The Language and Literature Student Conference 2025, University of Nottingham
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Date - 01 Apr 2025 (UK)
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Availability -
Places available
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Price - £20 per student
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Location - Room A03, Monica Partridge building, University of Nottingham
10am: Introductions and welcome
10:15am: Jess Norledge: A Linguist’s Guide to the Future
To begin the day, we’ll be exploring the language of dystopian fiction, focusing on the ways in which we imagine speculative future worlds in our minds. Dr Jess Norledge will introduce you to a selection of stylistic tools that can help you examine the creation of fictional worlds: she will demonstrate some live stylistic analysis, and present some top tips for analysing space and place from a stylistic perspective.
11am: Break
11:15am: Dan Clayton: Levelling up the Lang in Lang Lit
Alongside literary texts from all forms and genres, non-fiction also features as part of the A Level. In this session, the English and Media Centre’s Dan Clayton takes a look at ways to take linguistic analysis of texts to another level and to make that analysis mean more. We’ll look at journalism, spoken accounts and travel writing along the way, helping to pinpoint what underpins a strong analytical approach to texts of all kinds.
12 noon: If Nobody Writes of Remarkable Things – Jon McGregor in conversation with Jess Norledge
In this session, the award-winning novelist Prof Jon McGregor will discuss his creative writing process in conversation with Jess Norledge. We’ll be talking to Jon about his use of language, his world-building and characterisation, his inspirations and how he feels about the critical and readers’ perceptions of his work. Jon’s books include If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Only the Dogs, This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to You, Reservoir 13, and Lean Fall Stand, and Jon will be available for signing his books during the lunch break.
12:45pm: Lunch in the atrium or gardens
1:45pm: Louise Mullany: “Grow a pair!” Impoliteness, Insults and Banter in Everyday Talk
In this talk, Prof Louise Mullany will examine how impoliteness is used in different contexts, including by sports stars, leaders at work and public figures. She will show how insults and banter can seriously damage interpersonal and professional relationships, so much so that they may break down for good. She will then move on to examine situations where insults and banter are instead perceived as positive, solidarity-building devices, working to strengthen positive relationships and social bonds between different groups.
2:30pm: Break
2:45pm: Peter Stockwell: The Sounds of Lit
To end the day, Prof Peter Stockwell will explore the language and sounds of lyric. The most read form of literature is the lyric, when you include the words of songs as well as traditional poetic writing. Before mass education in the 20th century, hardly anyone could read; so the vast majority of literature was designed to be heard rather than read silently. Understanding how Lit sounds gives you the power to hear and read any poem, song, or poetic performance. As with all literary linguistic tools, this talk offers you the superpower of stylistics.
3:30pm: Close
Information on getting to University Park Campus is available here.
The Conference will take place in Room A03 in the Monica Partridge building on the University Park in Nottingham (the main campus). You can find a map here. The Monica Partridge building, marked 62 in square D3, is a 5-minute walk from the main visitors’ car park, and also from the on-campus Orchards Hotel.
The tram from Nottingham station to the University takes 12 minutes, plus a 15-minute walk to the Monica Partridge building.
A taxi would be roughly £10.
Getting to the Conference
The Conference will take place in Room A03 in the Monica Partridge building on the University Park in Nottingham (the main campus). You can find a map here. The Monica Partridge building, marked 62 in square D3, is a 5-minute walk from the main visitors’ car park, and also from the on-campus Orchards Hotel.
The tram from Nottingham station to the University takes 12 minutes, plus a 15-minute walk to the Monica Partridge building.
A taxi would be roughly £10.
Arrangements on the Day
Registration
Registration will open at 9.15am and we ask you to be in your seats for 9.50am so we can begin promptly at 10am.
Teachers Accompanying Students
We expect all students to be accompanied by a teacher. There should be a minimum of 1 teacher per 20 students.
We request that teachers meet their students in advance, register as a group and sit with their groups of students. Teachers are responsible for ensuring that their own students maintain acceptable standards of behaviour in the auditorium and in university buildings.
Lunch and Refreshments
Lunch will be provided for all attending on site - sandwich (assorted fillings), bag of crisps, piece of fruit, biscuit/sweet snack, bottle of still water. We will ask you to provide details of any dietary requirements or allergies (vegan, gluten-free, halal, and nut-free etc) when confirming your final numbers (by Friday 14th March).
Accessibility
The building is wheelchair accessible with closed loop sound system. If you have any other access or assistance requirements, please contact us.
Peter Stockwell
Peter Stockwell is Professor of Literary Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, and a Fellow of the English Association. He has written and edited over 20 books and over 100 articles and chapters, across the fields of language and literature, stylistics, applied linguistics, educational linguistics, science fiction, and surrealism.
Jess Norledge
Jess is Assistant Professor in Stylistics at the University of Nottingham and the author of The Language of Dystopia. Jess’ research sits at the interface between English literature and English language, and she has particular expertise in the cognitive poetics of emotion, and worlds theories in dystopian fiction.
