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Today's Topics:
1. MIAI–PRAIRIE Online Seminar: LLMs and the Study of Language, Mind, and Society
(Thierry Poibeau)
2. One postdoc position in NLP/CL at University of Technology Nuremberg
(Michael Roth)
3. CFP Reminder: International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Interpreting Technology’ (NeTTIT’2026)
(Constantin Orasan)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:12:54 +0100
From: Thierry Poibeau <thierry.poibeau(a)ens.psl.eu>
Subject: [Corpora-List] MIAI–PRAIRIE Online Seminar: LLMs and the
Study of Language, Mind, and Society
To: corpora(a)list.elra.info
Message-ID: <24E07222-5277-4DCF-91DA-D9209F3FF60A(a)ens.psl.eu>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="Apple-Mail=_9FF39057-FF73-44AE-BDF5-05632B17E77A"
LLMs and the Study of Language, Mind, and Society
As part of the MIAI–PRAIRIE seminar series, organized by Caroline Rossi (Université Grenoble Alpes / MIAI) and Thierry Poibeau (ENS–PSL / PRAIRIE–PSAI).
Online, with no registration
LLMs have profoundly transformed the way research is conducted and develops across a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences. Beyond their technical performance, these systems raise new questions about language, cognition, interpretation, and the production of knowledge itself.
This new online seminar, jointly organized by Caroline Rossi (U. Grenoble Alpes / MIAI) and Thierry Poibeau (ENS-PSL / Prairie-PSAI) aims to explore recent research in these areas. It will provide a forum for discussing both empirical and theoretical work, bringing together perspectives from different fields to better understand the implications of LLMs for the study of language and mind. The seminar also seeks to foster dialogue between researchers who use these models in practice and those who critically examine their assumptions, limitations, and broader impact.
The first speaker will be Steven Piantadosi, from Berkeley. The next speakers will include Adele Goldberg (Princeton), Eloïse Boisseau (AMU, Marseille), and Dallas Card (U. Michigan).
The seminar will take place approximately once a month. The full schedule for the coming months will be announced shortly.
----
*** Monday 27 April, 5pm (French time), online (free access, no registration) ***
Connexion link: https://webinaire.numerique.gouv.fr/meeting/signin/invite/78275/creator/433…
*** Neuroscience, behavior, and what's in-between, ***
Steven T. Piantadosi, UC Berkeley (Psychology) & Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
I'll present an overview of a forthcoming book about how we can link neuroscience to cognition and behavior. Drawing on several little-known results in early computer science, I'll describe how patterns in behavior can rigorously imply the existence of particular unobserved states and structures. This provides a foundation for linking behavioral regularities to what must be present in neural implementations. The resulting states are often re-describable in abstract terms more familiar to cognitive science, like "sets",
"numbers", "stacks", etc. I'll highlight the implementation of "stacks", commonly used for grammars, and show how to characterize the space of possible neural implementations, including with subsystems/circuits operating in serial and parallel. The approach provides a set of concrete hypotheses, a guide for neural data analysis, and points towards a method for understanding structure in modern AI systems, including LLMs. I'll conclude by suggesting a Marr-like framework in which the bridges between levels can be made rigorous, connecting behavior, high-level theorizing, and neural implementation.
Steven T. Piantadosi is a professor at UC Berkeley in Psychology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, where he heads the Computation and Language Lab. He has a PhD from MIT in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and undergraduate degrees in mathematics and linguistics. His work spans neural and cognitive research, with a focus on understanding how children come to know language, math, and abstract concepts. He often uses computational methods, including machine learning, cognitive modeling, mathematical analysis, and Bayesian data analysis. His research methods also include anthropological fieldwork, experimental work with children, and collaboration to study non-human primates and human neuroscience.
PhD Position: Structural Generalization in Transformer-based LLMs
*Start date:* as soon as possible
*Application deadline:* 11 May 2026
The research groups of Michael Hahn <https://www.mhahn.info/> and
Alexander Koller <https://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~koller/> are jointly
looking for a PhD student. The student will be jointly advised by both
professors.
The position is funded through the new project “Structural
generalization in transformer-based LLMs”, which is part of the DFG
Special Priority Program Robust Assessment and Safe Applicability of
Language Modeling: Foundations for a New Field of Language Science and
Technology <https://www.lasting-spp.org/>. The goal of the SPP is to
bring together research in linguistics and LLMs so they can mutually
inform each other.
