JYU English seminars 2025-26

Please note: for accessibility purposes, all our talks have automated captions in English (both live and in the recordings linked below). If you also wish to involve your own sign language interpreter, please get in touch to discuss practicalities.

Series convenor: Dave Sayers. Please send any queries to dave.j.sayers@jyu.fi.

Shareable short link for this page: https://r.jyu.fi/engseminars25-26

👇Scroll down to see abstracts for all talks.👇

👇Scroll down to see abstracts for all talks.👇

👇Scroll down to see abstracts for all talks.👇

ABSTRACTS

Rajesh Ramachandran, Language Policy and Socioeconomic Outcomes: human capital development across nations

Language policy plays a critical role in shaping socioeconomic outcomes and human capital development across nations. This talk investigates the impact of official language choices on education, economic opportunities, and societal cohesion. The concept of Average Distance from Official Language (ADOL) is introduced as a quantitative measure of linguistic distance, which significantly influences learning costs, literacy, and productivity.

ADOL is constructed by calculating the linguistic distance between the mother tongue of the ethnic groups and the official language of the country.  Cross-country analyses reveal that lower ADOL scores result in improved cognitive skills, life expectancy, and GDP per capita, while higher scores exacerbate disparities. Case studies from Ethiopia, Cameroon, Malaysia, Rwanda and South Africa highlight the advantages of mother-tongue instruction in primary education, including improved literacy rates, higher educational attainment, and better labor market outcomes.

Theoretical frameworks highlight the role of written traditions and linguistic diversity in determining language policy choices. Nations with strong written traditions are more likely to prioritize indigenous languages, while those with high linguistic diversity tend to retain colonial languages. These findings underscore the importance of aligning language policies with linguistic realities to reduce educational barriers and promote equitable development.

Vlada Baranova, Grassroots Initiative for Language Revitalization: Agency of Minority Speakers in Russia

This study examines grassroots initiatives for the revitalization of minority languages. While state policies—shaped by the ongoing war and rising Russian nationalism—increasingly favor Russification and monolingualism, grassroots language activists continue to develop new strategies for preserving and promoting indigenous languages.

Using the framework of micro-level language policy and planning (Liddicoat & Taylor-Leech, 2014), this study explores the impact of various actors from below. Despite a decline in the number of minority-language classes in recent years—following amendments to the education law in 2018—there is significant hidden resistance among school teachers and parents. Another notable trend is the rise of grassroots initiatives aimed at preserving minority languages, whether through volunteer-based efforts or commercialized approaches for sustainability.

Drawing on interviews and online ethnographic research conducted between 2022 and 2024, this study examines the evolving agendas of language activists. It highlights the growing divergence between those who view language maintenance as a cultural practice and those who adopt a decolonial approach, linking linguistic activism to broader struggles for ethnic and social justice.

Emily Harmer, What is online abuse anyway? The case of women politicians in the UK

In recent years there has been much scholarship exploring the proliferation of hate speech, online abuse and harassment across online spaces. In the case of elected politicians, academic and public discussion has tended to focus on the most extreme examples, such as threats of physical or sexual violence, and the democratic implications of these.  While this focus is understandable, it also diverts attention from other types of online discourses and behaviours that actively exclude historically marginalised groups from formal political representation: specifically incivility, microaggressions, and ‘othering’ - all directed at women. These occur more frequently than the more extreme hate speech, but are not perceived to be as hazardous to democratic norms. The social media data will be complemented by interview data exploring women’s experiences of such treatment. I explore the way these discourses and behaviours manifest, and I argue for their inclusion within our understanding of hate speech as a further threat to participatory democracy.

Yating Yu,  Media representations of the ‘little fresh meat’ phenomenon in China: a feminist critical discourse analysis of the masculine nonconformity discourse

‘Little fresh meat’ (LFM or xiǎo xiān ròu), which describes a masculine aesthetic rooted in ‘soft masculinity’, is a phenomenon across Asia that challenges prevailing concepts of masculinity and patriarchal discourse. This study furthers previous research by using feminist critical discourse analysis to evaluate the construction of LFM masculine nonconformity, via data collected from 42 news articles from China’s English - language news media, including: China Daily, Global Times, People’s Daily Online, Shanghai Daily, and Xinhua News Agency. The analysis generated three key themes: (1) market driving a female consumer fan base, (2) challenging hegemonic masculinities when men wear makeup to imitate their ‘idols’, and (3) criticisms of gender stereotypes. These themes show how a masculine nonconformity discourse is developed by using a variety of discursive strategies in China. This study highlights the need for increased awareness and education regarding gender diversity and the harmful impacts of gender stereotypes on Chinese society.

