Dr Isabela Fairclough
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Isabela is a Senior Lecturer in Language Teaching and Course Leader for BA (Hons) English and a Modern Language. Isabela is also a postgraduate Research Degree Tutor in the School. She teaches across a range of subjects in the English Language and Linguistics team: discourse analysis, argumentation and rhetoric, framing theory, pragmatics and cognitive semantics. She has published on practical reasoning, deliberation and decision-making, with application to economic, political and environmental debates.
Isabela supervises doctoral projects in argumentation theory, discourse analysis and media framing. Her publications include the monograph Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students (2012, Routledge). Her research interests are in the fields of discourse analysis, framing theory, argumentation theory and the philosophy of critical rationalism.
Isabela has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Lancaster (2004), with a thesis on the transition from communism to liberal democracy in Eastern Europe. Until 2010, she was Associate Professor and Course Leader for the MA in Discourse and Argumentation Studies at the University of Bucharest, teaching modules in Critical Discourse Analysis, Pragma-Dialectics, Critical Thinking, Semantics and Pragmatics. She has extensive experience of working as an IELTS and Cambridge Examiner for the British Council (Bucharest, 1997-2008), IELTS Examiner for the University of Manchester (2008-2015) and as EAP (English for Academic Purposes) tutor at Lancaster University (2008-2011). She has taught discourse analysis on doctoral programmes at the universities of Aalborg, Birmingham, Helsinki, Tampere, Napoli and Umea. She has given many invited talks, keynotes and conference papers at international conferences and events in the fields of argumentation theory, discourse analysis and interpretive policy analysis. She joined UCLan in 2011, as Course Leader for the International Foundation Programme, before finally joining the Linguistics team, where she now teaches modules in Semantics and Pragmatics, Media Framing, Discourse, Argumentation and Rhetoric.
- Course Leader
- PhD Linguistics, University of Lancaster, 2004
- Diploma de Licenţă, University of Bucharest (English Language & Literature/French Language & Literature), 1988
- Horia Georgescu scholar, University of Oxford, Somerville College, 1992-1993
- Visiting Research Fellow, University of Lancaster, 2009-2011
- Discourse Analysis
- Media Framing
- Informal Logic
- Rhetoric
- Critical Rationalism
- Pragma-Dialectics
- Conceptual Metaphor Theory
- Member of scientific committee of ECA (European Conference on Argumentation)
- Member of editorial board, Journal of Argumentation in Context (John Benjamins)
- Trustee, Karl Popper Charitable Trust
- Member of ISSA (International Society for the Study of Argumentation)
- Member of International Learned Institute for Argumentation Studies (ILIAS), University of Amsterdam/Jiangsu University
- Member of BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics)
Isabela’s publications include 3 monographs and over 40 journal articles and chapters in edited books and handbooks. In her research, Isabela has aimed to reformulate argument schemes for practical reasoning in deliberative activity types from a critical rationalist perspective, i.e. with a focus on criticism, rather than justification. She has developed a deliberation scheme and a profile of questions for the evaluation of practical proposals in conditions of uncertainty and risk, and suggested new ways of defining and representing pro/con (‘conductive’) argumentation. She has studied the contribution made by institutional contexts to rational decision-making and redefined ‘framing’ processes from an argumentative perspective. To enhance the profile of linguistics at UCLan, Isabela has organized various academic events, including the international symposium on Argumentation in Institutional Contexts (March 2017) and the Digital Humanities Workshop (February 2018). Between 2017-2019, she convened the Preston Linguistics Circle (2017-2019), whereby the Linguistics team celebrated 40 years of Linguistics degrees at UCLan.
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- Isabela is research active within the area of language, linguistics culture and society and is a member of the Research Unit for Speech and Language, of the Institute for Citizenship, Society and Change and of the Centre for Sustainable Transitions at UCLan.
- (2019-2021) Principal investigator on project entitled The impact of fracking activity on human rights, Institute for Citizenship and Social Change, UCLan
- (2018-2022) Management committee member and secondary proposer of Horizon 2020 COST Action project CA 17132 European network for argumentation and public policy analysis, led by Dr Marcin Lewinski, New University of Lisbon
- (2015-2017) Member of international research project Practical argumentation in the European energy and climate debates (2015-2017), led by Dr Marcin Lewinski, New University of Lisbon
- (2019-2021) The impact of fracking activity on human rights, funded by the Institute for Citizenship and Social Change, UCLan
- (2018-2022) COST Action project CA 17132 European network for argumentation and public policy analysis, led by Dr Marcin Lewinski, New University of Lisbon, funded by the European Commission
- Pro/con argumentation: Framing issues in the evaluation of objections to practical proposals. European Conference on Argumentation (ECA), Groningen, 25-28 June 2019 (conference paper)
- Is there such a thing as a ‘conductive argument’? Redefining ‘conductive argument’ in relation to deliberation as genre
- The 9th (ISSA) Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, Amsterdam 3-6 July 2018 (conference paper)
- Institutional constraints and risk pluralism in argumentation from consequence in the UK fracking debate
- European Conference on Argumentation (ECA), Fribourg, 27-30 June 2017 (conference paper)
- What is framing and how does it work? DiscourseNet 19 International Conference - Discourse, Knowledge and Practice in Society, Bucharest, 7-8 July 2017 (keynote)
- Climate change, energy policy and the ‘argumentative turn’ in critical discourse analysis of policymaking
- Analysing the debate over fracking for shale gas in the UK CADAAD International Conference, Catania, Sicily, 5-7 September 2016 (keynote)
- Should fracking for shale gas be allowed in the UK? Critical analysis of deliberation and decision-making in institutional contexts and the public debate on fracking
- Interpretive Policy Analysis Conference (IPA), Hull, 5-7 July 2016 (keynote)
- Argumentation in critical analysis of social and institutional change
- The public debate on universities in the UK
- European Conference on Argumentation (ECA): Argumentation and Reasoned Action New University of Lisbon, 9-12 June 2015 (keynote)
- Deontic reasons, risk and the concessive logic of conductive arguments in the debate over shale gas development in the UK. ARGAGE (Argumentation & Language) Conference. Lausanne, 9-11 September 2015 (conference paper)
Telephone:+44 1772 89 3677
Email: Email:Dr Isabela Fairclough
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