8th International Prescriptivism Conference

The 8th Prescriptivism Conference will be hosted by Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and will take place at HOEK 38, in the city centre of Brussels, on 24-26 June 2026. Building on the success of previous conferences held in Sheffield (2003), Ragusa (2006), Toronto (2009), Leiden (2013), Park City, Utah (2017), Vigo (2021), and Aix-en-Provence (2024), this edition continues the tradition of exploring prescriptivism in its many historical, cultural, and linguistic manifestations. The theme of the 2026 conference is: Prescriptivism: Beyond Norms and Usage. With this theme, we aim to shift the focus beyond the conventional view of prescriptivism as the unidirectional imposition of norms on language use. Instead, we seek to foreground the dynamic interplay between norms and usage by attending to the roles of contexts, ideology, policy, and agency.

The conference plenary speakers are:
•Anne Curzan (University of Michigan)
Prescriptivism, Education, and the Public: Lessons Learned
•Emma Humphries (Queen’s University Belfast)
From 19th-century letters to 21st-century social media: Strategies of critique and justification in language commentary on French
•Linda Pillière (Aix-Marseille Université)
Prescriptivism through the back door: How standard language ideology is perpetuated in popular culture
•Loreta Vaicekauskienė (Vilniaus universitetas)
The tyranny of the red pen: Prescriptivism and politics