Language in Fantastic Film Worlds:
Exploring Fictional Telecinematic Discourse
International Conference
Chemnitz University of Technology (hybrid)
March 19–20, 2026
We are pleased to announce that the conference Language in Fantastic Film Worlds: Exploring Fictional Telecinematic Discourse will take place at Chemnitz University of Technology (with online participation options) on March 19 and 20, 2026.
The conference responds to the ongoing trend in contemporary film and television productions to depict alternative realities and fantastic universes. Fantastic films commonly show linguistic creativity and innovation, including idiosyncratic language use by extraordinary characters, so that these pop cultural discourses are a highly promising subject for linguistic study (Mandala 2010). The attribute fantastic is conceptualized here in a wide sense, referring to all genres that portray fictional characters in settings that blatantly deviate from everyday reality in a framework of “estrangement” (Adams 2017). Accordingly, the conference is dedicated not only to science fiction (Rüdiger & Lange 2023) and fantasy (Castro 2024), but also to mystery, superhero, fairy tale, horror (Schubert 2020), and animated films, as well as movie adaptations from comics (Sanchez-Stockhammer 2020). Although telecinematic research has been gradually gaining momentum in linguistics (Piazza et al. 2011), fantastic films and their discursive characteristics have received surprisingly little attention yet. Tackling this research gap, this conference presents and discusses diverse facets of language use in fantastic films and TV shows.
The conference is structured into seven sections and three keynote lectures which reflect the inherently multifaceted nature of fantastic telecinematic discourse. The three keynote lectures apply the key areas of corpus linguistics, multimodal studies and sociolinguistics to different genres and thus – in line with the overall conference theme – serve to underline the potential of telecinematic discourse analysis at large. Monika Bednarek (Sydney) provides a corpus-based case study of Australian sci-fi and fantasy television series featuring Aboriginal protagonists. Roberta Piazza’s (Sussex) plenary lecture provides a multimodal account of how cinematic narratives are conveyed by storytellers engaging with the viewers as overhearers. Claudia Lange (Dresden) adopts a sociolinguistic approach to investigate the forms and functions of constructed languages in TV science fiction series.
All sessions continue selected existing trends but also point out new research directions: Section 1, entitled “Multimodality,” deals with how visual storytelling contributes to narrative world-building. Section 2 on “Multilingualism” explores the complex use of different languages and varieties in fantasy epics and science fiction. Section 3, “Fantastic Languages,” encompasses talks which focus on the structure and functional use of animal languages and fantasy communities. Section 4, “Corpus Linguistics,” presents a methodological discussion on the challenges of building text corpora for the study of fantastic films, and what can be derived from these. Section 5, “Pragmatic Theories and Language Philosophy,” comprises studies which examine how systematic pragmatic inferences can yield narrative effects in films. The papers in Section 6 outline the eponymous topic of “Identity construction” in various fantastic universes. Finally, Section 6, “Applied Approaches,” provides insights into how fantastic films are live-dubbed for film festivals and may serve to transmit linguistic knowledge. For more details on the conference programme, see the conference website.
With the focus on fantastic film worlds, we hope to establish a new subdiscipline of telecinematic discourse analysis. In addition, we aim to build bridges with neighbouring disciplines, such as film studies, literary criticism, English language teaching and cultural studies.
Contact:
Preliminary Programme
Language in Fantastic Film WorldsChemnitz, 19-20 March 2026 |
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Wednesday 18 March 2026 |
||
|
16:30-18:00 |
City tour (optional) |
|
|
18:00 |
Warming-up in Café ALEX (optional, Neumarkt 2) |
|
|
|
||
|
Thursday 19 March 2026 |
||
|
08:00-09:00 |
Registration |
|
|
09:00-09:45 |
Conference opening |
|
|
|
MULTIMODALITY |
|
|
09:45-10:45 |
Keynote 1: Fantasy or truth? How films tell stories Roberta Piazza (chair: Christoph Schubert) |
|
|
10:45-11:15 |
Coffee break |
|
|
11:15-11:45 |
Multimodal discourse analysis: Verbal and multimodal world-building in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Adrián Castro |
|
|
11:45-12:15 |
The intersection of science fiction, philosophical reflections and semiotic transformations in John Carpenter’s film They Live Loreta Huber & Viktorija Šedvytytė |
|
|
|
PRAGMATICS |
|
|
12:15-12:45 |
Anticipating the monster: Suspenseful dialogue in the horror film series The Conjuring Christoph Schubert |
|
|
12:45-14:00 |
Lunch |
|
|
14:00-14:30
Parallel Session 1 |
The gaze of the killer: How dialogue and camerawork affect audience participation Christian Hoffmann |
Evaluating truth in discourse on Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Game of Thrones, and other fantastic worlds Squid Tamar-Mattis (online) |
|
14:30-15:00 |
Expecting the unexpected: Examining the interplay between world knowledge and context in relatively unconstraining scenario Chengjie Jiang & Ruth Filik |
|
|
15:00-15:30 |
Coffee break |
|
|
|
MULTILINGUALISM |
|
|
15:30-16:00
Parallel Session 2 |
“I am also a We”: Multilingualism and World Englishes in Sense 8 Sarah Buschfeld & Sven Leuckert |
Stereotypes, humour and exoticising: Finnish, Hebrew and Yiddish in fantastic film and TV Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi & Lily Kahn |
|
16:00-16:30 |
Foreign tongues and fabled lands: Multilinguistic complexity in The Lord of the Rings and Dune Katja Anderson & Maurice Anderson |
|
|
16:30-17:15 |
Applied Approaches Workshop: Target-group-specific translation of international children’s films for live voiceover at film festivals Karina Geipel & Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer |
|
|
17:30-19:00 |
Day 1 Social Programme: Reception |
|
|
|
||
|
Friday 20 March 2026 |
||
|
08:30-09:00 |
Registration |
|
|
|
CORPUS LINGUISTICS |
|
|
09:00-10:00 |
Keynote 2: Sci-fi and fantasy television series from Australia: A corpus linguistic case study Monika Bednarek (online) (chair: Christian Hoffmann) |
|
|
10:00-10:30 |
Building a corpus of fantastic movies for the exploration of gendered telecinematic discourse: Issues and challenges Natalia Zawadzka-Paluektau |
|
|
10:30-11:00 |
Coffee break |
|
|
11:00-11:30 |
Getting (pseudo-)medieval on the lingo': A corpus-linguistic study into diegetic dialogues in fantasy-medieval TV series Monika Kirner-Ludwig |
|
|
|
APPLIED APPROACHES |
|
|
11:30-12:00 |
The language didactics of sci-fi and fantasy Kerstin Richter |
|
|
12:00-12:30 |
The influence of Disney films on the general public’s linguistic knowledge of the Grimms’ fairy tales in English Cansu Akan, Sasha Coelho, Marina Beccard & Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer |
|
|
12:30-13:30 |
Lunch |
|
|
|
FANTASTIC LANGUAGES |
|
|
13:30-14:30 |
Keynote 3: From Klingon to Belter slang: The forms and functions of (science) fictional languages Claudia Lange (chair: Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer) |
|
|
14:30-15:00 |
The use and function of ‘foreign’ languages and accented English in fantastic film and television Catherine Sangster |
|
|
15:00-15:30 |
Translingual tales and travels: Animal languages in film adaptations of children’s literature Natasha Anderson |
|
|
15:30-16:00 |
Coffee break |
|
|
|
IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION |
|
|
16:00-16:30 |
Navigating real-world challenges through fantasy: Linguistic perspectives on parasocial interactions and ASD in magical and galactic worlds Veronika Mattová |
|
|
16:30-17:00
Parallel Session 3 |
Nightcrawler's Babel: Linguistic representations of Kurt Wagner's complex identity Pavel Egizaryan |
Doctor Who, a very British Sci-Fi Julie Collins |
|
17:00-17:30
Parallel Session 4 |
Powerful ‘others’: Gender role expression and subversion in Violet Evergarden and Spy x Family Zuzana Elliott & Chad Elliott |
"You, me, handcuffs… must it always end this way?" The Language of desire, romance, and asexuality in Doctor Who Farah Ali |
|
17:30-18:00 |
Conference Closing |
|
|
19:00-22:00 |
Day 2 Social Programme: Conference Dinner (Turmbrauhaus, Neumarkt 2) |
|
Conference Highlights
Conference chairs: Christian Hoffmann (University of Augsburg), Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer (Chemnitz University of Technology), Christoph Schubert (University of Vechta)
Local organising committee: Cansu Akan & Isabell Nitschmann
Keynote Speakers:
Monika Bednarek (The University of Sydney)
Claudia Lange (Dresden University of Technology)
Roberta Piazza (University of Sussex)
References
References
Adams, Michael. 2017. The pragmatics of estrangement in fantasy and science fiction. In Miriam A. Locher & Andreas H. Jucker (eds.), Pragmatics of fiction, 329-363. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Bednarek, Monika. 2018. Language and television series. A linguistic approach to TV dialogue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bednarek, Monika, Marcia Veirano Pinto & Valentin Werner. 2021. Corpus approaches to telecinematic language. Special Issue of International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 26(1).
Bednarek, Monika. 2023. Language and characterisation in television series: A corpus-informed approach to the construction of social identity in the media. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Beers Fägersten, Kristy (ed.). 2016. Watching TV with a linguist. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Boberg, Charles. 2021. Accent in North American film and television: A sociophonetic analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Castro, Adrián. 2024. Telecinematic stylistics: Language and style in fantasy TV series. Language and Literature 33(1). 3-24.
Frobenius, Maximiliane & Cornelia Gerhardt. To appear 2024. Non-natural dialogue in comedy: Language as sound in the creation of multimodal humor. In Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer & Christian Hoffmann (eds.), Language and/in Film. Special issue of Anglistik.
Hodson, Jane. 2014. Dialect in film and literature. London: Palgrave.
Hoffmann, Christian & Monika Kirner-Ludwig (eds.). 2020. Telecinematic stylistics. London: Bloomsbury.
Janney, Richard W. 2012. Pragmatics and cinematic discourse. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 8(1). 85-113.
Kozloff, Sarah. 2000. Overhearing film dialogue. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Locher, Miriam A. & Andreas H. Jucker (eds.). 2017. Pragmatics of fiction. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Mandala, Susan. 2010. Language in science fiction and fantasy: The question of style. London: Continuum.
Piazza, Roberta, Monika Bednarek & Fabio Rossi (eds.). 2011. Telecinematic discourse: Approaches to the language of films and television series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Reichelt, Susan. 2018. The sociolinguistic construction of character diversity in fictional television series. Cardiff: Cardiff University dissertation. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/114837/
Rüdiger, Sofia & Claudia Lange (eds.). 2023. The language of science fiction. Special issue of Linguistics Vanguard 9(3).
Sanchez-Stockhammer, Christina. 2020. How comics communicate on the screen: Telecinematic discourse in comic-to-film adaptations. In Christian Hoffmann & Monika Kirner-Ludwig (eds.), Telecinematic Stylistics, 263-284. London: Bloomsbury.
Sanchez-Stockhammer, Christina & Christian Hoffmann (eds.). To appear 2024. Language and/in film. Special issue of Anglistik.
Schubert, Christoph. 2020. The visual discourse of shots and cuts: Applying the cooperative principle to horror film cinematography. In Christian Hoffmann & Monika Kirner-Ludwig (eds.), Telecinematic stylistics, 183-204. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Schubert, Christoph. 2023. Tarantino’s eloquent villains: A pragma-stylistic approach to suspense. English Text Construction 16(2). 119-143.
Wildfeuer, Janina. 2014. Film discourse interpretation: Towards a new paradigm for multimodal film analysis. London: Routledge.