1st International Colloquium on Legal and Business Communication (ICLBC)

1st International Colloquium on Legal and Business Communication (ICLBC)

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The 1st International Colloquium on Legal and Business Communication (ICLBC) will be held online from 22 to 23 February 2025 and hosted by the Austrian Association for Legal Linguistics (AALL) in cooperation with the Faculty of Law at Sigmund Freud University Vienna. It is our great pleasure to welcome Professor Ursula Lutzky (Vienna University of Economics and Business) and Professor Stephen Barth (University of Houston) as next year’s keynote speakers.

Updated Final Programme

Saturday, 22nd February

CET

15:00 – 16:00Registration

16:00 – 16:05 — Welcome Address  
Daniel Green (AALL)

16:05 – 16:10 —  Opening
Konrad Lachmayer (Faculty of Law, Sigmund Freud University / AALL)

16:10 – 17:00Keynote
Stephen Barth (Conrad N. Hilton College, University of Houston)
Bridging Communication and the Law: Transparency, Clarity, and Mutuality in Hospitality Contracts

17:00 – 17:15 — Break

17:15 – 17:45Daniel Green & Januš C. Varburgh
Debating Rhizomatic Theory in Hospitality Law and Management: Pros and Cons and Why It Does (Not) Work

17:45 – 18:15Stephan Keiler
Conflict of Jurisdiction in Letting of Holiday Homes Matters

18:15 – 18:45Justin McNamara & Michaela Rusch
Only a Matter of Words? A Corpus-Based Study of the Websites of Popular European Businesses Analyzing Diversity and Inclusion Notes with a Particular Focus on Existing Legal Frameworks

18:45 – 19:00 — Break

19:00 – 19:30Waldemar Nazarov
Cross-Systemic Legal Communication as a Form of Frame-Based Knowledge Transfer: On the Limits of Linguistic Flexibility

19:30 – 20:00Irina Gvelesiani
Three Fiducie-s from the Perspective of the Specialized Combined Parallel-Comparable Corpus

20:00 – 20:15 — Break

20:15 – 20:45Parineeta Goswami
Legal Compliance in Hospitality Through Strategic Communication: A Comparative Analysis of Privacy and Data Protection Policies

20:45 – 21:45Barbora Tomečková
Slavic Solidarity and the Use of the Word ‘Russian’ in Food Names

21:45 – 22:00Discussion

Sunday, 23nd February

CET

09:00 – 09:50Registration

09:50 – 10:00Warm Welcome
Januš C. Varburgh (AALL)

10:00 – 10:50Keynote:
Ursula Lutzky (Department of Business Communication, WU Vienna)
„Nobody Asked You for Your Political Opinion, Brand“: Polarisation and Identity in Digital Business Communication — A Case Study from the Transport Industry

10:50 – 11:00 — Break

11:00 – 11:30Petra Schön
Strategies Against Online Offences in the Hospitality Industry: Understanding and Mitigating Your Hotel’s Online Exposure in Dealing with Offensive Feedback

11:30 – 12:00Mathias Eder
Communication in the Hospitality Industry: Considerations from a Finance Perspective

12:00 – 13:00Lunch Break

13:00 – 13:30Maria Pober
Challenging the Generic Masculine: Androcentrism of Professional Designations in the Hospitality Industry

13:30 – 14:00Josephine Papst
The Nuance Makes the Difference! Simple and Understandable Language in Legal and Business Communication Within the Diverse Culture of Hospitality

14:00 – 14:30Mechthild Geyer
Inviting Diversity: Why the Hospitality Industry Needs Inclusive Language

14:30 – 14:45 — Break

14:45 – 15:15Martina Bajčić
Empowering Citizens in B2C Communication

15:15 – 15:45Melike Akay & Kübra Çekmegeli
Contextualising Crisis: A Comparative Linguistic Analysis of Modal Verbs in Suicide Letters from Hotel Settings and Mainstream Sources

15:45 – 16:15Harshita Talukdar & Arup Kumar Nath
How Are Words Used to Trick People? And Why Should the Hospitality Industry Care?

16:15 – 16:30Discussion & Farewell

Image credit: Stephen Barth

Stephen Barth, Professor of Hospitality Law and Leadership Attorney Founder of HospitalityLawyer.com

Communication and the Law: Transparency, Clarity, and Mutuality in Hospitality Contracts

In today’s complex legal landscape, effective communication is not just an asset—it’s a necessity. This keynote presentation delves into the intersection of communication and the law, emphasizing the pivotal roles of transparency, clarity, and mutuality in crafting and understanding contracts. Contracts are the cornerstone of professional relationships, yet they often rely on dense legalese that can obscure intent and breed misunderstandings. This session will explore strategies to demystify legal language, ensuring it serves its true purpose: facilitating clear, fair, and enforceable agreements.
Through real-world examples and actionable insights, attendees will learn:
●  The Power of Plain Language: How simplifying legal jargon enhances comprehension without sacrificing precision.
●  Transparency as Trust-Building: The role of openness in fostering stronger business relationships.
●  Clarity in Drafting: Techniques for reducing ambiguities that can lead to disputes.
●  Mutuality as a Foundation: Ensuring contracts reflect balanced obligations and benefits for all parties.

