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The QDLCA27 pre-conference workshop, organised by Dr Andrea Farina (King's College London), is a satellite event of the Quantitative Diachronic Linguistics and Cultural Analytics 2027 (QDLCA27) conferencehttps://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/quantitative-diachronic-linguistics-and-cultural-analytics-2027-qdlca27. The workshop will take place from Monday 11 (afternoon) to Wednesday 13 (morning) January 2027. It is supported by a CLARINhttps://www.clarin.eu/-funded initiative (Days 1–2) and by the COALA – Computational Corpus Annotation for Quantitative Analysis of Latin Lexical Semanticshttps://coala.er.kcl.ac.uk/about/?utm_source=chatgpt.com project (Day 3), which also underpins the organisation of QDLCA27. Bringing together researchers interested in digital resources, computational methods, and linguistic annotation, the workshop is designed to provide participants with methodological knowledge and practical experience in the quantitative study of language change, while fostering collaboration across the historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, and digital humanities communities.
The increasing availability of digitised texts, linguistic resources, and computational tools has transformed research in historical linguistics. However, making effective use of these opportunities requires a clear understanding of how data are created, structured, annotated, and analysed. This workshop addresses key challenges in quantitative diachronic research, including the use of research infrastructures, the management and interpretation of historical datasets, annotation methodologies, and the development of reproducible workflows.
The first two days of the workshop focus on research infrastructures, tools, and methodological approaches for quantitative diachronic linguistics. Participants will explore how digital resources and computational methods can support research on language variation and change, while also discussing practical challenges related to data access, the design and application of linguistic annotation schemes, comparability, and analysis. Through practical activities, participants will be introduced to the principles and practices of linguistic annotation and will gain hands-on experience in annotating historical language data, including considering how to define annotation categories, apply annotation schemes, and deal with ambiguity and competing analyses. They will also explore how annotated data can be leveraged for quantitative analysis and for investigating patterns of linguistic variation and change. The workshop includes opportunities for participants to discuss their own research interests and datasets, fostering exchange among researchers working with different languages, periods, and methodological approaches.
Confirmed invited speakers are Prof Marco Passarotti (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) and Dr Megan Bushnell (University of Oxford), who will share perspectives on computational approaches, research infrastructures, and digital resources for the study of historical language data.
The workshop is aimed primarily at PhD students and early career researchers who wish to develop their understanding of how to design and apply linguistic annotation and how annotated resources can support quantitative analyses of language change. It is suitable for researchers in historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, and digital humanities, including those who are beginning to integrate computational methods into their work. The workshop aims to equip participants with practical as well as conceptual foundations needed to engage critically and creatively with quantitative approaches to diachronic linguistics, from the creation and annotation of historical datasets through to their quantitative analysis.
The workshop also builds on the broader research community developed through the seminar series Data in Historical Linguisticshttps://datainhistoricallinguistics.wordpress.com/ and is part of the activities of the King's Linguistics Networkhttps://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/kln. Together, these initiatives promote dialogue on the role of digital data, computational approaches, and quantitative methods in advancing research on language history and linguistics more broadly.