords, summarising the content of the contribution, should be included below the title for the abstract, and authors are requested to specify, in the body of the email, whether the abstract is for a poster or paper presentation.
Critical dates
- Deadline for abstract submission: Friday, 4 April 2014
- Registration: May 2014.
Additional information about the conference can be found at the conference website: [defunct]
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About me
Achilleas Kostoulas is an applied linguist and language teacher educator at the Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly, Greece. He holds a PhD and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Manchester, UK and a BA in English Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
His research explores a wide range of issues connected with language (teacher) education, including language contact and plurilingualism, linguistic identities and ideologies, language policy and didactics, often using a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory to tease out connections between them. Some of his work in the field includes the research monograph The Intentional Dynamics of TESOL (2021, De Gruyter; with Juup Stelma) and the edited volume Doctoral Study and Getting Published (2025, Emerald; with Richard Fay), as well as numerous other publications.
Achilleas currently contributes to several projects that bring together his long-standing interests in language education, teacher development, and the social dimensions of language learning. As the coordinator of the expert team of AI Lang (Artificial Intelligence in Language Education), an initiative of the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe, he works on developing principles and resources to help educators make informed, pedagogically grounded use of AI in their teaching. He also leads the University of Thessaly team of ReaLiTea (Research Literacy of Teachers), a project that supports language teachers in developing the capacity to engage with, and contribute to, educational research. Alongside these, he contributes to LocalLing, a Horizon-funded initiative to preserve and strengthen heritage and minority languages globally.
In addition to the above, Achilleas is the (co)editor-in-chief of the newly established European Journal of Education and Language Review, and welcomes contributions that explore the dynamic intersections between language, education, and society.
About this post
This blog is a space for slow, reflective thinking about applied linguistics language education, professional development, and the role of technology in language teaching and learning. Transparency about process, tools, and authorship is part of that commitment.
- I wrote this post on 27th January 2014. The post was archived in 2016. However, an aethetic and functional update took place on 11th January 2026.
- The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Thessaly or any other entity with which I am affiliated.
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