LPPL 2026 — Plzeň

Call for Papers

LPPL 2026 — Pragmatics and Political Disourses in Europe

Dear Colleagues,

We cordially invite you to the third conference in our LPPL series Linguistic Pragmatics Pilsen | Liberec. This year’s event will take place on 12–13 November 2026 in Pilsen. The overarching theme of the conference is Pragmatics and Political Discourses in Europe.

The relationship between language and politics has long been a focal point of linguistic pragmatics. However, the dynamic social developments in Europe—captured by keywords such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, renationalization, populism, disruption on the one hand, and Europe as a future-oriented project on the other—justify asking what contributions pragmatics can make to the analysis and understanding of what is currently unfolding in Europe.

The conference in Pilsen aims to serve as a forum in which researchers from various disciplines can present and discuss their perspectives. This is particularly important against the backdrop of the observation that cross-border exchange within Central Europe—especially in the social sciences—should be further intensified. For this reason, we welcome contributions in three conference languages: Czech, German, and English.

We look forward to receiving proposals that, from the perspective of linguistic action in social contexts, address questions such as the following:

• How have political discourses in Europe and in individual European countries changed linguistically and communicatively in recent years?
• How can methods and concepts from classical pragmatics, various approaches in conversation analysis, and interactional sociology be applied to the analysis of the phenomena under discussion?
• Are these developments disruptive, or do they rather repeat patterns observable over longer historical periods?
• On a continent characterized by cultural, linguistic, economic, and political diversity, are European political discourses possible across national borders?
• Populism is frequently used to characterize the communication of many actors in the public sphere. Are there examples of non-populist political communication strategies? What distinguishes them? Can they be politically successful?

As we remain convinced that multilingualism enriches scholarly discourse and can be mutually inspiring, and building on our experiences from the LPPL conferences in 2024 and 2025, we aim to create a linguistically diverse space. The conference languages will therefore be German, English, and Czech.

To ensure that multilingualism does not hinder discussion, we kindly ask that presentation slides or handouts be provided in a language other than that of the oral presentation (e.g., a presentation in Czech with slides in English), or that multilingual presentations be prepared.

We look forward to receiving your submissions (by 31 August 2026) via Google Forms, including your presentation proposal and a detailed abstract of approximately 1,200 characters, including a few references. Given the multilingual nature of the conference, abstracts will be shared with all participants well in advance of the event. Registration without a presentation is possible until 10 October.

If you have any questions, please contact us via email: lppl@knj.zcu.cz