CFP: MANCEPT 2026: Political Ordinary Language

Political philosophy has long privileged public speech and institutional political discourse as central sites of analysis. Increasingly, however, attention has shifted toward the normative dimensions of ordinary language use and the dynamics of linguistic change in non-ideal social contexts.

Language is a social practice through which shared forms of understanding, coordination, and mutual orientation are sustained over time. Shifts in linguistic conventions can reshape how individuals relate to one another, influence how social differences are marked or obscured, and affect patterns of inclusion within pluralistic and diverse societies. The ways in which linguistic expressions are used, repeated, and taken up also structure expectations about what can be said and contribute to the reinforcement or attenuation of prejudices and stereotypes. In this sense, language plays a constitutive role in shaping the normative environment in which social and political life unfolds.

This constitutive role gives rise to a range of philosophical questions concerning the emergence, stability, and contestation of norms governing language use. It invites reflection on how such norms are maintained over time and on the extent to which participants in shared linguistic practices are answerable to one another for their contributions to evolving communicative environments.

This panel seeks to bring together normative and descriptive perspectives on how patterns of language use emerge, stabilize, and transform across different settings. It therefore welcomes contributions that offer conceptual, normative, or empirically informed philosophical analyses of language as a social practice. These include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• language in social construction
• the relationship between language use and social coordination
• feminist philosophy of language
• communicative responsibilities
• normative views on stereotyping and discrimination in communication
• social/political speech and social norm change
• linguistic injustice
• the distribution and justification of normative expectations across different speakers and contexts
• methodological issues in language and analytic ideology critique
• counterspeech

To apply, please send a 500 words anonymized abstract at: [email protected]

Application deadline: May, 2nd

Notification of acceptance: May, 10th (to allow selected speakers to possibly apply for the conference fee waiver bursary)