The starting point of the project is the observation that transformers
struggle with /structural generalization:/ they do not perform well on
test instances that are more complex than the training instances. We see
this e.g. when parsing complex sentences or when managing complex
reasoning chains. In the project, we want to develop theory that
explains this limitation, carry out empirical research to pinpoint the
transformer’s capabilities, understand them through mechanistic
interpretability, and find ways to improve structural generalization in
transformers. Methods range from formal language theory to training and
prompting-based experiments to circuit analysis. We will carry out the
project in collaboration with Will Merrill <https://lambdaviking.com/>
and Yuekun Yao <https://ykyaol7.github.io/>.
This is a position on the German TV-L E13 scale
<https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/c/t/rechner/tv-l/west?id=tv-l-2023>
(100%). The starting salary of a 100% TV-L E13 position is a bit over
50,000 Euros per year and increases with experience. The position is
funded for three years; we expect to be able to extend it to four. We
can be flexible with the start date (within the year 2026).
*Requirements*
We are looking for candidates who have finished, or are about to
complete, an excellent Master’s degree in computer science,
computational linguistics, or a related discipline. The ideal candidate
will have outstanding programming skills and algorithmic understanding;
a strong understanding of current methods in machine learning; and
strong communication skills in English (spoken and written).
*About the group*
Saarland University is one of the leading centers for computational
linguistics in Europe, and offers a dynamic and stimulating research
environment. The Department of Language Science and Technology
<https://www.lst.uni-saarland.de/en/> consists of about 100 research
staff in ten research groups in the fields of computational linguistics,
psycholinguistics, and language science. It hosts the SFB 1102
“Information Density and Linguistic Encoding”
<https://sfb1102.uni-saarland.de/>.
Michael Hahn and Alexander Koller are members of the Research Training
Group “Neuroexplicit Models of Language, Vision, and Action”
<https://www.neuroexplicit.org/>, one of the largest centers for
research on neurosymbolic models in the world. They actively collaborate
with colleagues at the university’s computer science department, the Max
Planck Institute for Informatics <https://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/home>, the
Max Planck Institute for Software Systems <https://www.mpi-sws.org>, and
the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security
<https://cispa.de/en>. The Saarland Informatics Campus
<https://saarland-informatics-campus.de/en> brings together 1000
researchers and 2600 students from 81 countries; SIC faculty have won
roughly 50 ERC grants.
Saarland University is located in Saarbrücken
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saarbr%C3%BCcken>, a city of roughly 180k
people in the tri-border area of Germany, France, and Luxembourg
<https://quattropole.org/en>. Saarbrücken combines a lively culture
scene with a relaxed atmosphere, and is quite an affordable place to
live in. Our department maintains an international and diverse work
environment. The primary working language is English; learning German
while you are here will make it easier to connect with the local
culture, but is not necessary for your work.
*How to apply*
Please submit your application by email to apply-ak(a)coli.uni-saarland.de
and include the reference number W2846
<https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/upload/verwaltung/stellen/Wissenschaf…>.
Preference will be given to applications received by 11 May 2026.
Include a single PDF file with the following information:
1. a statement of research interests that motivates why you are
applying for this position and outlines your research agenda;
2. a full CV including your list of publications;
3. scans of transcripts and academic degree certificates;
4. the names, affiliations, and e-mail addresses of two people who can
provide letters of reference for you.
Saarland University especially welcomes applications from women and
people with disabilities.
The legally binding version of this job ad is here: W2846
<https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/upload/verwaltung/stellen/Wissenschaf…>.
<Apologies for cross-postings>
--------------------------------------
*SECOND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION *
--------------------------------------
MIRROR@IberLEF20206: Motivational Interviewing Response & Rating via
Synthetic cOnversational tuRns
https://mirror-iberlef.vercel.app/
Challenge platform: https://www.mirror-iberlef.lat/
Development phase ends april 30th, make submissions and get feedback.
Final phase starts on May 1st.
-------------------------------
****Task description****
-------------------------------
We invite the community to develop Generative AI (GenAI) methods for
creating synthetic conversation turns that can substantially improve the
performance of models trained to recognize behavior codes (BCs) in the
context of motivational interviews. A BC is a discrete, observable
clinician action (e.g., asking a question, giving information) that is
counted during coding of a motivational interviewing session to quantify
specific techniques used. These codes allow raters to tally how often
particular clinician behaviours occur, which helps assess adherence to
MI-consistent versus MI-inconsistent practice. Our ultimate goal is to
generate valuable data for training models for the automatic assessment
of clinicians’ motivational-interviewing skills. These skills — crucial
for promoting behavior change among patients — can be evaluated by using
the “Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI)” rubric
(https://tinyurl.com/38byjrwy).
