Language, end of life, death, and bereavement: an interdisciplinary perspective
Langage, fin de vie, mort et deuil : une perspective interdisciplinaire
“Lexique”, 2026 Special Issue
Published on Friday, October 31, 2025
Abstract
With this special issue of Lexique journal our aim is to explore the question of the end of life and bereavement to open up a discussion on its lexical representations in order to facilitate communication around the sensitive subject of death. A variety of methods will be adopted, including corpus-, interview-, and questionnaire-based methods, in order to observe the representation of death-related issues at the lexical level.
Announcement
Lexique 2026 Special Issue
Argument
Since the advent of transdisciplinary death studies in the 1970s, a plethora of research has been conducted in the humanities and social sciences on death-related issues, including end-of-life conditions and bereavement. This research has been undertaken in fields such as anthropology, history, psychology, philosophy, and sociology (for example Thomas 1975; Aries 1977; Baudry 1999; Boltanski 2004; Molinié 2006; Clavandier 2009; Despret 2015). In linguistics, research has addressed issues related to representations of death and other associated topics since the 1990s. While this research may be diverse in its approach, the question of what is said or not said (also because of societal and cultural prohibitions) constitutes the underlying connection between linguistic research on death-related subjects. In the face of silence, the reappropriation of language constitutes a key component in comprehending and acknowledging one's grief, and the issue of death more generally. With this special issue, our aim is to explore this question and to open up a discussion on the lexical representations of death and bereavement in order to facilitate communication around the sensitive subject of death. A variety of methods will be adopted, including corpus-, interview-, and questionnaire-based methods, in order to observe the representation of death-related issues at the lexical level.
Submission guidelines
Language of publication: English or French
Calendar:
- 21 November: abstract submission (300-500 words, bibliography excluded, 3-5 keywords)
to be sent to giuditta.caliendo@univ-lille.fr; oceane.foubert@univ-lille.fr; catherine.ruchon@univ-lille.fr
- 2 December: notification of acceptance
- 31 March: initial article submission to be sent to giuditta.caliendo@univ-lille.fr; oceane.foubert@univ-lille.fr; catherine.ruchon@univ-lille.fr
- 31 May: reviewers' feedback
- 15 July: revised version
- December 2026: Publication of the special issue
Guest Editors
- Giuditta Caliendo, STL, Université de Lille, giuditta.caliendo@univ-lille.fr
- Océane Foubert, STL, Université de Lille, oceane.foubert@univ-lille.fr
- Catherine Ruchon, STL, Université de Lille, catherine.ruchon@univ-lille.fr
Subjects
- Language (Main category)
- Mind and language > Thought > Philosophy
- Mind and language > Language > Linguistics
- Mind and language > Information > Information sciences
- Mind and language > Psyche > Psychology
- Mind and language > Language > Literature
- Mind and language > Thought > Cognitive science
- Mind and language > Epistemology and methodology > Epistemology
Date(s)
- Friday, November 21, 2025
Keywords
- death, end of life, bereavement, taboo, euphemism, lexicon, terminology
Contact(s)
- Océane Foubert
courriel : oceane [dot] foubert [at] univ-lille [dot] fr - Catherine Ruchon
courriel : catherine [dot] ruchon [at] univ-lille [dot] fr - Giuditta Caliendo
courriel : giuditta [dot] caliendo [at] univ-lille [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Catherine Ruchon
courriel : catherine [dot] ruchon [at] univ-lille [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Language, end of life, death, and bereavement: an interdisciplinary perspective », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Friday, October 31, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/152p0
