From June 27 to July 2, 2021, the 17th International Pragmatics Conference organized by the International Pragmatics Society and Zurich University of Applied Sciences was held in Winterthur, Switzerland. Affected by the pandemic, the conference was held online. Professor Gu Yueguo (member of the Advisory Committee of the International Pragmatics Society) and Associate Professor Huang Lihe (director of the Chinese Pragmatics Research Association) from the Research Center for Aging Language and Care at Tongji University organized the“Aging and Elderly Pragmatic Communication”special session. Research center members Zhang Wei (researcher), Huang Lihe (associate professor), and Zhou Deyu (doctoral student) reported their relevant research findings respectively, covering topics such as the construction of elderly identity in media, conversation analysis in cognitive assessment of the elderly, and the construction of multimodal corpora of elderly discourse.

Professors Ding Hongwei from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Wang Min from Xi’an Jiao Tong University, Liu Hongyan from Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Jiang Zhanhao from Xi'an International Studies University, as well as Cui Xin from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Wang Minli from Xi'an Jiao Tong University, and Song Lu (doctoral student) from Xi'an International Studies University, had their papers selected or gave presentations at the session. Professor Boyd Davis from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a renowned expert on elderly language issues, participated in the special session’s review and discussion, and discussed the development of elderly discourse corpora andSino-USelderly discourse research; Professor Heidi Hamilton from Georgetown University, a renowned expert on dementia discourse research, introduced her research on social pragmatic communication issues of dementia patients over the years and exchanged views with the center’s members.

It is reported that the International Pragmatics Conference is the international authoritative academic conference in this field. Its organizer, the International Pragmatics Society, was established in 1986 and is headquartered in Belgium. The International Pragmatics Conference is held every two years. This conference had multiple special reports focusing on elderly discourse, pragmatic communication of cognitively impaired elderly, and other topics. Related research has become an important field in international pragmatics research.

The“Aging and Elderly Pragmatic Communication”special session was formally established after the Research Center for Aging Language and Care at Tongji University submitted the special session proposal to the International Pragmatics Society, which was reviewed anonymously by external reviewers; subsequently, through open paper solicitation and double-blind review, scholars from multiple countries finally had their papers selected and participated in the discussion. This special session attracted active participation from Chinese and foreign scholars, further disseminating the research findings of China’s elderly linguistics and generating a positive impact.