Elina Nuutinen, University of Oulu, Finland.
In November 2025, the 8th Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Interaction (commonly known as NORDISCO) brought together researchers from all over the world to present their work. The NORDISCO conference was first held in 2010 with Professor Paul McIlvenny as the key ideator and driving force behind the conference. Back then, the conference took place in Aalborg, Denmark. Now, more than a decade later, the conference convened in the beautiful city of Trondheim, located on the west coast of Norway.
The conference encompassed presentations on a diverse range of topics and perspectives. The scope of presentations and panels stretched from professional and institutional interactions to discourse structures, multimodality, multilingual interactions, ideologies, social issues, gender and queer studies, language learning, participation, affect displays, and mediated interactions – to name just a few. In total, there were eight panels, which covered topics including conversation analysis in social work, students’ task-based interactions, syntax as a multimodal phenomenon, disability in the workplace, using conversation analysis in simulation-based training contexts, semiotic diversity in interactions, human-AI interactions, and how conversation analysis can be used as a tool for involving people with communicative disorders.
My own presentation fell under one of the recurring themes, namely, technology-mediated interaction. I presented findings from a study conducted as part of my doctoral research project: how participants in video-mediated groupwork interactions use dynamic camera manipulations at transitional moments to communicate different levels of participation in the ongoing groupwork activity. I was delighted by the insightful questions and the warm, encouraging atmosphere fostered by the chair and the audience.
The invited keynote speakers were Professor Pentti Haddington (University of Oulu, Finland), Associate Professor Jakob Steensig (Aarhus University, Denmark), and Associate Professor Zoe Nikolaidou (Södertörn University, Sweden). Haddington discussed aspects related to the development of conversation analysis in terms of studying participants’ interactional histories and exploring methods for studying interactions in which participants are not located in the same physical space. Steensig, on the other hand, presented extracts of interactions in Danish to showcase methodological challenges and solutions for grammar writing and interactional linguistics. Nikolaidou presented findings from her linguistic ethnography study on asylum interviews in Sweden. She also delved into the methodological issues that emerged in her research – particularly those related both to the interpreter-mediatedness and the underpinning power dynamics embedded in the asylum-seeking process.
After the conference, I had a chance to sit down for an interview with one of the keynote speakers, Professor Haddington, who is the principal investigator of the iTask (2015-2022), PeaceTalk (2019-2026), and AIDA (2023-2028) research projects at the University of Oulu.
“To me personally, the NORDISCO conference is very significant. It makes me really happy to see how the conference has gained momentum and scaled up to become an international event,” Haddington said.
“I take this to be a notable indicator of the importance of research on interaction and discourse. It is wonderful to see how the research community is alive and thriving,” he added.
After listening to some of the keynote speeches, paper and panel presentations, I cannot help but agree with Haddington. The diversity of the scope of presentations signals that interaction and discourse research can meaningfully engage with timely and societally relevant topics using rich, diverse, and detailed data. As an early career researcher myself, I found this deeply inspiring, as it expanded my understanding of how this field of research can both help to understand and improve the world around us, while involving people from all walks of life in this process. Furthermore, I was inspired by the diverse methodological discussions and how there seems to be an attempt to stretch boundaries and develop new methods for analyzing contemporary phenomena – such as interactions with AI and other technologies.
Haddington also said that his highlights of the conference were seeing his friends and colleagues from all over the world, some of whom he had not seen since before the pandemic. Another highlight included the chance to share the research being done at the University of Oulu.
“It was an honor to be a keynote speaker at the conference. The presentations were really interesting and everything went just perfectly. The organizers did a great job creating a space for connection and learning,” Haddington commented.
I again have to agree with Haddington. In addition to the smooth organization of the conference, the compelling presentations, and fruitful conversations that followed, a great deal of effort had been put into the social activities. The conference reception took place at the iconic student society, Studentersamfundet, which was a red round building with a maze-like layout. During the reception, we learned about the history of the student society, and how the building has been renovated and gradually expanded over the years. From all that was said, I got a strong impression that the student society remains an important resource for the local student community.
On the second night of the conference, we were served a delicious dinner in Klejlhuset. The dinner was followed by a personal highlight of mine – the NORDISCO DISCO with a real DJ! I appreciated the mix and may have even danced when Käärijä’s cha cha cha started playing.
If you are interested, check out the book of abstracts available on the NORDISCO website. NORDISCO will reconvene in 2027 in Copenhagen, Denmark. When the time comes, be sure to consider submitting an abstract!
I would like to thank Professor Haddington for the interview. Photo credits: Iira Rautiainen & Laura Kohonen-Aho
Elina Nuutinen is a doctoral researcher in the AIDA research project at the University of Oulu, Finland.
Photo gallery from NORDISCO 2025:
The NTNU University building at night
Professor Pentti Haddington presenting his keynote speech
The opening ceremony
A view of Trondheim
The Nidelva river
The student society at night
Trondheim at night