*
*
*This is a data-centric competition: *participants are expected to
produce high-quality datasets representing a wide range of clinical
conversations (rather than training a model) to enhance the performance
of a frozen baseline model used for BC classification. We encourage
participants to include samples featuring clients from diverse
backgrounds, varied conversation topics, and conversing with different
types of health professionals.
Participants in this competition should provide three datasets (one per
pair of considered BCs) of at most 100 labeled conversation turns that
will be used to fine-tune pretrained models; the fine-tuned models will
then be used to make predictions for a hold-out dataset. The performance
of the fine-tuned model will be used as the leading evaluation metric to
rank participants. The considered pairs of BCs are:
(1) Simple reflection vs. Complex reflection;
(2) Open question vs. Closed question;
(3) Persuasion vs. Giving Information.
Sample submissions, and detailed instructions on the formatting,
evaluation criteria and competition platform will be available at the
MIRROR website.
-------------------------------
****Important dates****
-------------------------------
* Mar 9th: Start of the development phase (platform starts receiving
submissions for the validation set)
* May 1st: Start of the final phase (platform starts receiving
submissions for the test set)
* May 11th: End of evaluation campaign (deadline for submission of runs)
* May 22nd; Publication of official results
* Jun 8th: Deadline for paper submission
* Jun 23th: Acceptance notification
* Jun 30th: Camera-ready submission deadline
* Sep, TBD: Publication of proceedings
* Sep, TBD: Workshop with SEPLN 2026
-------------------------------
****Organizing team****
-------------------------------
* Luis J. Arellano INAOE, Mexico
* Carlos Olachea INAOE, Mexico
* John Piette, University of Michigan, USA
* Hugo Jair Escalante, INAOE, Mexico
* Delia Irazú Hernández, INAOE, Mexico
* Luis Villaseñor, INAOE, Mexico
* Manuel Montes, INAOE, Mexico
Contact: Hugo Jair Escalante (hugo.jair(a)gmail.com)
*********
AVISO DE CONFIDENCIALIDAD: Este correo electrónico, incluyendo en su caso, los archivos adjuntos al mismo pueden contener información de carácter confidencial y/o privilegiada, y se envían a la atención única y exclusivamente de la persona y/o entidad a quien va dirigido. La copia, revisión, uso, revelación y/o distribución de dicha información confidencial sin la autorización por escrito del Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE) está prohibida. Si usted no es el destinatario a quien se dirige el presente correo, favor de contactar al remitente respondiendo al presente correo y eliminar el correo original incluyendo sus archivos, así como cualquiera copia de este.
Mediante la recepción del presente correo usted reconoce y acepta que en caso de incumplimiento de su parte y/o de sus representantes a los términos antes mencionados, este Centro Público de Investigación tendrá el derecho de reclamar los daños y perjuicios que dicha vulneración le cause; asimismo se hace de su conocimiento que el Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE) está obligado a salvaguardar los datos personales que le sean proporcionados por terceros, en los términos de la Ley General de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de Sujetos Obligados.
AVISO DE PRIVACIDAD, En cumplimiento con la Ley General de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de Sujetos Obligados, al recibir datos de carácter personal a través de este medio, se entiende el consentimiento expreso del titular de los datos personales para utilizarlos en actividades propias del Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE). Para mayor información, lo invitamos a consultar el Aviso de Privacidad en nuestro portal: https://www.inaoep.mx
International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Interpreting Technology’ (NeTTIT’2026)
Dubrovnik, Croatia, 24-27 June 2026
https://nettt-conference.com<https://nettt-conference.com/>
Final Reminder
*** Submission deadline 27 April 2026 ***
The third edition of the International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Interpreting Technology’ (NeTTIT’2026) will take place in Dubrovnik, Croatia from 24 to 27 June 2026.
The objective of the conference is (i) to bridge the gap between academia and industry in the field of translation and interpreting by bringing together academics in linguistics, translation and interpreting studies, machine translation and natural language processing, developers, practitioners, language service providers and vendors who work on or are interested in different aspects of technology for translation and interpreting, and (ii) to be a distinctive event for discussing the latest developments and practices. NeTTIT’2026 invites all professionals who would like to learn about the new trends, present the latest work or/and share their experience in the field, and who would like to establish business and research contacts, collaborations and new ventures.
The conference will include plenary presentations (research and user presentations, keynote speeches), poster sessions and panel discussions. All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed by experts, and the accepted papers will be published as open-access conference e-proceedings which will be available at the time of the conference. The proceedings will be included in the prestigious ACL anthology<https://aclanthology.org/>.
