International conference
Stylistic Approaches to Pop Culture
Organizers: Christoph Schubert (Vechta) and Valentin Werner (Bamberg)
Location: University of Vechta, Germany
2-3 September 2021
Pop culture appears in diverse textual manifestations, including television series and films, song lyrics, video games, or graphic novels and comics. Although there is no universally accepted definition of pop culture, prototypical texts belong to globalized mainstream media, fulfill the commercial function of mass entertainment, and are dominated by American English. However, despite their international reception and sociocultural impact, and despite the fact that pop culture seems to have overcome its traditional “low culture” status, relevant texts are still clearly underresearched in linguistics. Style is here considered as a motivated choice of specific linguistic items that fulfill communicative functions in accordance with contextual parameters such as author, genre, or discursive context. Correspondingly, this conference intends to investigate stylistic features that contribute to the mass appeal of pop cultural texts, arguably representing the most central type of performed language today. It will also take into account that contemporary pop culture manifestations are genuinely multimodal (combining text and music, text and image, etc.), so that further layers of meaning interact with the verbal discourse.
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Christiana Gregoriou (University of Leeds)
Dan McIntyre (University of Huddersfield)
Sponsored by:
Christiana Gregoriou (University of Leeds)
As a stylistician, I study the linguistic make-up of literary texts. Having researched into the poetics of deviance in contemporary crime fiction, I maintained a strong interest in the portrayal of the criminal in the genre and have used stylistic models of analysis so as to explore, among others, the poetic structure of the ‘criminal mind’. Primarily, I have been focused on that notion that has come to be known as ‘mind style’. More recently, I developed an interest in crime narratives across the true crime genre and media journalism also. By employing linguistic and narratological methods of analysis, my research worked toward developing a linguistic framework on the representation of criminal ideology. I also share an interest in several other types of crime and crime-preventing discourses, and have recently completed my latest monograph in the area of crime narrative migration in the form of translation, adaptation and remakes.
More information: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/57/dr-christiana-gregoriou
Dan McIntyre (University of Huddersfield)
At Huddersfield I am Professor of English Language and Linguistics. I am also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Fuzhou University, China. I work mainly in the areas of stylistics, corpus linguistics and the history of the English language, and I am particularly interested in applications for linguistics.
I studied for my BA, MA and PhD degrees in linguistics at Lancaster University and before I did my PhD I taught English as a foreign language in northern Italy.
I am Editor of the SAGE journal Language and Literature. With my colleague Louise Nuttall I edit the book series Advances in Stylistics for Bloomsbury, and with Lesley Jeffries I co-edit Perspectives on the English Language for Palgrave. I am also co-editor of Babel: The Language Magazine.
More information: https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/persons/dan-mcintyre
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| Thursday, 19 March 2020 |
| 10:00-10:30 | Registration |
| 10:30-11:00 | Welcome and Opening Christoph Schubert & Valentin Werner |
| 11:00-12:00 | Keynote 1: Corpora, Cognition, and Characterization: Inferring Character from Subtitles in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Dan McIntyre (University of Huddersfield) |
| 12:00-13:30 | Lunch Break |
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| Session 1: Telecinematic Discourse |
| 13:30-14:00 | “Hello…? Who is this?” – The Art of Turn-Taking in Movie Telephone Calls Christian Hoffmann (University of Augsburg) |
| 14:00-14:30 | From D’oh! to Don’t fuck it up! The Evolution of Swearing in Television Catchphrases Kristy Beers Fägersten (presenter, Södertörn University) in collaboration with Monika Bednarek (The University of Sydney) |
| 14:30-15:00 | A Mixed-Method Analysis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Representation in Fictional Television Susan Reichelt (University of Greifswald) |
| 15:00-15:30 | Coffee Break |
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| Session 2: Computer-Mediated Pop Discourse |
| 15:30-16:00 | Embodied Intermediality? Multimodal Metaphors and Blending in Animated GIFs Janina Wildfeuer (University of Groningen) |
| 16:00-16:30 | The Stylistic Journey of a Video Game: Multimodality and the Football Manager Series (2005–2019) Dušan Stamenković (University of Niš) |
| 17:00-19:00 | Social Activity (Easy Strike Bowling Center) |
| 20:00- | Conference Dinner (Restaurant Elmendorffburg) |
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| Friday, 20 March 2020 |
| 10:00-11:00 | Keynote 2: From Scribble to Crime Novel: A Stylistic Approach to the Crime Fiction Writing Process Christiana Gregoriou (University of Leeds) |
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| Session 3: Cartoons and Applied Stylistics |
| 11:00-11:30 | Styling Working Class Accents in Early Twentieth-Century American Print Cartoons Cecelia Cutler (City University of New York) |
| 11:30-12:00 | Corpus Stylistics and Pop Culture: A Perfect Marriage for Degree Essays in English Linguistics? Joe Trotta (University of Gothenburg) |
| 12:00-13:30 | Lunch Break |
|
| Session 4: Pop Music and Lyrics |
| 13:30-14:00 | Performance and Perception: Exploring Linguistic Stylization in English Pop and Rock Lisa Jansen (University of Münster) |
| 14:00-14:30 | Pop Lyrics: A Corpus-Stylistic Analysis Valentin Werner (University of Bamberg) |
| 14:30-15:00 | “Rainy Days dem Gone” – Crossing and the Stylization of Jamaican Creole in Reggae and Dancehall Music Anika Gerfer (University of Münster) |
| 15:00-15:15 | Conference Closing and Outlook Valentin Werner & Christoph Schubert |
| 15:15-15:45 | Coffee and Farewell |
AbstractsACCOMMODATION
Rooms have been reserved for the conference participants at the “Hotel Am Kaponier”.
