[ecrea] conference: 23rd DiscourseNet Conference : Discourse, power and mind: between reason and emotion

status: CfP Call for papers
conference
23rd DiscourseNet Conference : Discourse, power and mind: between reason 
and emotion
06.06.2019-08.06.2019
University of Bergamo

Discourse can be addressed as a vehicle for power, a positioning 
practice which enlightens the role and the relationship among the 
speakers. Power is a way of defying and measure relationships and 
interactions between individuals. These relations and interactions lead 
one part to affirm its will against another part, no matter on what 
bases this will is grounded (Weber, 1974).
Human beings tend to adopt specific behaviours and to interact 
differently according to the social context they are entering. These 
dynamics of power may be evident in interpersonal interaction and group 
formation and even more in specific contexts which are characterized by 
an imbalanced power-holding positioning among the actors (Foucault, 
1975)Since it is possible to regard these dynamics as social practices, 
we can postulate that power dynamics rely also on discourse practices 
(Fairclough, 1989; Althusser, 1970; Pêcheux, 1971). Language and 
communication can be seen as tools to define and convey power dynamics, 
as well as to establish a status quo. Hence, discourse practice analysis 
is a tool to approach and understand the hierarchical relations and 
positions in different discourse fields.
> From a functional-pragmatic point of view, discourse can be seen as a verbal interaction between two actors, speaker and hearer, who are co-present in the same spatial and temporal constellation (Ehlich, 1983/2007). The propositional content of their communication is based on the mental reality of the two actors, and thus on what they already know or need to know. Most of their communication goals depend on the regulation of knowledge asymmetry they have. Power relationships can be observed in the linguistic analysis of such knowledge exchanges.
Some examples of these relations between discourse and power may be 
political discourse, where politicians have the means to influence 
people’s way of thinking and impact the life of a community, as well as 
pedagogical and corporate discourse where differences can be found, 
inter alia, in the degree of knowledge on a specific subject and in the 
decision-making process. Teachers, employers, team leaders or heads of 
services are supposed to have a broader knowledge on specific subjects 
than students and employees, which implies they should be more competent 
in evaluating ideas and other people’s work. Therefore, they occupy a 
prominent position in decision making and knowledge dissemination 
processes. The relationship between discourse and power implies an 
interaction between the subjects and their selves. Power positions are 
often held by influencing the judgment of other people, which requires 
dealing with their minds.
One of the factors to be taken into account when targeting one’s self is 
the complexity of this entity. The self is not only the set of mental 
schemes and operations that enable an individual to make sense of the 
world. It is also structured by the living experience of the outer 
world. This experience of the world is made possible by the physical 
propioception of our own body which becomes, in turn, a tool for 
understanding the outer world through sensations. However, reasoning and 
sensations aren’t the only two ways of knowing and learning. Emotions 
also play their part in making sense of the world. They connect or 
distance our body and mind from a given reality according to the 
positiveness or negativeness a given experience arises in our 
conscience. Reasoning, emotions and experiences are all actors of a 
power relationship: they are part of our judgmental abilities, which 
means they can play a significant role in power handling and in 
positioning practice in a power relationsh
 ip.
> From a discourse and linguistic point of view, this interaction between mind and power can be analysed through discursive and textual production.
Some topics that may be addressed are:
•	argumentation (up to manipulation)
•	storytelling
•	linguistic construction of emotions and feelings
•	sentiment analysis
•	linguistic construction of empathy

