Call for Papers
61st Linguistics Colloquium LingColl 2026
Università di Pavia, Italy, September 9 to 12, 2026
Scope: all fields of Linguistics
Conference languages: English and German
Deadline for abstract submission: May 3, 2026
Special theme:
Rethinking Language Comparison: Contrastive Linguistics between Corpora and AI
The 61st Linguistics Colloquium (www.lingcoll.de) will take place at the University of Pavia, Italy, from September 9 to 12, 2026. Founded in Hamburg in 1966, the Linguistics Colloquium (has since been hosted in almost 20 countries. It provides a platform for the study of language and languages in all areas of linguistics and warmly welcomes researchers from diverse theoretical backgrounds. The colloquium is distinguished by its cooperative and open culture of discussion: innovative ideas meet critical reflection, and the exchange of research results is actively promoted. Its aim is to create an inspiring space where new approaches, methods, and perspectives can be jointly discussed and developed. In addition, contrastive linguistics will be a focal point at this year’s colloquium. Since its beginnings, contrastive linguistics has undergone significant development, expanding both its methodological and conceptual scope. Today, language comparison is no longer limited to language pairs but can involve multiple languages. It integrates geographical and sociolinguistic dimensions, extends its focus to semantic, pragmatic, textual, and discourse-linguistic levels, and also takes into account historical stages and diachronic comparisons within a single language. Moreover, contrastive linguistics has increasingly established itself as a theoretically reflective discipline: analysing a language in the light of another allows for the identification of linguistic phenomena that might otherwise remain unnoticed or inadequately explained. Recent advances have been particularly driven by the use of large corpora and digital methods. AI-supported analytical methods are expected to provide further developments in the near future. The planned conference will focus on current theoretical, methodological, and applied approaches in contrastive linguistics, with a particular emphasis on German in comparison with other languages. Its aim is to bring together research that empirically investigates systematic differences and similarities across languages and highlights their relevance for applied contexts.
Thematic Focus (including, but not limited to):
Contrastive Analyses in the Areas of:
- Phonetics and phonology - Morphology and syntax - Semantics and lexicon - Phraseology and pragmatics - Text and discourse
Corpus-Based, Corpus-Driven, and AI-Supported Approaches:
- Contrastive corpus linguistics - Comparative corpus annotation - Corpus-based analyses of phraseological patterns, collocations, and constructions - Quantitative and qualitative methods - Use of AI, NLP, and LLMs in contrastive Research
Methodological and Theoretical Issues:
- Comparability of data and corpora - Modelling linguistic differences at the word, phrase, and discourse levels - Interfaces between linguistics, corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, and AI
Applied Perspectives, Including:
- German as a foreign and second language (DaF/DaZ) - Specialized and professional language - Phraseodidactics and discourse-oriented language teaching - Lexicography, phraseography, and terminology work - Translation studies, interpreting, and contrastive discourse analysis- - Language teaching and language comparison in the Classroom
We welcome contributions that are theoretically informed as well as empirically oriented, including work that bridges basic research and application. Submissions presenting innovative methods or new resources are particularly encouraged.
In addition, in keeping with the tradition of the Linguistics Colloquium, presentations from all other areas of linguistics may be proposed.
Submission
Abstracts (approx. 300 words) can be submitted until May 3, 2026. lingcoll2026@gmail.com Notification of acceptance will be sent by May 15, 2026.
Conference Languages
The conference languages are German and English.
Registration
Registration deadline: 30 June 2026 lingcoll2026@gmail.com
Registration fee
Participants with a regular income: €200.00 Participants without a regular income (PhD candidates, scholarship holders): €100.00
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Reinhard Rapp