By bridging the gap between legal precision and human understanding, this presentation will equip participants with the tools to create contracts that are not only legally sound but also clear, equitable, and mutually beneficial. Whether you’re a lawyer, business leader, or professional navigating contractual agreements, this keynote promises to transform how you communicate within the framework of the law.

Stephen Barth earned his BA in Economics, MA in Communications and JD from Texas Tech University. He is the Founder of HospitalityLawyer.com, The Hospitality Law Conference series, the Global Travel Risk Summit Series and the co – author of the Hospitality Law Textbook. He is a professor of Hospitality Law and Leadership at the Conrad Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership, University of Houston. In his classes he focuses on communication skills and in his work he stresses the need for transparent cogent communication along with mutuality in contracts.

Image credit: Pascal Riesinger

Ursula Lutzky, Associate Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and ABC’s Regional Vice President for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

“Nobody asked you for your political opinion, brand”
Polarization and identity in digital business communication A case-study from the transport industry

Today, businesses frequently draw on digital media when interacting with their stakeholders. Research on digital business communication, or more specifically webcare (van Noort and Willemsen 2012), has advocated a specific style of language use in online contexts and encouraged businesses to communicate with a ‘Conversational Human Voice’ (CHV, Kelleher and Miller 2006). One feature of a CHV is communicating with a sense of humour, which may have benefits, such as leading to increased user engagement. At the same time, humour may polarize and divide business’ client base, which may entail negative outcomes. This is also the case when businesses engage in corporate social advocacy (CSA) and take sides on contested issues, such as vaccination (van der Meer and Jonkman 2021). This study explores the digital communication of the Irish budget airline Ryanair, which during the COVID-19 pandemic combined these two polarizing strategies of adopting a humorous approach and taking a stance on socio-political issues in its external communication. Using a corpus linguistic methodology, it studies a 4.5-million-word corpus of posts on Twitter (now X) which were shared by and addressed to Ryanair between October 2020 and March 2023. The results show that Ryanair discussed several topics that were not immediately related to its core business, often in a humorous manner, and that its engagement with a range of (socio)political issues was not always appreciated by stakeholders. These findings are discussed with reference to Ryanair’s brand identity, as an edgy airline, and by relating its digital discourse strategy to the context of communication and its reputation as an air travel provider that is unconventional and partly brash.

Ursula Lutzky  is an Associate Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, where she teaches on the master’s in business communication. She is a linguist specializing in the study of language in business contexts. Her research focuses on external business communication, that is communication between businesses and the outside world. She mainly studies how businesses communicate through digital outlets by investigating large samples of digital data, such as blogs, microblogs, e-commerce platforms and forums. Her most recent monograph, The Discourse of Customer Service Tweets (2021, Bloomsbury), explores the linguistic and communicative features of customer service interactions on social media. She is an active member of the Association for Business Communication (ABC) and currently serves the role of ABC’s Regional Vice President for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Sigmund Freud PrivatUniversität Wien         

Download the call for papers: click here

Call for Papers

The 1st International Colloquium on Legal and Business Communication (ICLBC) will be held online from 22 to 23 February 2025 and hosted by the Austrian Association for Legal Linguistics (AALL). The focus of the workshop is legal and business communication in hospitality contexts under the theme “Language, Law and Communication in the Hospitality Industry.”

It will primarily address, but is not limited to, questions such as:

  • How can effective communication strategies be developed and implemented to prevent legal issues in hospitality management?
  • How may language use and communication influence legal compliance and crisis management (e.g., during pandemics, natural disasters, war) in the hospitality industry?
  • What are clear hospitality contracts and how can language use and communication be optimised to avoid disputes?
  • How can insights from business communication improve the enforceability of hospitality contracts, such as those with suppliers, employees, guests and others?
  • Which legal communication strategies can be employed to effectively manage hospitality properties?
  • Which role does effective communication play in the management of hospitality employees?
  • How can hospitality managers and/or operators use clear and effective communication to fulfill their legal responsibilities to guests transparently? (e.g. safety and security, property, food and beverages, cancellations etc.)
  • How may different legal characteristics of travel and tourism around the globe impact communication strategies in national hospitality industries?
  • How can insurance policies be linguistically improved or challenged in relation to claims management in the hospitality industry?

Abstracts may be submitted in English and should be 200-250 words (excluding references and keywords) and should include 3-5 keywords and a selection of key references (3-5).

Please also include information regarding the author(s), such as names and affiliations.

Submissions should be sent to the organising committee by 12 January 2025 to the following email address: hospcommunication@gmail.com

Applicants will receive a decision on acceptance or rejection of their submission by 20 January 2025.

The ICLBC Organising Committee

Januš C. Varburgh
Daniel Green
Cornelia Eißler
Maria Pober
Petra Schön

ICLBC Conference & Event Management

Januš C. Varburgh
Daniel Green