Keynote speakers

Francisco Yus is full professor at the University of Alicante, Spain. He has specialised in the application of pragmatics (especially relevance theory) to media discourses and conversational issues, about which he has published many articles,chapters and books (on relevance theory: Cooperación y relevancia. Dos aproximaciones pragmáticas a la interpretación, 1997/2003). He has developed a pragmatic approach to Internet-mediated communication (Ciberpragmática. El uso del lenguaje en Internet, Ariel, 2001; Ciberpragmática 2.0. Nuevos usos del lenguaje en Internet, Ariel, 2010; Cyberpragmatics. Internet-Mediated Communication in Context, John Benjamins, 2011; Smartphone Communication. Interactions in the App Ecosystem, Routledge, 2021). His latest research has to do with the application of relevance theory to the analysis of misunderstandings and irony, as well as to the production and interpretation of humorous discourses (Humour and Relevance, John Benjamins, 2016). Francisco Yus is also editor of the journal Internet Pragmatics (John Benjamins, https://benjamins.com/catalog/ip).

Władysław Chłopicki is an Associate Professor at the Department of English Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland) and a Professor at the Department of English at Krosno State College (Poland). His academic interests include interdisciplinary humour research in the context of cultural studies, cognitive linguistics, linguistic pragmatics and narratology as well as translation studies and business communication. He authored the Polish language monograph on humour research (O humorze poważnie), numerous articles on humour, pragmatics and communication styles. He acted as President of the International Society for Humor Studies (2018-2019) and is currently Chair of the Executive Board of Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies (since 2008). He is also a member of editorial boards of international journals, including Humor, and co-editor of European Journal of Humour Research and Tertium Linguistic Journal as well as co-editor of publications in the Language and Communication (Język a komunikacja) and Humour and Culture series.

Andra (Șerbănescu) Vasilescu is a Professor of linguistics and communication at the University of Bucharest (Romania). Her domains of interest are pragmatics, discourse and conversation analysis, grammar, interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, writing, Romanian as a foreign language, and the didactics of Romanian. She is a test constructor and assessor for the European Consortium for the Certificate of Attainment in Modern Languages. She has authored Cum se scrie un text [Writing], 2000; Întrebarea. Teorie şi practică [Asking Questions. Theory and Practice], 2002; Cum vorbesc ceilalți. Prin labirintul culturilor [How do Others Speak. The Labyrinth of Cultures], 2007; Cum vorbesc românii. Studii de comunicare (inter)culturală [How do Romanians Speak. Studies in (Inter)Cultural Communication], 2007.

Marina Bondi is a full professor of English Linguistics at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), where she is coordinator of the PhD programme in Human Sciences. She has published extensively in the field of genre analysis, EAP and corpus linguistics, with a focus on argumentative dialogue and language variation across genres, disciplines and cultures.  Her main research interests centre on textual and pragmatic aspects of academic discourse, professional discourse and web-mediated texts. She has authored and edited numerous articles and volumes on language variation across genres, phraseology, meta-discourse, polyphony and evaluative language features, while paying special attention to emerging web-genres and to the role of language in knowledge dissemination.