Explorations in Ethnography, Language and Communication 5 [Call for papers]

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 welcome 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: [TBC]