Helsinki
Finland
Call for Panel Contributions
20th International Pragmatics Conference (IPC20)
International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), 27 June to 2 July 2027, University of Helsinki
Positioning in mediated political talk
In mediated political talk, participants continuously position themselves and others in relation to each other as well as to broader political discourses that shape and constrain their interaction. Through such positioning practices, situated interaction becomes interwoven with and related to wider (trans-situational) discursive formations. This panel invites contributions that explore this intersection between interaction and discourse by focusing on positioning and stancetaking (cf. Du Bois 2007) in mediated political talk. Drawing on conversation analytic and discourse analytic approaches, the panel examines how participants use linguistic and multimodal resources to negotiate social relations, identities, common ground, and stances across political media formats such as televised debates, interviews, podcasts, or live streaming.
Special attention will be paid to the role of indexicality in political positioning. Linguistic forms are not merely used to convey propositional content but simultaneously index social identities, evaluative orientations, historical references, and future projections (cf. Silverstein 2003). Such indexical practices are not static; rather, they are shaped by the mediality of the communicative setting (cf. Dang-Anh 2024; Luginbühl/Schneider 2020). Participants negotiate their positions within complex media settings conditioned by multiple audiences, layered addressivity, and political interests that may extend beyond the situated interaction. The fundamental mechanisms of face-to-face interaction (sequence organization, turn-taking, repair) are accordingly reconfigured by the affordances of the respective media formats (cf. Albert 2024; Clayman/Heritage 2002).
By integrating positioning theory and stancetaking research with the concepts of indexicality and mediality, this panel aims to develop a nuanced understanding of how political positioning operates across and beyond the boundaries of situated interaction.
We invite empirically based contributions that address, among others, the following questions:
• How are positioning and stance-taking accomplished by linguistic means and multimodal resources in different mediated political formats and, further, shaped by their mediality?
• In what ways are knowledge and common ground discursively constructed, negotiated, or contested in mediated political interaction?
• What kind of characteristic interactional phenomena do we find in mediated political talk with regard to general conversational mechanisms or different political styles (e.g., conversational behavior of populists)?
• What are particular methodological challenges in analysing audio-visual data of mediated political talks and how can we solve them?
Please submit your abstract (up to 500 words) via the conference website (https://ipra2027.exordo.com/) by 15 October 2026. In step 4 (‘Topics’) of the submission process select the panel ‘Positioning in mediated political talk’. Further information on submitting abstracts can be found in the IPC20 Call for Papers (https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP2027). Please note that an active IPrA membership is required to submit an abstract. If you have any further questions regarding the panel, please feel free to contact us directly.
Contact
Georg Albert (RPTU Landau), georg.albert@rptu.de
Mark Dang-Anh (IDS Mannheim), dang@ids-mannheim.de
Myriam Goll (RPTU Landau), m.goll@rptu.de
Alessandro Stephan (IDS Mannheim), stephan@ids-mannheim.de
References
Albert, Georg. 2024. Playing one’s part within a medial procedure: A talk show host’s role-specific interaction. In Luginbühl, Martin/Schneider, Jan Georg (eds.), Media as Procedures of Communication, 98–123. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Clayman, Steven E./Heritage, John. 2002. The news interview: Journalists and public figures on the air. Cambridge: CUP.
Dang-Anh, Mark. 2024. Handling signs medially: On mediality and indexicality in semiotic media practices. In Luginbühl, Martin/Schneider, Jan Georg (eds.), Media as Procedures of Communication, 220–245. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Du Bois, John W. 2007. The stance triangle. In Robert Englebretson (ed.), Stancetaking in Discourse, 139–182. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Luginbühl, Martin/Jan Georg Schneider. 2020. Medial Shaping from the Outset. On the Mediality of the Second Presidential Debate, 2016. Journal für Medienlinguistik 3(1). 57–93.
Silverstein, Michael. 2003. Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language & Communication 23(3–4). 193–229.