Full Title: 12th International Symposium on Intercultural, Cognitive and Social Pragmatics
Short Title: EPICS XII

Date: 27-May-2026 - 29-May-2026
Location: Seville, Spain
Contact Person: Manuel Padilla Cruz
Web Site: http://eventos.upo.es/go/epicsxii

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics

Call Deadline: 01-Dec-2025

The research group “Intercultural pragmatic studies (English-Spanish): Pragmatic and discourse issues” is pleased to announce the upcoming 12th International Symposium on Intercultural, Cognitive and Social Pragmatics (EPICS XII, after the Spanish abbreviation for “Encuentros de Pragmática Intercultural, Cognitiva y Social”). Under the aegis of the PATDISC research project (“Discourse pathologisation in Twitter, Instagram and TikTok”, grant PID2022-136840O, MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ERDF, UE), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, EPICS XII will be held on May 27th-29th 2026, at the Faculty of Humanities of Pablo de Olavide University, Seville (Spain). It will be an on-site, face-to-face academic event.

EPICS XII seeks to bring together practitioners in pragmatics and discourse analysis who are interested in the interaction between these two disciplines for the analysis of digital communication and discourse for a variety of practices and in distinct sites. Therefore, the conference main theme will be “Communicating in the digital age: Pragmatics, discourse analysis and (online) interaction”. However, in order to be loyal to the spirit with which the EPICS conferences were created, presentations addressing other areas of communication and/or linguistic/communicative phenomena that are amenable to analyses from pragmatic and/or discourse-analytic perspectives and frameworks (e.g., im/politeness theories, relevance theory, genre analysis, interlanguage pragmatics, historical pragmatics, corpus pragmatics, etc.) will also be accommodated in the conference schedule (see list of topics below).

EPICS XII organising committee is also delighted to announce the conference keynote speakers:
- Jannis Androutsopoulos, Universität Hamburg.
- Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
- Caroline Tagg, The Open University.
- Camilla Vasquez, University of South Florida.

Presentation Types:
Presentations must be preferably in English, although proposals in Spanish will also be accepted. They must address any of the subjects that fall under the conference topics (see below) or any related topic connected with pragmatics and (digital) discourse analysis, regardless of the approach, typology or methodology. Presentations may be made of any of the following types:
- Individual Oral Presentations:
20 minutes in length, followed by 10 minutes for questions and discussion.
- Themed Panels:
These must contain a number of thematically-related papers, each of which must be 20 minutes in length, followed by 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Proposals for panels must also include a chair.
- Posters:
Participants presenting a poster must obey the following norms:
Posters should be no larger than 118,9 x 84,1 cm (A0).
They can be printed in colour or in black and white.
Poster presenters must bring a printed copy of their poster with them to the conference, as there will not be printing facilities at the conference venue. Presenters will also be responsible for displaying the poster and removing it at the time and in the place designated by the conference organisers.

Topics:
In addition to the conference theme, topics for presentations may be, but are not limited to, the following:
- Pragmatic analysis of (digital) discourse.
- Discourse and identity.
- Discourse as a tool to pathologise identities.
- Discourse and reality construction.
- Discourse and social relationships.
- Discourse and ideologies.
- Humorous discourse.
- Sociocultural factors affecting communication
- Cognitive factors affecting communication.
- Face-to-face communication.
- Digital communication.
- Genre-specific communication
- New developments, interactions or challenges in pragmatic analyses of:
- Morphology, lexicon, syntax and/or prosody.
- Procedural meaning.
- Im/Politeness and relational work.
- Language aggression and conflict.
- The pragmatics of emotions.
- Figures of speech (irony, metaphor, hyperbole, etc.).
- Interlanguage pragmatic development.
- Experimental testing.

Submissions:
Proposals must be sent through the conference website: http://eventos.upo.es/go/epicsxii
Instructions for submission are available on: https://eventos.upo.es/136716/section/59130/xii-international-symposium-on-intercultural-cognitive-and-social-pragmatics-epics-xii.html

Dates:
The deadline for receipt of abstracts will be 1st December 2025 (23.59 C.E.T.). Proposals will be double-blind peer-reviewed. Notification of acceptance will be sent progressively, from the moment abstracts are received and before abstract submission closes, as the reports on suitability for presentation are received. At the very latest, notifications of acceptance will be sent on 30th January 2026.

Conference Fees:
- Until February 28th 2026: speakers €220, attendees €150
- From March 1st 2026: speakers €250, attendees €170
The fees are for the full conference and include the conference pack, coffee breaks and lunches, but not the conference dinner. Instructions to pay the registration fee will be given upon notification of acceptance.

We hope you will circulate this call for papers to your colleagues and others in your professional network, and to any discussion groups to which you may subscribe. For more information, feel free to contact us. We hope to welcome you to Seville in May 2026 and thank you for your interest.

Organising Committee:
Manuel Padilla Cruz, Universidad de Sevilla
Lucía Fernández Amaya, Universidad Pablo de Olavide
María de la O Hernández López, Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Reyes Gómez Morón, Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Manuel Mejías Borrero, Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Bethany A. Aull, Universitat Jaume I
Rebeca Company Almagro, Universidad de Sevilla & Leuphana Universität Lüneburg

Scientific Committee:
Marta Andersson, Uppsala Universitet
Marta Carretero Lapeyre, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Jan Chovanec, Masaryk University
Sophie Decock, Universiteit Gent
Ilse Depraetere, Université de Lille
Giovanni Garofalo, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Christopher Hopkinson, University of Ostrava
Daniel Kádár, Dalilan University of Foreign Languages, Hungarian Research Centre for
Linguistics & University of Maribor
Esther Linares Bernabéu, Universitat de València
Nuria Lorenzo Dus, Swansea University & Universitat Politécnica de València
Sergio Maruenda Bataller, Universitat de València
Carmen Pérez Sabater, Universitat Politécnica de València
María Elena Placencia, Birbeck College
Nicolas Ruytenbeek, KU Leuven
Agnese Sampietro, Universitat Jaume I
Maria Grazia Sindoni, Università degli Studi di Messina
Chelo Vargas Sierra, Universidad de Alicante
Begoña Vicente Cruz, Universidad del País Vasco
Francisco Yus Ramos, Universidad de Alicante