SIGUL March 2026

sigul@list.elra.info

4 participants
4 discussions

CfP Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence in African Studies workshop, Stellenbosch, South Africa
by Menno Van Zaanen 18 Mar '26

18 Mar '26

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ═ CALL FOR PAPERS ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ═ A DFG Programme Point Sud Workshop Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence in African Studies: Towards Sustainable and Equitable Practices 21–24 September 2026 · STIAS, Stellenbosch, South Africa ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ABOUT THE WORKSHOP The integration of digital humanities (DH) and artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the production of knowledge in African Studies, offering new opportunities for innovative analysis, dynamic visualisation and cross-cultural research. Yet this shift raises urgent questions regarding equitable access, the representation of African languages, and the suitability of methodologies. Current large language models underrepresent African languages, digital scholarly infrastructures remain optimised for English, and digitisation pipelines that produce AI-ready data are themselves shaped by political choices about what to digitise, how to describe it, and who controls access. While recent initiatives on digital sovereignty in Africa have centred on policy and regulation, this workshop shifts attention to methodological practice. It asks how DH methods and AI transform research in African Studies, and how we can design, evaluate, and sustain these methods under African conditions. By bringing together scholars, independent researchers and practitioners from Africa, Europe, and beyond, the event will foster North–South and South–South dialogue at the intersection of African epistemologies and digital methods, moving from description to design. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── CONVENORS - Frédérick Madore, University of Bayreuth - Vincent Hiribarren, King's College London - Emmanuel Ngue Um, University of Yaoundé 1 - Menno van Zaanen, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── THEMATIC AXES The programme is structured around the following thematic axes: 1. Transforming Research Methods through AI and Digital Tools in African Studies This axis asks a fundamental question: how are AI and DH methods changing the study of African cultures, languages, and histories? Participants will present concrete uses of AI to analyse multilingual texts, employ computer vision to study visual culture and historical artefacts, and develop digital mapping to trace cultural movements and connections. We will evaluate what works for different kinds of African cultural materials, identify adaptations required for local contexts, and specify where computational approaches can complement—rather than replace—interpretive scholarship. The goal is clear: practical guidance for integrating these methods while preserving the interpretive richness that defines the humanities. 2. Building Sustainable Research Infrastructures from African Perspectives Moving beyond policy discourse, this axis asks what it takes to build and sustain digital research capacity within African institutions and communities. We will examine practical obstacles—limited connectivity, unstable funding, and scarce training data for local languages—and showcase South–South collaboration models that have navigated these constraints. Participants will share strategies for developing tools that utilise available resources rather than assuming high-end infrastructure. Key questions include how to keep research outputs accessible to the communities being studied, how to train the next generation of African DH scholars, and how to secure sustainable funding that does not depend solely on institutions in the Global North. The focus is on concrete, scalable approaches to durable capacity. 3. Centring African Knowledge Systems in Digital Research Design This axis poses a methodological challenge: how can digital research tools respect and incorporate African ways of knowing? Rather than retrofitting existing techniques to African materials, we explore how African epistemologies can shape the tools themselves. Case studies will show community knowledge informing database structures, oral traditions testing text-centred analytical frameworks, and local classification systems improving standard metadata schemas. We will consider protocols for culturally sensitive materials, interface design that does not privilege European languages, and criteria to ensure that AI systems trained on African data primarily serve African research needs. Here, decolonisation moves from critique to construction. