Telling the Truth? Authorship, Audiences and Authenticity Across Discourse, Texts and Narratives

Date: 05-Nov-2026 – 06-Nov-2026
Location: Online
Contact Person: Caroline Tagg
Meeting Email: OU-Truth-Conference@open.ac.uk
Web Site: https://telling-truth.sciencesconf.org/?lang=en

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Forensic Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Pragmatics

Call Deadline: 01-Jun-2026

Call for Papers:

What constitutes “the truth” underpins contemporary debates and is increasingly contested and politicised. This conference steps back to reflect on the role played by “telling the truth” in literary works and non-literary discourses across historical periods, languages and cultures, with the aim of bringing a wide range of perspectives to bear on a concept of enduring importance and throwing new light on present-day tensions. Drawing on a range of analytical approaches from across linguistics, literature, creative writing and translation studies, contributions to the conference will focus not only on truth as epistemic accuracy but as a relational function, a premise for action, an ideological tool, an ethical act, a self- and other-positioning resource, an organisational device, and a mechanism of persuasion and control. The conference likewise proposes to examine how the nature and circulation of truth-claims across languages, literature and discourses are liable to be impacted by shifting technologies and media ecologies. It explores how authorship and authority shape what counts as truth and its consequences across a variety of circumstances and time periods. It also invites an evaluation of the relationship between authority and authenticity, or the shift from notions of factual certainty to concepts of lived experience, personal sincerity, and emotional truth. Finally, it touches upon the novelty of the contemporary “post-truth” crisis, highlighting a long history of unreliable narration, scepticism, conspiracy theory, falsehood, misinformation and countercultures, reconceptualising post-truth as an inherent part of the human condition whilst seeking to understand its twenty-first century realisation.

We welcome submissions that engage with a wide range of relevant issues across disciplines, including but not limited to:
– discursive issues of dis- and misinformation
– political and historical storytelling
– ideological bias
– all forms of literature and creative writing, both fiction and non-fiction, written and performed
– literary mimesis
– unreliability in narration (both fictional and political)
– ‘fictionality’ as an aspect of art
– everyday and social media narratives
– identity play
– authenticity on social media
– moral and affective positioning across contexts
– online misinformation and polarisation
– Wikipedia and crowdsourcing
– authorship and forensic linguistics
– truthfulness and/or bias in translation and interpreting, pseudo-translations
– truth in AI contexts
– narrative, creativity and authenticity
– authority and epistemic certainty
– negotiating truth claims in mediated and face-to-face interaction
– evidentiality across languages
– legal, philosophical and historical discussions of truth

The conference will host plenary panel discussions addressing key subthemes of authorship, audiences and authenticity, details of which will be confirmed before registration opens.

Submission Guidelines:

Abstracts should be submitted via https://telling-truth.sciencesconf.org/user/submit by Monday 1st June 2026. The language of the conference is English. We especially encourage submission of abstracts from early-career researchers, including postgraduate research students and postdoctoral researchers. Contributors are limited to leading on one abstract submission.

Contribution Types :

We welcome submissions for the following contributions: INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATION or LIGHTNING TALK

Individual Presentation:
Individual presentations (20-minute presentation + 5 minutes for Q&A) are especially suitable for submissions that report on completed research, or research in progress for which at least some substantial results have been generated. Abstracts should be a maximum of 300 words (not including list of references). Please write ‘INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATION’ at the top of your abstract.

Lightning Talk:
A lightning talk is a 5-minute presentation, especially suitable for short summaries of ongoing research, ideas for research or research reviews. Lightning talks will be organised into 25-minute sessions with 5 talks in each. Abstracts should be a maximum of 150 words (not including list of references). Please write ‘LIGHTNING TALK’ at the top of your abstract.

Review Process:

All submissions will be subject to double-anonymous peer review by the Telling the Truth organising committee. Authors must take reasonable steps to ensure the anonymity of abstracts; however, anonymisation/redaction of self-citations should be avoided where possible.

Key Dates:

– NEW Submission deadline: Monday 1st June 2026, 11:59 PM (GMT)
– Notification of review outcomes: by early July 2026
– Conference dates: Thursday 5th – Friday 6th November 2026

Telling the truth is hosted by the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics (LAL) and the School of English and Creative Writing (ECW) at The Open University, UK. The local organising committee is: Caroline Tagg (chair), Francesca Benatti, Daria Chernysheva, Rachele De Felice, Korina Giaxoglou, Suman Gupta, Kristina Hultgren, Karina von Lindeiner-Stráský, Donáll Maccathmhaoill, Joanne Reardon, Philip Seargeant