Dan Clayton
Dan Clayton is an education consultant at the EMC and specialises in English Language work at A Level and language education across the secondary curriculum. He has been a teacher of A Level English for over 20 years, senior examiner and moderator for different awarding bodies and is author/editor of many books for A Level English Language, including ones for Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press & Routledge, as well as publications for the EMC and NATE. Dan has worked closely with many universities to help develop links between A level and HE, worked as a research fellow at UCL and runs the EngLangBlog site and @EngLangBlog Bluesky account, as well as being part of the Lexis Podcast team. He has also taught Media and Film Studies and is Associate Editor of emagazine and MediaMagazine.
Jon McGregor
Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of five novels (If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Only the Dogs, This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to You, Reservoir 13, and Lean Fall Stand) and two short story collections, and the winner of awards including the Dublin Literature Prize and Costa Novel Award.
Louise Mullany
Louise Mullany is Professor in Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham. Her research primarily focuses on language and gender in business, media and medical settings. She has published in a range of international journals and edited collections on gender and professional discourse. Her most recent book, Polite: The Art of Communication at Home, Work and in Public was published in June 2024.
Prices
- The fee is £20 per student, with one free teacher place as follows: 1-9 students = 1 free teacher place; 10-19 students = 2 free teacher places and so on.
- You will be automatically allocated the correct number of teacher places and will need to provide details for each teacher attending. (You can change the teachers attending, if necessary, when you tell us final numbers on Friday 14th March.)
- For additional teachers, or teachers attending without students, for their own interest or CPD, the charge is £50 each.
How to book
Book online and choose to pay by invoice.
- We are unable to take provisional bookings or reserve places.
- Conference places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
- There is a limit of 60 places per organisation.
- Please see our updated cancellation policy.
- To book this conference you must be signed into a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) or UK Trust/Academy – Head Office (purchasing). Trust/MAT head offices ordering for more than one school, will need to place separate orders for each school.
Prices
- The fee is £25 per student, with one free teacher place as follows: 1-9 students = 1 free teacher place; 10-19 students = 2 free teacher places and so on.
- You will be automatically allocated the correct number of teacher places and will need to provide details for each teacher attending. (You can change the teachers attending, if necessary, when you tell us final numbers on 8th January.)
- For additional teachers, or teachers attending without students, for their own interest or CPD, the charge is £50 each.How to book
Book online and choose to pay by invoice.
- We are unable to take provisional bookings or reserve places.
- Conference places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
- There is a limit of 60 places per organisation.
- Please see our updated cancellation policy.
- To book this conference you must be signed into a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) or UK Trust/Academy – Head Office (purchasing) account. Trust/MAT head offices ordering for more than one school, will need to place separate orders for each school.
- Click 'Book now’ (right-hand column).
- Add the number of student places you need. Free teacher places will be allocated automatically.
- Confirm you have read and agree to the updated terms & conditions.
- 'Places exceeded' message? Reasons for this message are:
- You are trying to order more than 60 places (including free teacher places)
- Due to the number of places in other customers’ baskets, there are currently insufficient places available to fulfil this order.
- 'Places exceeded' message? Reasons for this message are:
- Add the names and contact details of the teachers attending – if you don't know these details yet, just copy/paste the details of the lead teacher.
- Please make sure you add the attendee details immediately and checkout within 24 minutes. Otherwise the booking will expire and you will have to begin the process again.
- Click submit and then Go to basket.
- Checkout.
- Once you have booked your place, you will see a screen indicating your order has been successful. You may want to make a note of your order number. The person making the booking and all the teachers attending will also receive an automatic acknowledgement of your booking.
- Please do not make final travel arrangements until you have paid your deposit invoice.
Deposit
- A 20% non-refundable deposit will be applied to all places booked. If you cancel a place you will lose the 20% deposit paid. You will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards the final invoice.
- if paying by invoice you will receive a non-refundable deposit invoice of 20% of the booking value, to be paid by credit card within 7 days of receipt. Failure to pay this invoice will result in the cancellation of the booking.
- If paying by credit card, 20% of the total value of the booking is non-refundable.
Cancellations and Amendments
- The 20% deposit on places booked is non-refundable. Please note: you will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards the final invoice.
- You can make amendments to your booking until the final numbers deadline – 5pm on Friday 14th March. You will lose the 20% deposit paid on places cancelled by this deadline.
- If you paid the full fee by card, you will receive an 80% refund on places cancelled by the final numbers deadline.
- Schools who choose invoice payment will be invoiced for the balance of the total fee (80%) on confirmed places. Please note: you will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards this final invoice.
- After this date you will be charged 100% of the ticket price, regardless of the numbers of students you bring to the conference.
- We will email on Monday 10th March 2025 to remind you to confirm your final number.
- If paying by invoice, the invoice for the balance of your conference booking will be sent the day after the conference takes place and will come from [email protected]
Please note: We will be unable to make refunds in the case of weather, transport difficulties or circumstances beyond our control. Should EMC need to cancel the conference, a full refund will be on offer. (However, personal arrangements including travel, accommodation or hospitality relating to the conference which have been arranged by you or your institution are at your own risk and not refundable by us.)
Waiting list
- We are no longer operating a waiting list for student conferences.
- If places become available, we will re-open the bookings on the website. We will publicise this via social media and our general mailing list.