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── WORKSHOP FORMAT & LANGUAGE POLICY The workshop will run in a hybrid format to maximise participation and impact. In-person sessions at STIAS will be paired with remote access via Zoom for those unable to travel. Participants will pre-circulate draft papers in English or French one month in advance, each with a bilingual abstract to support preparation. To address language barriers, the workshop will operate bilingually in English and French. Presenters may speak in either language; where possible, a bilingual chair will moderate discussion and provide brief consecutive interpretation where needed. Recent advances in AI speech recognition and machine translation now enable near-real-time captioning; we will deploy these tools in the room and on Zoom. All presenters will supply slides with bilingual titles and key terms, and a one-page terminology handout in both languages. Together, these measures encourage meaningful participation in Africa’s Anglophone and Francophone communities, which are often divided by institutional and linguistic boundaries, and provide immediate, practical benefits for multilingual colleagues. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── SUBMISSION GUIDELINES We invite proposals for individual papers (20-minute presentations). Submissions may be in English or French. Proposals of up to 500 words should be emailed to the convenors by 30 April 2026. Each submission must include: (i) a title; (ii) an abstract outlining the context, central question, and methodological approach; and (iii) a 100-word biographical note indicating the applicant’s discipline and institutional affiliation. Please send your proposals to the following addresses: - Frédérick Madore: frederick.madore(a)uni-bayreuth.de - Vincent Hiribarren: vincent.hiribarren(a)kcl.ac.uk - Emmanuel Ngue Um: ngueum(a)gmail.com - Menno van Zaanen: menno.vanzaanen(a)nwu.ac.za ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PUBLICATION Our goal is to publish selected papers from the workshop as a special issue in the Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (JDHASA), subject to agreement with the journal’s editorial board. All submitted full papers will undergo peer review. Authors whose papers are selected for the special issue will be expected to revise their manuscripts in line with reviewer feedback before final publication. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── SELECTION CRITERIA & INCLUSIVITY Selection will prioritise gender equity, support for early-career scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa, and balance across disciplines and regions. In addition to scholars, we will include practitioner-developers by directly engaging the teams behind DH tools. Their participation will help us to assess user needs and the feasibility of embedding African ways of knowing in tool design. DH remains gender-imbalanced; accordingly, the open call will explicitly encourage applications from women and weight gender equity in review. We will intentionally include Africa-based, diasporic, and returning scholars. Recognising uneven DH capacity, particularly in several Francophone regions, we will aim for a majority of Africa-based participants and amplify Francophone voices through targeted outreach and reserved places for early-career researchers. The workshop will uphold equal opportunity regardless of gender, religion, or other sociocultural differences. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── KEY DATES - Submission Deadline: 30 April 2026 - Notification of Acceptance: 15 May 2026 - Deadline for Full Papers: 15 August 2026 - Workshop Dates: 21–24 September 2026 ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ═ https://fmadore.github.io/stias-dh-ai-workshop-2026 ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ═ -- Prof Menno van Zaanen menno.vanzaanen(a)nwu.ac.za Professor in Digital Humanities South African Centre for Digital Language Resources https://www.sadilar.org ________________________________ NWU PRIVACY STATEMENT: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message and attachments thereto are intended solely for the recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorised review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received the e-mail by mistake, please contact the sender or reply e-mail and delete the e-mail and its attachments (where appropriate) from your system. ________________________________

