Call for
papers
Rhetoric in Society III
January 26 - 28 2011
Department of Applied Language Studies
Lessius University College
Antwerpen – Belgium
Keynote Speakers:
Gunther Kress
Christopher W. Tindale
Jef Verschueren
Rethinking rhetoric
Since Aristotle, the study of rhetoric has focused on the persuasive
aspect of discourse in the political, forensic, and ceremonial domains.
Rhetoric deals with doxa, the shared opinions and reasons people
consider plausible and acceptable in a specific situation. It involves
decisions taken by participants in public discourse on the basis of
common deliberation and free choice in domains in which there can be no
absolute truth, e.g. as in social and political life. Nowadays, we have
come to realize the importance of rhetoric in all forms of discourse.
There is no communication without some form of rhetoric.
Rhetoricians examine how people use arguments and language in order to
convince or persuade an audience. But there is a lot more to rhetoric
than that. It comprises more than sets of advice; in fact it is an art.
It is the art of discovering what is persuasive in a given situation.
This inventiveness points to how rhetoric has a heuristic function as
well. It appeals to our creativity in our search for relevant questions
and answers to specific matters. And as our discourse and arguments
develop in interaction with other discourses (Voloshinov / Bakhtin), the
hermeneutic aspect of rhetoric should not be overlooked. There is no
rhetoric without analysis, interpretation and theoretical reflection. The
art of speaking and writing “well” can be considered a cornerstone of our
cultures and our educational systems.
Interdisciplinary research
The conference Rhetoric in Society aims to present and discuss
different approaches to rhetoric. It will address this basic question: in
what ways can the study of rhetoric function and provide an insight into
our postmodern world? Consequently, what can it claim about
discourse in the public domain, how is it related to empirical sciences,
what can it say about the ever increasing amount of information and
opinion that pervades our lives? Conversely, it can also be asked in what
way actual language and communication theories and disciplines draw on
ancient rhetoric.
Contributions to the conference will cover a wide range of both
themes and theories. They will cover a broad spectrum of academic fields
and thus favour interdisciplinary research not only within the fields of
rhetoric, rhetorical criticism, rhetorical citizenship, argumentation
studies, pragmatics, critical discourse studies, text linguistics, art
and literature, but also the fields of communication studies, journalism
studies, political, social and educational studies, history and
philosophy.
We welcome papers or panel proposals on the role of
rhetoric and argumentation in written and oral discourse and genres, on
topics such as: public deliberation, controversies, legal
decision-making, spin, hyphenated writing, social change, political
campaigning, social movements, public relations, publicity, advertising,
management, corporate internal communication, art and literature, visual
rhetoric and public media discourse.
The core themes of the conference are:
Rhetoric in journalism and new media
Rhetoric in political discourse
Rhetoric in organizational discourse
Rhetoric in legal discourse
Rhetoric in education
Rhetoric in visual communication
Theoretical, historical and (inter)cultural perspectives on
rhetoric
Abstracts
- Please send your abstract of max. 300 words edited in MS Word to
(RIS3 /at/ lessius.eu).
- The abstract should include a title, a research question, an
indication of the theoretical framework, at least three bibliographical
references, methodology, results and conclusion. The academic committee
will review the abstracts (blind reviewing).
- Deadline for abstracts is June 30thth 2010, 12 a.m.
Central European time.
- All contributions should be presented in English only.
- Please mention in your abstract the conference theme(s) within
which you wish to present your paper.
- Please put your name in the subject of your mail, and
your further references in the mail message (affiliation, university or
institution, e-mail, phone number, most important publications on the
topic if possible, and the title of your paper).
- Notification of acceptance will be sent before September
15th 2010.
Proceedings
Proceedings will be published digitally after the conference on the
conference website. A selection of the proceedings will be published in
book form. Your paper should be submitted by April 1st, 2011 at the
latest.
Academic Committee
Paul Gillaerts (Lessius - Department of Applied Language Studies)
Baldwin Van Gorp (Lessius / K. U. Leuven - Centre for Media Culture and
Communication Technology)
Dorien Van de Mieroop (Lessius - Department of Applied Language Studies)
Michael Opgenhaffen (Lessius - Department of Applied Language Studies)
Bart Philipsen (K. U. Leuven - Department of Literary Studies)
Kris Rutten (Ghent University - Department of Educational Studies)
Chair : Hilde Van Belle (Lessius - Department of Applied Language
Studies)
This is the third edition of ‘Rhetoric in Society’. The first edition of
the conference was organized by Aalborg University (Denmark) in November
2006, the second by the Speech Communication Department and the
Department for Journalism and New Media of the Humanities Faculty of
Leiden University. The conference is also associated with the
researchers’ network ‘Rhetorical citizenship: Perspectives on
Deliberative democracy’, based at the Department of Media, Cognition and
Communication, Department of Rhetoric at the University of Copenhagen. We
hope this conference at the Lessius Department of Applied Languages in
Antwerp will be just as successful as the previous ones.
http://www.lessius.eu/tt/ris/
Location
Lessius University College / Campus Sint-Andries
Department of Applied Language Studies
Sint - Andriesstraat 2
B - 2000 Antwerpen
Tel. +32 3 206 04 91