Lily Chimuanya, Self-promotion, ideology and power in the social media posts of Nigerian Female Political Leaders

This talk examines how Nigerian female political leaders (NFPLs) exploit self-presentation strategies to formulate and promote social justice. Using insights from critical discourse analysis and Jones and Pittman’s (1982) self-presentation strategies, and with a data set from the verified Facebook and Twitter accounts of two female ministers and three female senators, the study investigates how NFPLs systematically utilize discursive strategies such as self-promotion, ingratiation, exemplification, intimidation and supplication to present themselves as a powerful voice for the voiceless and as active alternative leaders. The study argues that the strategies help the leaders to amplify their authority by showcasing personal presence and past accomplishments, appealing to the concerns of the masses and soliciting their support in future elections. The study demonstrates that these strategies project female leaders as dynamic participants in political and public decision-making processes and positively evaluate their contributions to social change.

Based on the following published article:

Igwebuike, E. E., & Chimuanya, L. (2024). Self-promotion, ideology and power in the social media posts of Nigerian Female Political Leaders. Journal of Language and Politics, 23(1), 67-90. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22148.igw

Gisle Andersen, (How) is knowledge of linguistics and pragmatics relevant for real-life practitioners of communication?

In my presentation I outline an ongoing book project entitled Applications of Pragmatics (Andersen in prep.). The underlying credo of this project is that applied communication studies should be more firmly grounded in pragmatic theory than what has traditionally been the case, and the ambition is to bridge the gap between pragmatics and communication studies. 

Research in communication studies generally approaches its study object from the perspective of media studies or social sciences rather than from the perspective of linguistics and pragmatics. This aim here is to show the impact of this theoretical field on real-life contexts and global issues by showing how it enhances our understanding of communication in specialised and applied settings. In doing so, the book addresses some of the “dark matter” of pragmatics – key areas that remain underexplored and represent priorities for future research (Levinson 2024). 

While the book covers a broad spectrum of applications, this presentation focuses specifically on the relevance of communication for businesses and organisations. I focus on a range of domains where knowledge of communication is thought to be particularly important, by highlighting strategic and political communication, digital communication and the implications of artificial intelligence/large language models, cross-cultural and intercultural communication, and crisis communication.  

References

Andersen, Gisle. In preparation. Applications of Pragmatics: Language Use in Specialised Contexts. Book manuscript. To appear with Cambridge University Press. 

Levinson, Stephen C. 2024. The Dark Matter of Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.

Rachel Weissler, Karina Z. Papp & Giorgia Cola, Perceptions of African American English and a Path Toward Authentic Representation and Diminished Discriminatory Practices

African American English (AAE) has been a topic of interest for decades (Labov 1972). The language variety has grown in interest across fields, such as education, psychology, law studies, and more. An important unexamined question until now is this: Have perceptions of African American English changed as the awareness of the variety has spread? While knowledge of AAE has grown in public consciousness, the perceptions of the variety have not changed; that is to say, speakers of AAE, across age groups and gender identities, are still treated disproportionately based on how they speak. Linguistic discrimination reigns supreme, despite the consciousness-raising regarding the variety. Even more, we assert that the awareness of the variety has led to cooptation of the variety, resulting in erasure of the origins of the variety, and emboldened language users to use and misuse AAE in public contexts (Ilbury 2020). In this talk, I'll describe how AAE is represented and misrepresented in comedy and media portrayals (Calhoun & Yoo 2024), how AAE on the internet perpetuates inaccurate forms and thus innacruate perceptions of the variety, how AAE is stereotyped as it exists with AI (Zellou & Holliday 2024, Hofmann et al. 2024), how health practitioners maintain discriminatory practices toward AAE users (Hendricks et al. 2021), and finally, describe the neurophysiological and behavioral evidence that points toward perceptions of AAE being processed as different, on a slippery slope to perception as deficit (Weissler 2022). The decades of research on AAE have increased massive awareness about this English-variety existing as a full language. What is crucial now is a step beyond this, such that daily consumption of with the internet, AI, and media can veer beyond caricaturing AAE speakers and the variety as a whole, and move toward authentic representation and diminished discriminatory practices.

Laura Gorrieri, Is ChatGPT Full of Bullshit?

It is undeniable that conversational agents have taken the world by storm. Chatbots such as ChatGPT (Generative Pre Trained) are used for translations, financial advice, and even as therapists, by millions of users every month. When interacting with technology it’s important to be careful, especially if we do so by using natural language, since our relationship with artificial agents is shaped by the technology’s features and the manufacturer's goal. The talk, organized into three sections, explores whether ChatGPT’s production can be described as ‘bullshit’, as defined by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt. In the first section, the focus is on ChatGPT’s architecture and development; in the second a new formulation of the concept of Frankfurt’s ‘bullshit’ is presented, in which its central features of indifference, deception and manipulation are highlighted; in the last section, the title question is tackled, proposing an affirmative answer to it, arguing that ChatGPT can be considered a ‘bullshit’ generator.