AILA 2020 Congress
9-14 August 2020, New date: 15-20 August 2021
Groningen, the Netherlands
Registration is open now: https://www.aila2020.nl/

Symposium nr. S056 “Hate Speech: Power, Incitement and Violence through Language”

The issue of hate speech and hostile language currently receives a significant amount of attention. In recent studies, a majority of social media users have stated that they encountered hate speech at least once on Facebook, Twitter or other platforms.

Hate speech can be roughly defined as any communication that attacks individuals or groups “on the grounds of ‘race’, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, language, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and other personal characteristics or status” (Council of Europe 2016). However, there is no consensus on what actually constitutes hate speech. Besides, still relatively little is known about the linguistic and communicative mechanisms underlying the expression and perception of hate speech, particularly in online communication and social media.

In our symposium, we will discuss hate speech considering the following key aspects:

1. The notion of hate speech and its characteristics.
Featured speaker: Björn Technau
2. Methods to detect and analyse hate speech.
Featured speaker: Nicole Baumgarten
3. Hate speech in online communication and social media.
Featured speaker: Liriam Sponholz

AILA Symposium “Hate Speech: Power, Incitement and Violence through Language”