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ComputEL-9: 2nd Call-for-Papers
by Antti Arppe 17 Mar '26

17 Mar '26

ComputEL-9: Ninth Workshop on the Use of Computational Methods in the Study of Endangered Languages Second CALL FOR PAPERS Submission deadline: March 20, 2026 Submission link: https://softconf.com/acl2026/ComputEL2026 ComputEL-9 will be co-located with ACL 2026 in San Diego, California. It will be a one-day workshop, held in Friday July 4, 2026. This time, we are co-ordinating our activities with Americas-NLP, held on the previous day. We encourage submissions that explore the interface and intersection of computational linguistics, documentary linguistics, and community-based efforts in language revitalization and reclamation. This includes submissions that: (i) demonstrate new methods or technologies for tasks or applications focused on low-resource settings, and in particular, endangered languages, (ii) examine the use of specific methods in the analysis of data from low-resource languages, or demonstrate new methods for analysis of such data, oriented toward the goals of language reclamation and revitalization, (iii) propose new models for the collection, management, and mobilization of language data in community settings, with attention to e.g. issues of data sovereignty and community protocols, (iv) explore concrete steps for a more fruitful interaction among computer scientists, documentary linguists, and language communities. IMPORTANT DATES 20 March 2026 Deadline for submission of papers or extended abstracts 1 May 2026 Notification of Acceptance 4 July 2026 Workshop PRESENTATIONS Presentation of accepted papers will be in both oral session and a poster session. The decision on whether a presentation for a paper will be oral and/or poster will be made by the Organizing Committee on the advice of the Program Committee, taking into account the subject matter and how the content might be best conveyed. Oral and poster presentations will not be distinguished in the Proceedings. SUBMISSIONS We offer two submissions lengths: short (up to 4 pages) or long (up to 8 pages) paper. The length of submission does not influence the likelihood of acceptance. Both paper types must include a section on ethical consideration and a section on limitations; these sections are not considered part of the page limit. All submissions must be anonymous and will be peer-reviewed by the scientific Program Committee. Papers must follow the style and formatting guidelines provided in by ACL Style Files (download template files for LaTeX: https://github.com/acl-org/acl-style-files). Submissions that exceed the length requirements, or are missing a limitations section, will be desk rejected. Papers can be submitted to one of the workshop’s tracks: (a) language community perspective and (b) academic perspective. Submissions must be uploaded to SoftConf: https://softconf.com/acl2026/ComputEL2026 by March 20, 2026 11:59PM (UTC-12, “anywhere on earth”). A. Short Papers: Short paper submissions must describe original and unpublished work. They are max. 4 pages excluding references. They must include a section on ethical consideration and limitations; these sections are not considered part of the page limit. Please note that a short paper is not a shortened long paper. Instead, short papers should have a small, focused contribution or describe work in progress (“working paper”). Short papers might not necessarily be intended for publication. Some common kinds of short papers are negative results, opinion pieces, interesting application nuggets, or descriptions of ongoing collaborative teamwork. B. Long Paper: Long papers must describe substantial, original, completed and unpublished work. Wherever appropriate, concrete evaluation and analysis should be included. Long papers are max. 8 pages excluding references and appendices. They must include a section on ethical consideration and limitations; these sections are not considered part of the page limit. PROCEEDINGS The Organizing Committee will select papers that have been accepted for presentation for online publication via the open-access ACL Anthology. Not all accepted papers for presentation are guaranteed inclusion in the Anthology. Final versions of long and short papers that are accepted for publication will be allotted one additional page (altogether 5 and 9 pages) excluding references. Papers accepted for inclusion in the Anthology should be revised and improved versions of the work that was submitted for, and which underwent, review. Any revisions should concern responses to reviewer comments or the addition of relevant details and clarifications, but not entirely new, unreviewed content. FUNDING SUPPORT Limited funding will be available for some accepted authors. A link to apply for funding will be sent to submitters after the submission deadline. Decisions on funding will be sent with notification of acceptance. Priority will be given to individuals without institutional support, for instance members of endangered language communities, other unsponsored or under-sponsored presenters (e.g. student/faculty of Linguistics Departments), and student presenters. ADDITIONAL AND CONTACT INFORMATION Please see the ComputEL-9 website for further information: https://computel-workshop.org/computel-9/ Organizing Committee Email: computel.workshop(a)gmail.com -- ====================================================================== Antti Arppe - Ph.D (General Linguistics), M.Sc. (Engineering) Professor of Quantitative Linguistics Director, Alberta Language Technology Lab (ALTLab) Project Director, 21st Century Tools for Indigenous Languages (21C) Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta Algonquian Studies Association - Secretary-Treasurer E-mail: arppe(a)ualberta.ca - antti.arppe(a)iki.fi WWW: www.ualberta.ca/~arppe - altlab.ualberta.ca - 21c.tools Mānahtu ina rēdûti ihza ummânūti ihannaq - dulum ugulak úmun ingul ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Second Call for Papers, Participation and Demo - IWSLT 2026
by Atul K. Ojha 08 Mar '26