They all apply to reasoning as well as to emotional and affective 
dimensions of the self: for instance, storytelling combines some logical 
skills (the conception of a story as a whole, the cause-effect 
relationship that grounds the transforming process within a story) with 
some emotions and feelings due to some form of empathy with one 
character rather than some negative feelings arisen by characters we 
despise. In the same way, argumentation, and its extreme form, 
manipulation, can be based on reasoning as well as pathos and 
persuasion. These two examples show how reasoning and emotions, rational 
and irrational, are combined in the process of understanding or making a 
specific reality understandable. Without being ascribed to these two 
specific textual and linguistic constructions, feelings are likely to be 
present and influence several kinds of discourse, as demonstrated by the 
sentiment analysis field of research. Moreover, empathy can also be 
taken into account as a way to analys
 e the relationship between discourse and power under a linguistic and 
cognitive perspective. By adopting an empathic attitude, the speakers 
are able to embrace the perspective of their addressees, i.e. to look at 
a given situation through the perceptions and/or feelings of another 
person. The mental operation consists in a displacement (Rabatel, 2017) 
from the very discursive position of the speakers to a fictive 
discursive position where the speakers perceive, feel and make sense of 
a given situation “as if” they were another person (Pinotti, 2011). As a 
consequence, discursive and linguistics marks of this mental operation 
may be found in their verbal productions.
The different roles and interactions between reasoning, feelings and 
emotions we described so far can be applied, to different degrees and in 
different ways, to several fields of discourse where power may be taken 
into account, such as:
•	Political discourse
•	Medical discourse
•	Corporate discourse
•	Charity discourse
•	Media discourse
•	Pedagogical discourse and practices
•	Academic discourse
•	Legal discourse
•	Everyday and/or interpersonal interactions

We welcome all proposals for papers addressing the relationship between 
power and mind, focusing on specific cognitive aspects (such as the 
verbal expression of reasoning or emotions) and/or linguistic aspects 
(lexical and syntactic choices, pragmatic features of communication), 
possibly showing new and original interactions between them. Topics and 
fields listed above are not exclusive.
Given the variety of topics and fields addressed, we also welcome 
proposals constructing and exploring corpora on multiple levels and 
through different tools and methodological approaches. For these 
reasons, statistical, quantitative and qualitative analysis are all 
welcome, as well as manual and/or computer-assisted analysis carried out 
in the field of Digital Humanities. We are particularly interested in 
contributions investigating and combining these methods and approaches 
in order to discuss not only questions about discourse and power but 
also the ways to build and analyse corpora on this subject.

SUBMISSION
Proposals can be submitted in different languages (English, French, 
German, Spanish, Italian). Participants are free to choose the language 
they prefer for their oral communication. In order to guarantee a better 
comprehension for all the participants, slides should be prepared in 
English. The abstracts should not be longer than 250 words. Each 
proposal will be subject to a blind review by the members of the 
scientific committee.
KEY DATES
Submission of abstracts:  no later than 15th October 2018
Notification of acceptance: 15th November 2018
Registration: 15th February 2019
End of registration: 15th May 2019

REGISTRATION FEES
Regular fee (until 15th February 2019): EUR 90.00
Late fee (from 16th February 2019 to 15th May 2019): EUR 105.00
Proposals should be sent to: (discoursenetbergamo /at/ gmail.com)

For more information, please check the website: 
dn23.discourseanalysis.net. Please note you might be asked to register


PROCEEDINGS
 Selected papers will be published in a volume and/or journal issue. 
Further details will be provided.
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Gabriella Carobbio, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Eduardo Chavez-Herrera, University of Warwick
Cécile Desoutter, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Aurora Fragonara, Università degli Studi di Bergamo

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Guy Achard-Bayle, Université de Lorraine
Patrizia Anesa, Università degli Studi di Bergamo Johannes Angermuller, 
University of Warwick/EHESS Gabriella Carobbio, Università degli Studi 
di Bergamo Eduardo Chavez-Herrera, University of Warwick
Luisa Chierichetti, Università degli Studi di Bergamo Paul Chilton, 
University of Warwick
Cécile Desoutter, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Aurora Fragonara, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Enrica Galazzi, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano André 
Petitjean, Université de Lorraine
Susanne Maria Weber, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Franco Zappettini, University of Liverpool

email: (discoursenetbergamo /at/ gmail.com)


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