Ghent CLADES Conference 2026: Critical Language Awareness for Sustainability, Solidarity and Inclusion
The second 25-26 February 2026 at Ghent University. This two-day event is organised as part of the CLADES Erasmus+ project (Critical Language Awareness, Democratic Engagement and Sustainability).
This interdisciplinary, critical, and student- and teacher-oriented conference invites participants to explore how language and discourse sustain or challenge unsustainable economies, social injustice, and exclusion. By focusing on language attitudes, linguistic practices, language policies and discourses in various settings, the conference will show how language and discourse shape our imaginaries of growth, nature, democracy, and justice. The aim is to deepen and share our insights into these dynamics and examine the transformative potential of language and discourse in shaping more just and sustainable futures.
We invite contributions from scholars, educators, practitioners, policymakers, activists, and students in the form of papers, lectures, dialogue sessions, discussions, and interactive formats. Submissions should engage with one of the following two thematic streams:
This stream focuses on how language and discourse uphold or contest societal inequalities. It invites contributions that take either more analytic approaches, examining how discourse naturalises structures of power, or more transformative orientations exploring how language can resist, reframe, or reimagine societal norms. We are particularly interested in work that examines or enacts the constructive, imaginative, and activist potential of language in shaping more just, inclusive, and emancipatory futures. Both everyday and institutional linguistic practices are of interest, particularly in how they intersect with power, identity, and access.
Topics may include:
• Linguistic discrimination and language hierarchies (e.g. accentism, the in- and exclusionary effects of linguistic standardisation)
• Language and migration (language barriers in access to rights/services)
• Discourse, ideology, and symbolic violence in institutions (e.g. education, media,
government)
• Inclusive and justice-oriented language (gender, queerness, race, disability, etc.)
• Counter-discourses and participatory storytelling (e.g., challenging neoliberal or extractive metaphors)
• Discourse in activism and social movements
• Critical discourse analysis of exclusionary or oppressive discourses
• Creative and community-based language practices for social change
• The politics of multilingualism and language policy
• Linguistic bias in AI
This stream examines the relationship between language, nature, and ecological consciousness. It explores how language shapes our understanding of the environment, and how linguistic and discursive practices can either sustain unsustainable systems or open pathways toward ecological justice. It welcomes both analytic contributions that critically investigate dominant environmental discourses and metaphors, and transformative work that explores how language can nurture ecological awareness and solidarity.
Topics may include:
• Ecopoetics, ecocriticism, and ecolinguistics
• Climate change literature and environmental discourse
• The metaphors we live by in climate communication
• Indigenous and local ecological knowledges
• (Un)sustainability in environmental and CSR communication
• Critical advertising and greenwashing
• Discourse in environmental activism and movements
• Participatory and decolonial environmental storytelling
We encourage proposals to each of the streams in a variety of formats:
(1) Individual Presentations: each accepted paper is given 20 minutes for presentation, followed by 5–10 minutes for discussion with the audience. Individual presentations will be grouped into thematic sessions of 3–4 presentations based on the thematic stream they are linked to. Each thematic session lasts 90–120 minutes.
(2) Hands-on sessions and workshops: these may include fieldwork reports from practitioners with practice-based insights, demonstrations, or creative sessions – for example, a copywriter critically reflecting on corporate sustainability messaging, a developer showcasing a tool or app designed for inclusive communication, an activist’s account of their struggle for environmental justice, a workshop on inclusive language in translation, a workshop in which various types of framing are exposed via collaborative analyses, or one exploring and imaging alternative economies.
(3) Symposia: you can also organise a symposium with a focused group of presentations on a common theme. Symposium goals should include diversity and integration of perspectives. Symposium organisers are encouraged to include multiple disciplines, practitioners and policymakers. A symposium lasts 90 minutes and consists of 3 to 4 contributors and a discussant, who moderates the public discussion. Each contribution is given 15 minutes, with ample time for discussion.
(4) Dialogue Sessions: a focused session, in which you tackle one of the topics within the two strands in-depth. Ideally, you bring different perspectives to the table (e.g. academic vs non-academic, linguistic vs. non-linguistic, alfa vs. beta sciences) and as such, you contribute to a deeper understanding of the issue, based on the interaction of experts with different backgrounds.
(5) Other Formats: We are open to other formats besides the ones mentioned above, including, but not limited to, artistic interventions, debates, fishbowl discussions, walkshops, roleplays, etc. If you have a creative idea to discuss one of the topics, please get in touch with the organisers: clades@ugent.be.
Since we expect a mixed audience, including students and staff from diverse disciplines including also stakeholders from outside the academic world, we encourage participants to think in terms of accessible approaches and formats for their presentations and activities, to be able to engage non-experts and youth with their contributions.
Deadline for submissions: 1/10/2025
Notification of acceptance: 15/10/2025
Please ensure that all submissions adhere to the following guidelines:
• Submissions for individual presentations, hands-on sessions and workshops should include a proposal or summary written in English of no more than 500 words. A reference list is not required.
• Submissions for a dialogue session should include a proposal of no more than 300 words, including the names of the invitees and the moderator (if not the organiser). A reference list is not required.
• Submissions for symposia should consist of an overall short text of the symposium as a whole (no more than 600 words), and a short abstract of each of the contributions (each no more than 300 words). A reference list is not required.
All submissions should include the following information:
• Type of contribution format (e.g. individual presentation, hands-on session, workshop, dialogue session, symposium)
• Title
• Strand: Please indicate the stream in which your contribution is situated: STREAM 1. Language, Discourse & Social (In)Justice or STREAM 2. Language, Discourse & Ecological (In)Justice
• Contributor details: please provide first and last names, e-mail address and affiliation of all contributors
Please submit your proposals for contributions in Word-format to: clades@ugent.be