Language Culture Matters Seminar Series

Convenors: Holly Warner, Aishee Bhattacharya, Dr Clay Becker

When: Every Wednesday, 16:00-17:00 BST, Weeks 2-9 of Term 3 (30th April 2025 - 18th June 2025)

Where: A0.23 (Social Sciences Building, University of Warwick) and Microsoft Teams (linked below)

Please note: Seminars on 7th May 2025 and 18th June 2025 are on Microsoft Teams ONLY

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Meeting ID: 330 833 016 998

Passcode: aL2Bd38s

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First bonus seminar (19/05/2025)

When: Monday 19th May 2025, 16:00-17:00 BST,

Where: A0.23 (Social Sciences Building, University of Warwick) and Microsoft Teams (linked below)

Second bonus seminar (12/06/2025)

When: Thursday 12th June 2025, 15:00-16:00 BST,

Where: A0.23 (Social Sciences Building, University of Warwick) and Microsoft Teams (linked below)

Join the meeting nowLink opens in a new window

Meeting ID: 328 205 990 653

Passcode: Kc96iB7Q

Wednesday 30/04/2025 - 16:00-17:00

"Not sure what I was told but I’m still wagging my tail" – Exploring pet-inclusion in veterinary consultations

Eleonora Kacl, University of Basel

Abstract

Interactions in healthcare often involve triangular communication structures involving not only the pet owner and veterinarian but also the pet itself. In this triangular communication structure, veterinarians and pet owners must navigate communication with each other as well as in relation to the pet, whose presence influences the interaction. This talk presents the results of the first chapter of a PhD project focusing on how the pet is incorporated into veterinary consultations. Using audio and video recordings of consultations from UK small-animal veterinary practices, and drawing on Grounded Theory and Discourse Analysis, this study examines the various types of pet inclusion, their linguistic realisations, their embeddedness in the communication dynamics of the consultation, and their pragmatic functions.

Bio

Eleonora Kacl is a PhD candidate in English Linguistics at the University of Basel and a visiting PhD student at the University of Warwick. She completed her M.A. in English (major) at the University of Basel and Digital Linguistics (minor) at the University of Zurich. Her MA thesis 'He don’t speak English but he communicates'. Interaction Patterns and Discourse Strategies in Veterinarian–Client–Pet Health Communication explored televised veterinary consultations. Her PhD research focuses on the inclusion of the pet in small-animal veterinary consultations in UK clinics, using a discourse analytic approach. Her broader research interests include collaborative computer-mediated communication, online hate speech, health communication, and veterinary discourse.

Wednesday 07/05/2025 - 16:00-17:00 - ONLINE ONLY

From AI to human interaction: Transference, prompting, educational implications and the evolving landscape of language learning

Leonardo Marinho Dias Lima, SENAC, Brazil

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence has transitioned from speculative tool to active agent in language education, fundamentally altering how learners acquire and transfer linguistic knowledge. Drawing on his research with Brazilian EFL professionals, Leonardo Lima examines a critical paradox: while AI enhances fluency and efficiency, uncritical use risks privileging transactional communication over authentic dialogue. His analysis reveals how learners unconsciously adopt AI’s syntactic patterns in human interactions, blurring boundaries between tool and tutor. Framing prompting as an emergent literacy, he argues for pedagogical scaffolding to prevent language learning from becoming mere algorithmic negotiation. These findings extend his award-nominated work on AI’s inequitable adoption across Brazilian schools, where infrastructural gaps and ethical dilemmas persist. The presentation contends that TESOL must urgently address AI’s central challenges, which is no longer whether to integrate AI, but how to preserve sociocultural dimensions of language learning amidst technological change.

Bio

Monday 19/05/2025 - 16:00-17:00

Social media and social rhythm in times of crises: Between disruption and repair

Prof Guobin Yang, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Social theorists have long emphasized the significance of rhythm to the organization of everyday life. Rhythm affords order and stability, as well as discipline and control. But what happens when the rhythms of everyday life are disrupted in times of crises such as economic depressions and pandemics? What if social media platforms artificially manipulate the temporality of daily rhythms? This talk argues under conditions of disruption, social media users may creatively mobilize technological and narrative affordances to help repair the disrupted rhythms of everyday life. A case study from Chinese social media illustrates this argument.

Bio

Guobin Yang is the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Center on Digital Culture and Society and is Deputy Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China. Most recently the author of The Wuhan Lockdown (2022), he studies digital activism, civic storytelling, and the digital politics of emotions.