NOTE: Please book by email with reference to ‘ANGLISTIK’ to let the hotel staff immediately know about your status as a conference participant. The hotel reservation for the conference will expire on 31 January 2020.
Hotel Am Kaponier
Große Straße 47
D-49377 Vechta
This 3-star hotel is located at the heart of the town centre, in the vicinity of the train station. The hotel has a café, which serves a breakfast buffet, as well as a variety of drinks, cakes, snacks etc. throughout the day. Also part of the hotel is a restaurant well-known within and outside the town. The university is within walking distance (about 15 minutes).
For more information: 
www.hotel-am-kaponier.de
Rates:
- single bedroom (incl. breakfast): 70,- EUR
- double bedroom (incl. breakfast): 95,- EUR
E-mail: info[at]kaponier[dot]de
Phone: 0049 (0)4441-92320
TRAVEL
For information on German trains, please consult:https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml
Airports in the vicinity: Bremen, Hannover, Münster/Osnabrück
• From Bremen airport:
take tram to Bremen central stationhttps://www.bremen-airport.com/nc/
> from there train NWB (Nord-West-Bahn) to Vechta (one hour train ride)
• From Hannover airport:
take S-Bahn (suburban train) airport line to Hannover central stationhttps://www.hannover-airport.de/en/information-for-passengers-visitors/
> take IC (InterCity) train to Bremen central station
> from there train NWB (Nord-West-Bahn) to Vechta (one hour train ride)
• From Münster/Osnabrück airport:
take fast bus to Osnabrück central stationhttps://www.fmo.de/en/
> from there train NWB (Nord-West-Bahn) to Vechta (one hour train ride)
Other airports:
• From Hamburg airport:
take S-Bahn (suburban train) airport line to Hamburg central stationhttps://www.hamburg-airport.de/en/index.php#
> train to Bremen central station
> from there train NWB (Nord-West-Bahn) to Vechta (one hour train ride)
• From Düsseldorf airport:
There is a railway station directly at the airporthttps://www.dus.com/en
From there you can take a train to Duisburg central station, Dortmund central station, or Essen central station.
> take train to Osnabrück central station
> from there train NWB (Nord-West-Bahn) to Vechta (one hour train ride)
Venue
University of Vechta
Driverstrasse 22
D-49377 Vechta
https://www.uni-vechta.de/home/?L=3
Conference room E 131
Campus map:
https://www.uni-vechta.de/campus/service/lageplaene/
Map
Bahnhof Vechta (Railway Station) A - Hotel Am Kaponier B – University of Vechta C
Organizing Team
Valentin Werner, Jessica Raschke, Christoph Schubert, Lukas Feldhaus, Claudia Enzweiler
Contact
Prof. Dr. Christoph Schubert
Universität Vechta
Fakultät für Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften
Anglistische Sprachwissenschaft
Driverstraße 22
D-49377 Vechta
Phone: 0049 (0)4441-15301
E-Mail: 
christoph.schubert[at]uni-vechta[dot]de
Dr. Valentin Werner
Universität Bamberg
Fakultät Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften
Lehrstuhl für Englische Sprachwissenschaft einschließlich Sprachgeschichte
An der Universität 9
D-96047 Bamberg
Phone: 0049 (0)951 863-2277
E-Mail: valentin.werner[at]uni-bamberg[dot]de