International Association of Language and Social Psychology

Who we are

The International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP) is a professional organisation of scholars engaging in sociopsychological research and analyses concerning the role of language in society, including verbal and non-verbal communication. Our members specialize in the application and development of theories of language perceptions, attributions, and language use to understand group and individual behaviour in society.

While it has roots in the discipline of language sciences, IALSP also comprises scholars from diverse disciplines such as psychology, social psychology, sociology, communication, applied linguistics, anthropology, educational sciences, and philosophy. Biennially, IALSP convenes for a conference to create opportunities for the scholarly exchange ideas.

The areas of interest for language and social psychology (LSP) scholars is wide ranging and includes cross- and intercultural communication, intergroup communication, gender and sexuality, interdisciplinary and patient health discourse, intergenerational communication, the discourse of dementia, institutional talk, and social media among others.


Mission Statement 

The International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP) aims to advance scholarship concerning the role of language in society as it relates to group and individual behaviour. The purposes of IALSP are (1) to provide an international forum to foster the growth and development of scholarly research in the area of language and social psychology; (2) to provide opportunities for our members to meet regularly in order to share and develop socially significant research; (3) to promote scholarship that addresses pressing issues of our time as well as historically rooted social issues; and (4) to facilitate opportunities to publish, present, and promote language and social psychology research. 

History

The International Association of Language and Social Psychology was inaugurated at the sixth annual international conference in Ottawa 1997. This emerged following the collaboration and interest of colleagues at several previous international meetings and enjoyed continued success and increased membership at the seventh annual conference held at Cardiff University in Wales, 2000.

Since then, we have held the International Conference on Language and Social Psychology (ICLASP) in Hong Kong (ICLASP8, 2002), at Penn State University (ICLASP9, 2004), in Bonn, Germany (ICLASP10, 2006), Tucson, Arizona (ICLASP11, 2008), Brisbane, Australia (ICLASP12, 2010), Fryslân, The Netherlands (ICLASP13, 2012), Honolulu, Hawaii (ICLASP14, 2014), Bangkok, Thailand (ICLASP15, 2016), Edmonton, Canada (ICLASP16, 2018) and most recently Hong Kong (ICLASP17, 2022). The next conference will be held in Talinn, Estonia in 2024, and we look forward to seeing you there.

The diversity of perspectives focusing on the intersection of language and social behavior and experience has been one of the exciting and rewarding features of our conferences.

We welcome you to join us as a member.