We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the 7th International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA), to be held 5-7 November 2026 online, with East Texas A&M University as virtual host. The goal of this conference is to promote both theoretical and applied research in pragmatics, and to bring together scholars who are interested in different subfields of pragmatics (philosophical, linguistic, cognitive, social, intercultural, interlanguage, etc.).
Conference Topic Strands
The five main topical strands of the conference are as follows:
- i. Pragmatics Theories:
- neo-Gricean approaches
- relevance theory
- theory of mind
- meaning
- role of context
- common ground
- semantics-pragmatics interface
- explicature
- implicature
- speech act theory
- presuppositions
- grammaticalization
- im/politeness
- ii. Experimental Pragmatics:
- models of language and meaning
- experimental techniques
- scalar implicatures
- reference resolution
- interpretation of figurative language
- iii. Intercultural, Cross-Cultural and Socio-Pragmatics:
- research involving more than one language and culture, or varieties of one language
- variational pragmatics
- intercultural pragmatics
- digitally-mediated communication (DMC)
- multimodality
- iv. Second Language Acquisition:
- interlanguage pragmatics
- lingua franca
- bilinguals' and heritage speakers' language use
- pragmatic competence
- teachability and learnability of pragmatic skills
- developmental pragmatics
- v. Applications:
- forensic pragmatics
- interactional pragmatics
- political and legal communication
- language of aggression and conflict
Abstract Submission
Abstracts must not exceed 300 words in length (including references). Titles should be no more than 15 words. Submissions are limited to one individual and one joint abstract per person. Abstracts must be submitted online through the conference's website. The system will be open and ready to receive abstracts starting on January 31, 2026. When submitting the abstract, please specify your preference for which strand (i, ii, iii, iv, v) you would like to be considered. Accepted papers will get 20 minutes for presentation time, followed by 10 minutes for Q & A.
- Deadline: June 15, 2026
- Notification of Acceptance: Abstracts submitted will receive a notification by July 31, 2026.
Conference Fees
There are no conference fees. To present, authors must be current AMPRA members.
AMPRA membership
To submit an abstract for consideration, prospective participants are not required to be AMPRA members. However, if your abstract is accepted for presentation and you wish to participate at the conference, you must be a member of AMPRA. The membership fee, which covers membership for a period of 24 months (2 calendar years), is $50 for non-students, and $25 for students.
If you wish to attend the conference without giving a paper, membership is not required.
Contact
Questions? Email AMPRA 7 at: [email protected]