As part of the celebration of the launch of the new LANA Corpus of spoken conversational American English, a series of free to attend events are being held at Hong Kong Polytechnic University on the 16th and 17th September 2026. On the 16th, an event in the morning will launch the LANA corpus, present details of how to download it, discuss its compilation and highlight some early results from the corpus. People can register to attend this event in person or online.
In the afternoon of the 16th, Prof. Vaclav Brezina will provide a workshop on the use of the #LancsBox tool - this is an in person only event.
On the 17th, a full day of talks on corpus-based research will take place with registration available for both in person and online attendance.
To register for the event, visit: https://polyu.hk/RstBbhttps://t.edm.polyu.edu.hk/activities_web/track/click?msgid=fae75f5b-88dd-47cc-b946-c76ef3f754a4&linkid=6a7597b0b3cfc20001d873f3
Face to face attendees will find details of the venue (Hung Hom Bay Campus) on the registration page. Online attendees will be sent joining instructions after registration. Details of the events are given below. Note that the timings given are for Hong Kong. We hope to see colleagues old and new both in person and online next month,
Tony McEnery
16th September - morning, LANA Launch Event
9:00-9:15 Introduction, Prof. Anthony McEnery, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
9:15-10:15 Building LANA-CASE: Spoken Corpus Design, Compilation, and Lessons Learned, Dr Elizabeth Hanks
10:15-11:15 Is Casual Conversation Linguistically similar to Other Spoken Registers? Prof. Tove Larsson, Northern Arizona University
11:15-11:45 Coffee Break
11:45-12:45 and I was like wait what? The Language of Gen Z Americans, Prof. Paul Baker, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
12:45-13:00 Accessing LANA, Prof. Anthony McEnery, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University & Prof. Vaclav Brezina, Lancaster University
16th September - afternoon 14:00-17:00
#LancsBox Workshop, Prof. Vaclav Brezina, Lancaster University
17th September - all day, symposium
9:00-10:00 Evaluating Chatbot Authenticity in Simulations of Spoken Interaction, Prof. Vaclav Brezina, Lancaster University
10:00-11:00 Changes in the Register of Conversation over Time - a Discourse Unit Approach, Prof. Anthony McEnery, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
11:00-11:15 Coffee Break
11:15-12:15 Using Corpora to Analyse Health Communication: A Study of the R/Dementia Subreddit, Dr Gavin Brookes, Lancaster University
12:15-13:15 When Does a Clause Become a Story? Tracing Discourse Across Languages and Centuries, Dr Hanna Schmück, University of Augsburg
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
14:00-15:00 Surprise Words and Core Words: Using Vibe Coding to Identify Collocational Divergence Across Corpora, Prof. Paul Baker, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
15:00-15:15 Coffee Break
15:15-16:15 Comparing and Contrasting in Corpus Linguistics, Dr Niall Curry, University of Birmingham
16:15-17:15 Getting on the Same Wavelength: Synergising Text, Sound, and Vision in Corpus Design, Dr Samuel Schmück, Lancaster University