Full Title: 19th International Pragmatics Conference - "Social Interaction in East Asian Hospitality Establishments"
Short Title: IPRA2025

Date: 22-Jun-2025 - 27-Jun-2025
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Contact Person: Todd Allen
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://pragmatics.international/page/Brisbane2025

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 01-Nov-2024

Meeting Description:

The 19th International Pragmatics Conference will be held at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, from 22 to 27 June 2025.

Call for Papers:

We invite contributions to the following panel at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference:

Social Interaction in East Asian Hospitality Establishments (Organised by Todd Allen, Andrew Barke, Momoyo Shimazu - Kansai University)

Hospitality establishments in East Asia (e.g., izakayas, tea houses, and local bars) serve as vibrant hubs of social activities, ranging from daily transactions to meaningful personal interactions (Futamura & Sugiyama, 2018). These spaces hold significant social and historical value (Ohnishi et al., 2012; Farrer, 2021) but are increasingly threatened by changes in the economy, population, and social values (Futamura & Sugiyama, 2018).

Despite existing research on similar spaces in Europe and the United States (e.g., Félix-Brasdefer, 2015), little attention has been paid to the investigation of such establishments in the Asian context, particularly from a (socio)pragmatic perspective. Recently, however, studies such as Allen and Liu (2022, 2024) have, by focusing on sociopragmatic aspects of Japanese communication in such contexts, begun to unveil both routine-like behaviours and a diverse range of interactional activities that include the employment of a variety of politeness strategies, and that are influenced by various gender dynamics.

The organisers of this panel will be presenting the results of their ongoing investigation of sociopragmatic activities in small hospitality establishments in Japan. Specifically, they will focus on how ingroup members welcome newcomers to a local Japanese bar during a first encounter and highlight the pivotal role owners of such establishments play in facilitating conversation in such encounters.

Proposals are invited from other scholars who also share an interest in the sociopragmatic activities that occur in small hospitality establishments in East Asia. This panel is a collaborative effort, welcoming a variety of methodological approaches (e.g., conversation, discourse, and discursive analysis) as well as diverse theoretical and practical perspectives.

More details can be found on the IPrA 2025 website: https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP2025