Wednesday 21/05/2025 - 16:00-17:00

Constructing static places in a mobile world

Dr Marianna Patrick, University of Warwick

Abstract

Place plays an important role in understanding international mobility, while national and place belongings are frequently the focus of researchers exploring migrant identities. However, in linguistic studies dealing with narratives of migrants, most scholarly attention has gone to exploring space, orientation, and context rather than the discursive construction of ‘places’ – understood here at geographical locations with meaning. Addressing this gap, in this talk, I will highlight the negotiable role of ‘place’ in narratives and illustrate how places can function as story protagonists. This presentation draws on the results from my doctoral research project, which focused on the concurrent construction and positioning of places and identities in narratives. The data for the study was collected through semi-structured research interviews with serial migrants – individuals who have lived in at least three different countries consecutively.

Bio

Marianna holds a PhD from the School of Education, Learning and Communication Sciences (SELCS) at the University of Warwick. Her research interests lie in the areas of discourse and narrative studies, identity construction, place, and mobility.
X - @Marianna_Pat

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Wednesday 28/05/2025 - 16:00-17:00

Interculturality and the Munchausen Effect: What is it? And why does it matter for research in applied linguistics

Dr Ashley Simpson, Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh

Abstract

This talk inspired by Interculturality and the Munchausen Effect (2024: Routledge) addresses two interrelated theses on interculturality; namely that the speaking subject in interaction reproduces the egocentrism and phonocentrism of the Munchausen Effect. In considering the first, I trace the ways in which interculturality research has historically supposed the ‘speaking subject’—that is, the research participant—as the basis of truth and knowledge, not giving context to the discursive layers or paratexts involved in analyzing the subject’s speech. This notion of the ‘speaking subject’ being taken at face value prompts my second interrelated argument on representation and historical conceptualizations of community in interculturality research, whereby, in trying to represent their subjects, researchers can impose a sense of community affiliation onto their subjects in negating their subjective identities. The talk serves as a conceptual response to calls for epistemological diversity in advocating for a critical interdiscursive approach to research on interculturality.

Bio

Dr Ashley Simpson is a Lecturer in Language Education at Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, UK. Dr Simpson is also Co-Head of Institute of the Language Education at Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, UK. He has published extensively on Intercultural Communication including the monographs; Interculturality and the Political within Education (with Fred Dervin, 2021: Routledge) and Interculturality and the Munchausen Effect (2024: Routledge). He has also co-edited the volumes (2020) The Meaning of Criticality in Education Research: Reflecting on Critical Pedagogy (London: Palgrave Macmillan), and, (2020) Intercultural Competence in the Work of Teachers: Confronting Ideologies and Practices (London: Routledge).
X - @Ash_Education
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-simpson-99016349/

Wednesday 04/06/2025 - 16:00-17:00

Sociocultural perspectives on digital reflective practice in teacher education

Cecilia Nobre, University of Warwick

Abstract

Reflective practice is central to initial teacher education, yet traditional approaches often limit dialogic engagement (Mann & Walsh, 2017). This seminar explores the role of digital platforms, particularly WhatsApp, in fostering collaborative reflection among CELTA and CertTESOL trainees. Drawing on sociocultural theory (Lantolf, 2000) and concepts such as the Zone of Proximal Development and narrative knowledging (Barkhuizen, 2011), we examine how WhatsApp mediates peer interaction and trainer feedback in digital spaces. By discussing preliminary data and methodological considerations, this session offers insights into the potential of mobile technology for enhancing reflective practice in teacher training.

Bio

Cecilia Nobre is a teacher, teacher trainer, DipTESOL tutor and mentor with over 20 years of experience and is passionate about online teaching teacher development. She has taught in Brazil, the UK and Turkey. She is currently doing her PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick. She is a co-author of Using Video to Support Teacher Reflection and Development in ELT (Equinox Publishing, 2023).
Instagram - @cicanobre
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecinobregriffiths

Wednesday 11/06/2025 - 16:00-17:00

"The whole presentation was clear, but it felt slightly boring...": Prescribing characteristics of a "good" tutoring performance

Vincent Wai Sum Tse, Monash University and University of Warwick

Abstract

Research on teacher talk has examined micro-linguistic features (e.g., discourse markers), larger-scaled interactional strategies (e.g., questioning), and modes of talk (e.g., exploratory talk). This body of work also sometimes evaluates teachers' communicative behaviour to outline best classroom practices. This presentation contributes to the literature by focusing on the underexplored context of shadow education, also known as private supplementary tutoring, and by approaching private tutors' use and management of language as ideologically driven. Drawing on metapragmatic commentaries from a 17-episode YouTube tutoring talent competition, I show that tutors are expected to not only verbally project but also physically embody efficiency and affectivity. I discuss how the prescriptive notion of a “good” tutoring performance emerges within the exam-oriented and commodified landscape of shadow education in Hong Kong.

