Plenary speakers
Charlotte Taylor
Professor of Discourse and Persuasion (University of Sussex)
Charlotte Taylor is Professor Discourse & Persuasion at the University of Sussex. Her research is concerned with how language is used to effect change in our evaluation, understanding and action. Her projects have included analyses of the language of mock politeness, the representations of migration and people who move, the rhetorical functions of water metaphors, and the persuasive use of nostalgia in discourse. She combines the framework of corpus linguistics with (critical) discourse studies and pragmatics and has a long-standing methodological interest in the impact of the researcher on the researched and the role of absence and silence in discourse.
Massimiliano Demata
Professor of English Linguistics (University of Catania)
Massimiliano Demata is Full Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Catania. He has published articles and book chapters on political and media discourse in the UK and the USA, conspiracy theories, computer-mediated communication, the language of populism and discourses of borders, nationalism and immigration. His latest single-authored monograph is Discourses of Nation and the Borders in the USA (Routledge 2022) and in 2023 he co-authored Voices of Supporters. Populist parties, social media and the 2019 European elections(John Benjamins). He co-edited Conspiracy Theory Discourses(John Benjamins 2022) and the Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation(2024). He has lectured or has been visiting professor in universities in Austria, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Sweden, the UK and the USA. He is also the Editor of the Journal of Language and Discrimination, published by the University of Toronto Press.