While the conference is primarily intended as an on-site event, in light of the current global circumstances and in response to requests received, provisions will be made for remote presentations in cases where participants are unable to travel for justified reasons.
If circumstances prevent you from meeting the submission deadline, please contact the organisers as early as possible as we may be able to grant short extensions.
Full details of the call and how to submit papers are available on the conference website: https://nettt-conference.com<https://nettt-conference.com/>
--
Prof Constantin Orăsan
Professor of Language and Translation Technologies
Room 06LC03, Phone extension: 4115
Centre for Translation Studies<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/centre-translation-studies>, University of Surrey
Third Floor | Library | University of Surrey | Guildford | Surrey | GU2 7XH
Phone: +44 (0) 1483 684115
Personal page: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/constantin-orasan
The Natural Language Understanding Lab at UTN in Nuremberg [1], Germany, invites applications for a full-time postdoctoral research position (A13/E13 on the German TV-L scale). The position is based in the Department Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence and will be available from 1 July 2026 for an initial period of three years.
The position is part of an award-winning research group focusing on implicit and underspecified language, background knowledge in language understanding as well as biases in data, tasks and models. The successful applicant will have the opportunity to develop their own research agenda, support ongoing research and teaching in the group, and collaborate with other groups at the university, including colleagues from the Department Liberal Arts & Social Sciences.
Applicants should have a completed PhD in Natural Language Processing or Computational Linguistics as well as a track record of publications in *ACL venues, with a particular interest in semantics and/or pragmatics. They should be able to work in a team and communicate in English (German proficiency is not required).
Applications should include a motivation letter outlining a proposed research agenda, a CV, a list of publications, and contact information for one or two references. Please submit all materials _as a single PDF file_ to nlu(a)utn.de. Applications received by 15 May 2026 will receive full consideration, but the position will remain open until filled.
Candidates who identify as female, trans* and/or non-binary are particularly encouraged to apply. Feel free to contact michael.roth(a)utn.de for any questions regarding the group or position!
[1] https://www.utn.de/en/departments/department-computer-science-artificial-in…
---
Prof. Michael Roth [he/him]
Natural Language Understanding Lab
University of Technology Nuremberg
Technische Universität Nürnberg
LLMs and the Study of Language, Mind, and Society
As part of the MIAI–PRAIRIE seminar series, organized by Caroline Rossi (Université Grenoble Alpes / MIAI) and Thierry Poibeau (ENS–PSL / PRAIRIE–PSAI).
Online, with no registration
LLMs have profoundly transformed the way research is conducted and develops across a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences. Beyond their technical performance, these systems raise new questions about language, cognition, interpretation, and the production of knowledge itself.
This new online seminar, jointly organized by Caroline Rossi (U. Grenoble Alpes / MIAI) and Thierry Poibeau (ENS-PSL / Prairie-PSAI) aims to explore recent research in these areas. It will provide a forum for discussing both empirical and theoretical work, bringing together perspectives from different fields to better understand the implications of LLMs for the study of language and mind. The seminar also seeks to foster dialogue between researchers who use these models in practice and those who critically examine their assumptions, limitations, and broader impact.
The first speaker will be Steven Piantadosi, from Berkeley. The next speakers will include Adele Goldberg (Princeton), Eloïse Boisseau (AMU, Marseille), and Dallas Card (U. Michigan).
The seminar will take place approximately once a month. The full schedule for the coming months will be announced shortly.
----
*** Monday 27 April, 5pm (French time), online (free access, no registration) ***
Connexion link: https://webinaire.numerique.gouv.fr/meeting/signin/invite/78275/creator/433…
*** Neuroscience, behavior, and what's in-between, ***
Steven T. Piantadosi, UC Berkeley (Psychology) & Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
I'll present an overview of a forthcoming book about how we can link neuroscience to cognition and behavior. Drawing on several little-known results in early computer science, I'll describe how patterns in behavior can rigorously imply the existence of particular unobserved states and structures. This provides a foundation for linking behavioral regularities to what must be present in neural implementations. The resulting states are often re-describable in abstract terms more familiar to cognitive science, like "sets",
"numbers", "stacks", etc. I'll highlight the implementation of "stacks", commonly used for grammars, and show how to characterize the space of possible neural implementations, including with subsystems/circuits operating in serial and parallel. The approach provides a set of concrete hypotheses, a guide for neural data analysis, and points towards a method for understanding structure in modern AI systems, including LLMs. I'll conclude by suggesting a Marr-like framework in which the bridges between levels can be made rigorous, connecting behavior, high-level theorizing, and neural implementation.