Bio

Vincent Wai Sum Tse is a Joint PhD candidate in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Monash University, Australia, and The University of Warwick, UK. He received his BA and MPhil from The University of Hong Kong. His research interests lie in language and the market, professional discourse, digital discourse, and their intersections. He has published in Linguistic Landscape, Discourse & Society, Pragmatics and Society, and Discourse, Context & Media.

Thursday 12/06/2025 - 15:00-16:00 - BONUS SEMINAR

Abnormal deceivers and fertile subjects: Stance-taking ethics by doctors of intersex patients

Professor Brian King, University of Hong Kong

Abstract

I will focus on interviews with clinicians in Hong Kong who work with intersex children and their parents. I reveal stance-taking processes on bodies with intersex variations (i.e., bodies with innate sex characteristics that have been pathologized). The doctor recounts efforts to influence patients with intersex variations via warnings about social expectations around (in)fertility and reproduction. They build a stance where deeper involvement in heterosexual (and heteronormative) relationships is bound up with reproductive fertility. The wellbeing of the intersex patient is framed as the intention, but the effect is a stance steeped in assumptions and coercions. Intentionally or not, the patient subject is ‘put in their place’ as a likely deceiver and instructed to divulge their ‘abnormality’ to lovers. Thus the reproductive capacity of other more fertile subjects, more biopolitically valuable (i.e., ‘normal’ subjects) is ensured. The stance of abnormality and deceit identified has troubling implications for liveable intersex lives.

Bio

Brian King is a critical sociolinguist analysing discourses, identities and embodiments and the influence of power structures on social interaction in institutional contexts. His published work on these themes sits within healthcare communication, medical humanities, and interactional sociolinguistics. He is a member of the Centre for Humanities and Medicine at HKU. Forthcoming publications include a new Cambridge Element titled Language, gender & biopolitics: Meaning-making and intersex variations in healthcare, which should appear in late 2025.

Wednesday 18/06/2025 - 16:00-17:00 - ONLINE ONLY

Neoliberal feminism and the discourse of self-improvement

Dr Giuliana Ferri, IOE UCL, International Centre for Intercultural Studies

Abstract

This talk presents work from an upcoming book on neoliberal feminism and the discourse of self-improvement. The language used in popular self-help books to construct the image of a successful female neoliberal worker is analysed using Feminist Critical Discourse analysis (Lazar, 2007). Looking at the role of reproductive labour in contemporary neoliberal, post-Fordist work arrangements (Fraser, 2020; Hochschild, 1983), the presentation will focus on the key themes of empowerment, leadership, and work-life balance to demonstrate that qualities historically associated with women's domestic roles, such as empathy and emotional engagement, have been strategically revalued as desirable assets within the contemporary neoliberal workplace. This analysis explores the idea of a 'female advantage' in communication, popularized by the work of Deborah Tannen (1990), to convey how self-help narratives aimed at women in leadership normalize precarious labor conditions within a flexible job market.
Fraser, N. (2020). Fortunes of Feminism. From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis. London, New York: Verso.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lazar, M. M. (2007). Feminist critical discourse analysis: articulating a feminist discourse praxis. Critical Discourse Studies, 4(2), 141-164.
Tannen, D. (1991). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. London: Virago.

Bio

Giuliana Ferri is a Lecturer in Language and Intercultural Communication at IOE University College London. Her research expertise includes language and identity, language and intercultural communication, ethics and intercultural education. Some of her publications include Intercultural Communication: Critical Perspectives and Future Challenges (Palgrave, 2018). She is on the editorial board of Language and Intercultural Communication. She is currently writing a book on Neoliberal Feminism and the Discourse of Self-Improvement for the series Language, Society and Political Economy (Routledge).

See the recordings of our previous seminars here (please note that not all seminars are recorded):

Language Culture Matters Seminar RecordingsLink opens in a new window

See the list of our previous seminars here:

Language Culture Matters Seminar ArchiveLink opens in a new window