International Conference "Language at Work: Research Advances in Social Sciences"

The conference aims to foster discussion among social scientists about the relations between language and work, including occupations, labor processes and employment conditions. Within this broad field, the conference will focus on the central role language plays in labor processes. We start from the centrality of language in the information society, since information is linguistically coded and, for a wide range of products and services, language becomes raw material. Language is thus a key component of productivity, employability, wages, and control. First and additional languages, computer languages, numerical systems, scripts or protocols can be approached as today’s working tools that must be mastered by professionals on an everyday basis. Beyond the classical “language industries” whose outputs are books or translations, today’s conversations and texts are produced in a wide range of workplaces where they can be understood as the final product of the labor process.

Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the conference will bring together scholars engaged in research on workplace language skills and their implications for broader social and economic concerns, including social and economic inclusion, job security, long-life learning, unionization, gender inequalities, and wage differentials.

Topics:

 ‐ Defining and measuring language skills related to job performance

‐ Language standardization/agency and production processes

‐ “Linguistic-jobs” and “non-linguistic” jobs

‐ Non-natural languages in the labor market. Technical and numerical languages.

‐ Professions and sectorial language. Jargons, company speak.

‐ Language skills, wages, employment, and employability

‐ Language as raw material, tool, and product

‐ Language, hiring, and promotion

‐ Social and economic implications of language work

Confirmed Keynote Speakers: 

Florian Coulmas Senior Professor for Japanese Society and Sociolinguistics Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) and Faculty of Social Sciences, Duisburg Essen University (Germany)
Jo Angouri Center for Applied Linguistics, Univesity of Warwick (United Kingdom)
Krishna S. Dhir Professor of Management Science Former Dean of Business College of Business and Economics, University of Hawaii at Hilo (USA)
Orhan Agirdag Education and Society professor Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)
Sheila M. Puffer Professor of International Business University Distinguished Professor Northweaster University, (USA)
Claudine Gaibrois Research Institute for Organizational Psychology, University of St. Gallen and Zurich University of Applied Sciences, (Switzerland)
Antonio Di Paolo Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Applied Economics  Researcher at AQR-IREA Research Group (UB) Researcher at Language & Occupations Research Project (URV) University of Barcelona (Spain)

Program at a glance:

Abstracts submission and registration:

Abstracts proposals should be sent to: amado.alarcon@urv.cat. The abstracts should be at least 300 words in length with four keywords and must include the name and affiliation of the authors. Abstracts should in English, alongside other versions if appropriate. Presentations can be in other languages than English, but presenters should provide a summary in English to the organizers and the audience. The proposals will be evaluated by the scientific committee. Accepted contributions will be allocated time slots of 25 minutes for presentation.

•  Abstract submission deadline: March 15th 2018
• Notification of abstract evaluation: April 15th 2018
• Presenter registration: May 1st 2018

Conference registration:

On-line conference registration is now open. Please click on the following link to be redirected to the on-line registration service: 

http://wwwa.fundacio.urv.cat/congressos/language-at-work-conference/registration 

• Registration Fees:

The inscription fees include program folder and coffee breaks.

General price: 100 €

Reduced price (for students and members of supporting institutions): 70 €

• Grants:

8 registration grants and 4 travel grants will be awarded among accepted authors. Accepted authors should send a Statement of need between April 16th and 20th 2018 to: amado.alarcon@urv.cat. Grants will be allocated before May 1st 2018.

Scientific Committee Members: Amado Alarcón (Universitat Rovira i Virgili); Till Burckhardt (Université de Gèneve, Swicherland); Stéphanie Cassilde (Centre d'Études en Habitat Durable, Belgic); Florian Coulmas (Duisburg Essen University, Germany); Antonio Di Paolo (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain); Federico Farini (Middlesex University in London, UK); Keiji Fujiyoshi (Otemon Gakuin University, Japan); Michele Gazzola (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany); Nadezhda Georgieva-Stankova (Trakia University, Bulgaria); Maria Guadalupe González (Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Mexico); Cecilio Lapresta (Universitat de Lleida, Spain); Josiah McC Heyman (University of Texas at El Paso, USA); Maria Cristina Morales (University of Texas at El Paso, USA); Anthony David Pym (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain); Roland Terborg (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico); Ester Torres (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain); Trinidad Valle (Fordham University, USA); Antoni Vidal-Suñé (Universitat Rovira i Virgili); Johanna Woydack (University of Vienna, Austria).

Local Organizing Committee: Amado Alarcón (URV), Antoni Vidal-Suñé (URV), Tinka Tabea Schubert (URV), Teresa Sorrosal (URV), Nune Ayvazyan (URV), Maria Jesús Muiños (URV), Teresa Corbella (URV), M. Carmen Molina (URV), Belén López (URV), Josep Ubalde (URV), Carla Aguilar (URV), Mar Joanpere (URV, Technical secretary)

Supporting Institutions: