XVI International Congress of the Latin American Association of Discourse Studies - ALED 2025

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
We are pleased to invite all researchers from Latin America and other regions and continents to the XVI ALED INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS. This is a special edition that will celebrate the 30th anniversary of ALED's founding, a time to reflect on contemporary discursivities, research networks, and the challenges emerging today in the field of discourse studies and language sciences, embracing the interdisciplinarity that has always been the essence of discourse studies.

The central theme, resistance, allows for a plural and essential reflection on the challenges of the present world, including political transformations, climate change, the advancement of digital communication, and, paraphrasing Michel Foucault, the powers and dangers that come with these new discursive forms and practices, their emergence, exercise, and order. In this sense, discourse studies play an important role in understanding the various socio-linguistic phenomena at stake, involving resistance, discursive confrontations, setbacks, and advances.

Bring your contribution to this great debate that will undoubtedly be part of the history of discourse studies in Latin America and the world. The XVI ALED International Congress aims to foster research development and scientific exchange in the spirit of an open, democratic, critical, and pluralistic society. Discussions will be enriched by the presence of researchers from various regions, countries, institutions, and international research networks, as well as the expected contribution from different areas of knowledge, given the interdisciplinarity of discourse studies and the chosen theme.

1. DATE and LOCATION
The UFMG – Federal University of Minas Gerais, located in the city of Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, was chosen to host the XVI ALED International Congress. The congress will be held from July 8 to 11, 2025. BELO HORIZONTE, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, is a modern and welcoming city. Minas Gerais, known for its baroque historic cities and as an intellectual and literary hub in Brazil, is also a land of resistance and historical memory marked by the Inconfidência Mineira, represented by the national hero, Tiradentes. July is wintertime in Minas Gerais, with mild temperatures, usually clear blue skies, and no rain, a great opportunity to explore and appreciate the mountains and hills surrounding Belo Horizonte and its surroundings.

2. A PLURAL AND NECESSARY THEME
"Discourses of Resistance, Networks of Meaning, and Discursive Diversities in a Digital and Non-Digital World"

Although the congress is open to transversal topics not necessarily linked to the central theme, the theme seeks to stimulate problematizations, focusing on dimensions considered important in contemporary times:

• Resistance as a relevant dimension of social discourses in action, a theme that, as we will try to show in Annex I accompanying this circular, encompasses a plurality of possibilities for intervention, reflection, and research.
• Networks of meaning, a subtopic addressing the problem of the social and dialogical construction of language and the meanings produced within and between discursive communities.
• Discursive diversities, a subtheme that embraces the great plurality of devices, genres, and models of communication situations in which discourses are manifested, structured, and structured.
• Digital discourses, expanding globally as a fascinating universe for research and language practices, structuring new discursive practices, forms of social action, discourse circulation, manipulations, and public and political challenges of all kinds.

This set of guiding topics will allow the congress to host different reflections on the modes of discourse constitution, circulation, interaction, configuration, influence, regulation, and incitement to action. We understand that by fostering such problematizations, ALED, as a scientific society, and Discourse Analysis, as an (inter)disciplinary field, contribute to the construction of more critical societies open to democratic debate. Read the theoretical description of the central theme at the end of this circular (Annex I).

3. ACADEMIC STRUCTURE OF THE CONGRESS
To foster discussions that ensure an understanding of Discourse Analysis, whether in an internal relationship with linguistic border disciplines or an external location with disciplines that have sought DA, or in addressing conceptual and methodological problems, the symposium has been structured with various integrated activities:

• PLENARY SESSIONS: Reserved for invited speakers of the XVI International Congress. These will focus on reflecting on the problems, challenges, and alternatives that have shaped the theoretical and methodological development of DA, as well as its application and/or problematization of the event's theme. The invited and confirmed speakers will be announced soon.
• ROUNDTABLES: Comprised of 3 invited researchers from the XVI ALED International Congress, these roundtables will especially discuss: (i) international plenaries from ALED research networks, presenting ongoing studies, (ii) invited national and international speakers, leaders of emerging research with theoretical-methodological interfaces on digital discourses, and more.
• COORDINATED COMMUNICATIONS: Proposed by professors with PhDs, members of ALED, with 4 participants. These will focus especially on: (i) presentations from research group coordinators, mapping and describing research groups at Latin American universities (assessment, dominant perspectives, research results, and defended theses); (ii) communications proposed by research leaders from different institutions on related topics, network research, etc. Professors may invite graduate students to participate.
• INDIVIDUAL COMMUNICATIONS: Proposed by PhD researchers or graduate students on the event's theme or related axes listed below.
• POSTER: Open to undergraduate students (or high school students in junior research programs) who wish to present their research findings in discourse studies.
• Mini-Courses: Given by invited speakers.
• Thesis and Dissertation Contest, according to a specific call that will be announced later.
• Book Launches: Authors can register their works on the event's website.
• Book Fair: Featuring major commercial and university publishers.
• Cultural Program
• ALED's 30th Anniversary Exhibition: Images, testimonies, publications, memories, etc.

4. CALENDAR: IMPORTANT DATES

• First Circular: June 2024
• Second Circular: August 2024 – with confirmed speakers and updates.
• Submission of Coordinated Papers, Individual Papers, and Posters: August 15 to October 15, 2024
• Acceptance notifications: From October 20, 2024, to December 1, 2024
• Work registration on the event website: December 1, 2024, to December 30, 2024.
  https://www.aledinternacional.com
• Event Date: July 8-11, 2025

IMPORTANT: Only ALED members can register for the Congress. Those who are not yet members must join. Contact your national ALED delegation to do so (see the list of delegations on the ALED website: https://comunidadaled.org/delegades-nacionales).

5. TARGET AUDIENCE
The primary audience of the congress includes professors, researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students involved in discourse studies and other academic institutions in Brazil and Latin America, as well as from other continents, along with professionals in linguistics and related fields interested in the congress theme.