Steven T. Piantadosi is a professor at UC Berkeley in Psychology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, where he heads the Computation and Language Lab. He has a PhD from MIT in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and undergraduate degrees in mathematics and linguistics. His work spans neural and cognitive research, with a focus on understanding how children come to know language, math, and abstract concepts. He often uses computational methods, including machine learning, cognitive modeling, mathematical analysis, and Bayesian data analysis. His research methods also include anthropological fieldwork, experimental work with children, and collaboration to study non-human primates and human neuroscience.
CfP : Evaluation lab for generative language model quality - Topical quiz generation shared task at CLEF 2026
We hereby invite you to participate in the shared task on Topical Quiz Generation, one of the four tasks of the ELOQUENT track at CLEF.
Can your generative language model, given a textual stimulus, generate relevant, diverse, and pedagogically meaningful quiz questions and answers?
The task focuses on generating Question–Answer items inspired by the PISA framework, targeting students aged 10–15 The goal is simple: produce questions that meaningfully engage with the text and reflect different levels of understanding.
This is an open and accessible task: use your favorite model, improve prompting strategies, and submit multiple experimental variations to explore what improves your model’s performance.
Submit multiple experimental variations to discover what works best! Submissions will be evaluated in cooperation with the OECD, organiser of the PISA test.
And there is more! There are three other tasks in ELOQUENT!
- Topical quiz question scoring: can your generative language model score responses to topical quiz questions (such as the ones generated in this task)?
- Voight-Kampff: does your language model produce human-like text? Can it fool a classifier? Generate text to be matched against human-authored texts in a classification experiment! (You may also submit classifiers through the PAN lab, also at CLEF)
- Cultural Robustness and Diversity: how does your language model take cultural context into account? Will it give the same response in every language?
Details
=======
Find out more: [ https://eloquent-lab.github.io/ | https://eloquent-lab.github.io/ ] Register for the tasks:
Contact: [ mailto:eloquent-clef2026-organizers@googlegroups.com | eloquent-clef2026-organizers(a)googlegroups.com ]
Important Dates
===============
2026, April 23: Registration closes - register now if you haven't already!
2026, May 07: Experiment submission deadline
2026, May 20: Participant paper submission
2026, June 2: Notification of acceptance
2026, June 23: Paper Camera Ready Submission
2026, Sept 21-24: CLEF Conference in Jena, Germany with Eloquent Workshop
Organisers of the Topical quiz generation task
====================================================
Sarah Bouaraba, Said Ettejjari, Diandra Fabre, Lorraine Goeuriot, Jussi Karlgren, Philippe Mulhem, Mario Piacentini, Didier Schwab, Katherina Thomas, Markarit Vartampetian, Luis Francisco Vargas Madriz
(With apologies for cross-posting)
The Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies (LMS) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, offers a vibrant and interdisciplinary environment for the study of language in its structural, social, cognitive, and technological dimensions. We focus on multilingualism in an Asian/Southeast Asian context. We are internationally recognized for our research on multilingualism, language diversity, and the interface between linguistics and technology.
LMS invites applications for faculty appointments at the rank of Associate Professor or Professor (with tenure). We welcome applications in any field of Linguistics. Applicants with demonstrated research experience in languages in the Asia-Pacific area, encompassing Southeast Asia, are especially encouraged to apply. Interest in contributing to NTU’s growing focus on digital humanities and AI-driven language research will be an advantage.
The closing date for this application is 15 July 2026. For further information, please refer to this job posting<https://apply.ap1.interfolio.com/119095>.
Questions about the position may be addressed to the chair of the search committee at lms-search(a)ntu.edu.sg.
________________________________
CONFIDENTIALITY: This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it, notify us and do not copy, use, or disclose its contents.
Towards a sustainable earth: Print only when necessary. Thank you.
We have three PhD scholarships available in the NLP research group at Marburg University within the newly established junior research group "Human-in-Control: Implementing employee co-determination in the design, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence".
The project, funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation, aims to investigate how to move from human-in-the-loop towards human-in-control in AI systems, with a particular focus on employee participation, system design, and workplace impact. Research topics include (but are not limited to):
- Integrating employee perspectives into AI system design (e.g., requirements engineering)
- Technical approaches to strengthen human oversight and control in NLP/AI systems
- Organizational processes to improve job quality and worker influence in AI-supported environments
Details:
- Start: between November 2026 and February 2027
- Duration: 3 years
- Location: Marburg, Germany
- Language: English or German
- Application deadline: May 2, 2026
For full details and application instructions, please see:
https://responsible-nlp.net/nfg/