Call for Papers

Ongoing developments in digital technologies offer an ever-increasing array of new media forms that we now leverage to communicate and interact with others in all walks of life. This trend also clearly emerges in educational settings, where traditional approaches to learning have undergone profound changes that make use of new media resources, such as websites, blogs/forums, social networking sites, OpenCourseWare lectures, TED Talks, as well as digitally available films/TV series, documentaries, and docu-tours. To effectively engage with these resources, learners need to acquire specific competences related to the ability to construct meanings from the multiple semiotic modes (e.g., verbal, visual, aural, spatial, and gestural) that are highly characteristic of texts accessed on digital platforms.

In language teaching, the multimodal approach means helping students become aware of and learn to exploit semiotic modes beyond verbal language in order to cope more effectively with the linguistic, discursive, pragmatic, culture-related, and ideological challenges of the target language, while also acquiring specialized knowledge about a given topic. Linguists working with multimodal and multimedia texts for use in ESP instructional settings are called upon to explore strategies that take into account how multiple semiotic resources contribute to meanings, which can then be implemented to enhance linguistic competence and promote knowledge dissemination among ESP learners. The selection and preparation of materials to be used for these purposes can thus benefit from research that highlights their multimodal/multimedia dimension from various theoretical and analytical perspectives, including multimodal social semiotics, multimodal discourse analysis, multimodal critical discourse analysis, multimodal interaction analysis, as well as the challenges of compiling and analyzing multimodal/multimedia corpora. The conference intends to provide a platform for research that incorporates innovative approaches and methods for analyzing and applying multimodal and multimedia texts in the context of ESP in higher education settings.

Themes

We welcome proposals related to the following themes:

• Fostering multimodal literacy in ESP
• Research-informed analyses of multimodal/multimedia genres for ESP
• Corpus-assisted approaches to multimodal discourse analysis for ESP
• Multimodal corpora for ESP: design, methods, applications
• Multimodal critical discourse analysis for ESP
• Innovative multimodal ESP materials/methodologies for professional and linguistic development
• Multimodality and task authenticity in ESP teaching
• Perceptions/attitudes towards multimodal/multimedia resources

Guidelines for Proposals

The proposed abstracts will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Original topic of relevance to conference theme(s)
• Appropriate theoretical background and references
• Clearly articulated aim(s) and methodological approach
• Presentation of findings (or preliminary findings)
• Well-structured, coherent, and clearly written

Individual papers

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words + max 5 references.
Presentation format is 20 minutes followed by 5 minutes for discussion.

We have created a template for your convenience: Template for Individual Abstracts.

Panels

Panels should feature 3-5 speakers. Panel proposals must include 200-250 words of general presentation, followed by individual abstracts (no longer than 250 words + max 5 references).
Presentation format is 20 minutes per individual paper, with 10 minutes for discussion at the conclusion of the panel.

We have created a template for your convenience: Template for Panel Abstracts.

Submissions

Abstracts should be submitted to http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/clavier2019 in .doc format specifying the relevant conference theme(s). Please download and use the appropriate template.

All abstracts will be submitted to a double-blind review process. Important: do not indicate author name(s) and affiliation(s) on the abstract file.

Important dates

• May 31, 2019: deadline for submitting abstracts
• June 30, 2019: notification of abstract acceptance

Contact information

For information, please write to clavier2019@fileli.unipi.it

This conference is organized by the members of the Pisa unit of the national interuniversity research project ‘Knowledge dissemination across media in English: continuity and change in discourse strategies, ideologies, and epistemologies’, financed by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities, and Research (PRIN 2015 no.2015TJ8ZAS)