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The International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) is a scientific organization that focuses on the study of language use. It was established as a non-profit organization in 1986.

IPrA represents the interdisciplinary field of pragmatics, offering a functional perspective on language and communication from cognitive, social, and cultural viewpoints.

Publications

IPrA has made contributions to pragmatics through conferences, handbooks, and its journal. It publishes the quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal Pragmatics, with Helmut Gruber serving as the Editor-in-Chief. Additionally, the Association maintains the annually updated Handbook of Pragmatics with Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren as its Founding Editors, and an online, freely accessible Bibliography of Pragmatics.

History

In 1986, IPrA was established as a not-for-profit organization in Antwerp, Belgium. The idea on which its establishment was based dates back to 1979 when Herman Parret enlisted Marina Sbisà and Verschueren to co-organize a conference on "Possibilities and limitations of pragmatics" in Urbino, Italy. Another key event was the 1984 workshop "Between semantics and pragmatics," co-organized by Johan van der Auwera and Svenka Savić in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, which laid the foundation for the 1985 "International Pragmatics Conference" in Viareggio, Italy, co-organized by Marcella Bertuccelli Papi and Verschueren. The success of this conference confirmed the belief that pragmatics provided a mobilizing idea for collaborative and trans-disciplinary research relevant for addressing problems of human communication, forming the basis for the association's establishment. In the same year, the Consultation Board was formed, and John Gumperz agreed to act as IPrA's first President. In early 1986, the Association was officially set up with its seat in Antwerp, Belgium.

Presidents

• 1986–1990: John Gumperz (University of California, Berkeley, Anthropology)
• 1991–1994: Sandra Thompson (University of California, Santa Barbara, Linguistics)
• 1995–1999: Ferenc Kiefer (Linguistic Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
• 2000–2005: Susan Ervin-Tripp (University of California, Berkeley, Psychology)
• 2006–2011: Sachiko Ide (University of Tokyo, Linguistics)
• 2012–2017: Jan-Ola Östman (University of Helsinki, Linguistics)
• 2018–2023: Stephen Levinson (Max Planck Institute, Linguistics)
• 2024–2025: Marina Sbisà (University of Trieste, Philosophy)

Conferences

IPrA has organized eighteen International Pragmatics Conferences, which are held biennially.

• 19-24 July 1998: Reims, France
• 9-14 July 2000: Budapest, Hungary
• 13-18 July 2003: Toronto, Canada
• 10-15 July 2005: Riva del Garda, Italy
• 8-13 July 2007: Göteborg, Sweden
• 12-17 July 2009: Melbourne, Australia
• 3-8 July 2011: Manchester, United Kingdom
• 8-13 September 2013: New Delhi, India
• 26-31 July 2015: Antwerp, Belgium
• 16-21 July 2017: Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 9-14 June 2019: Hong Kong, China
• 27 June – 2 July 2021: Winterthur, Switzerland
• 9-14 July 2023: Brussels, Belgium

Its educational and outreach efforts consist of a mentoring program designed for young scholars, introductory pragmatics courses offered in different languages, and an archive featuring pioneers and leading voices in the field of pragmatics.

References

1. Brown, Andy (September 5, 2023). "K Faculty Present at Global Pragmatics Seminar".
2. "Helmut Gruber". linguistik.univie.ac.at.
3. "LINGUIST List 13.2066: Handbook of Pragmatics: Verschueren et al". The LINGUIST List. August 11, 2002.
4. "Bibliography of Pragmatics Online". rena.mpdl.mpg.de.
5. "International Pragmatics Association". MERLOT.
6. Parret, Herman; Sbisà, Marina, eds. (November 20, 1981). Possibilities and limitations of pragmatics: proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8-14, 1979. Studies in language companion series : SLCS. Benjamins. ISBN 978-90-272-3006-5 – via K10plus ISBN.
7. The Pragmatic Perspective : Selected papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference | WorldCat.org. OCLC 713010252.
8. "International Organizations Search | Union of International Associations". uia.org.
9. "18th International Pragmatics Conference, Brussels, 9-14 luglio 2023, call for papers". www.aitla.it.
10. "IPrA Conferences | Grammar and Pragmatics | University of Antwerp". www.uantwerpen.be.
11. "6th International Pragmatics Conference - IPrA 1998 - Leuphana Universität Lüneburg". fox.leuphana.de.
12. Brisard, Frank, ed. (November 20, 2002). Grounding: the epistemic footing of deixis and reference. Cognitive linguistics research. M. de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-017369-7 – via Library Catalog (Blacklight).
13. "Japan Association for Language Teaching" (PDF).
14. "9th International Pragmatics Conference (Riva del Garda, 10-15 luglio 2005)". accademiadellacrusca.it.
15. "News: News: Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering: Indiana University Bloomington". luddy.indiana.edu.
16. "11th International Pragmatics Conference | ACL Member Portal". www.aclweb.org.
17. "12th International Pragmatics Conference". the Research Portal - University of Namur.
18. "13th International Pragmatics Conference". Research Explorer The University of Manchester.
19. "14th IPrA Conference Presentation". Birkbeck, University of London. November 3, 2015.
20. "IprA 2015 (2): International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) Conference, Antwerp, July 2015". August 15, 2015.
21. "15th International Pragmatics Conference | Linguistic Society of America". www.linguisticsociety.org.
22. "Guest blogs: Reflections on IPrA 2017, Belfast (Part 1)". July 29, 2017.
23. "16th International Pragmatics Conference | Events | News and Events". Department of English and Communication.
24. "IPrA Conference". ZHAW Applied Linguistics.
25. "18th International Pragmatics Conference | Portal del Hispanismo". hispanismo.cervantes.es.
26. "Gumperz | The Language Archive". archive.mpi.nl.

• Scientific organisations based in Belgium
• International organisations based in Belgium
• Non-profit organisations based in Belgium
• Academic organizations
• Pragmatics