Poster Sessions

Abstract

At international academic conferences, it is likely that attendees will also be engaging in events outside of the role of being a presenter. In this section, I will address some of the significant discourse features that were noted in these ‘agnate’ speech events, headed by the first chapter on poster sessions. Next to CPs, poster sessions are the most likely conference event in which novice academics will find themselves involved—indeed, hosting a poster can serve as an intermediary step before giving a fully fledged CP. At each conference I attended, I visited the poster area on at least two occasions. At about 50% of these sessions, the researchers were present and, in a handful of cases, I actively engaged them about their research and poster content. In other cases, I eavesdropped on other interactions and conversations. In yet other cases where the researcher was not present, I simply perused or read a total of 36 posters. The following chapter is based on observations and inquiries made at these poster sessions.