08 Mar '26

Apologies for cross-posting. ---------------------------------------- The International Conference on Spoken Language Translation ACL – 23rd IWSLT 2026 – First Call for Participation July 3-4, 2026 - San Diego, CA, USA http://iwslt.org The International Conference on Spoken Language Translation (IWSLT) is the premier annual conference for all aspects of Spoken Language Translation. Every year, the conference organises and sponsors open evaluation campaigns around key challenges in simultaneous and consecutive translation, under real-time/low-latency or offline conditions and under low-resource or multilingual constraints. System descriptions and results from participants’ systems and scientific papers related to key algorithmic advances and best practices are presented. IWSLT is the venue of the SIGSLTs, the Special Interest Group on Spoken Language Translation of ACL, ISCA and ELRA. With a track record of 22 years, IWSLT benchmarks and proceedings serve as reference for all researchers and practitioners working on speech translation and related fields. The 23rd edition of IWSLT will be run as an ELRA/ACL event and co-located with ACL 202 <https://2026.aclweb.org/>6 on July 3-4, 2026. It will be run as a hybrid event. Important Dates January 1, 2026: Release of shared task training and dev data March 15, 2026: Scientific paper submission deadline Apr 1-15, 2026: Evaluation period April 24, 2026: System description paper submission deadline May 15, 2026: Notification of acceptance June 1, 2026: Camera-ready deadline (all papers) July 3-4, 2026: IWSLT conference Evaluation The IWSLT 2026 features shared tasks <https://iwslt.org/2026/#shared-tasks> that address the following focus areas: - Speech to Text Translation track: Offline, Low-resource - Customized Speech Translation track: Compression, Subtitling, Simultaneous - Speech Generation track: Indic S2S, African S2S, Cross-lingual Voice Cloning - Instruction Following track - Speech Translation Metrics track Training and development data for each shared task will be prepared and released by the respective organisers (for further information on this initiative, please refer to the website). Participants will receive instructions about how to submit their runs. In addition, participants have the opportunity to present their work through a system paper that will be published in the ACL Proceedings. Conference IWSLT also invites submissions of scientific papers to be published in the ACL Proceedings and presented either in oral or poster format. The conference selects high-quality, original contributions on theoretical and practical issues of spoken language translation research, technologies and applications. Submissions will be accepted directly through the IWSLT submission site (to be announced at the conference website <https://iwslt.org/2026/>). We will also accept commitments of submissions with reviews from the ACL Rolling Review. Additionally, to foster cross-pollination of ideas, the conference also invites the presentation of papers on speech translation recently published elsewhere. Please note that this is for non-archival presentation of papers relevant to speech translation already published in other venues (e.g., ACL 2026 Findings papers, speech, NLP or MT conferences). Submissions for this category will be accepted through a dedicated form (to be announced at the conference website <https://iwslt.org/2026/>). Papers will be checked for relevance to IWSLT and assigned either oral or poster presentation slots if selected. Contact Please send an email to iwslt-evaluation-campaign(a)googlegroups.com if you have any questions related to the shared tasks. Thanks, Marcello, Alex, Antonios, Luisa, Matteo, Jan, Sebastian, Marco Elizabeth, Atul (IWSLT organisers)

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CFP: The third edition of the International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Interpreting Technology’ (NeTTIT’2026)
by Ranasinghe, Tharindu 04 Mar '26

04 Mar '26

International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Interpreting Technology’ (NeTTIT’2026) Dubrovnik, Croatia, 24-27 June 2026 Fifth Call for Papers # The conference 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. # Conference topics Contributions are invited on any topic related to latest technology and practices in translation, subtitling, localisation, interpreting, machine translation and Large Language Models used in translation and interpreting. NeTTIT’2026 will feature a Special Theme Track "Future of Translation and Interpreting Technologies in the Era of LLMs and Generative AI". The conference topics include but are not limited to (see also the special conference theme below): ## CAT tools - Translation Memory (TM) systems - NLP and MT for translation memory systems - Terminology extraction tools - Localisation tools ## Machine Translation - Latest developments in Neural Machine Translation - MT for under-resourced languages - MT with low computing resources - Multimodal MT - Integration of MT in TM systems - Resources for MT ## Technologies for MT deployment - MT evaluation techniques, metrics and evaluation results - Human evaluations of MT output - Evaluating MT in a real-world setting - Quality estimation for MT - Domain adaptation ## Translation Studies - Corpus-based studies applied to translation - Corpora and resources for translation - Translationese - Cognitive effort and eye-tracking experiments in translation ## Interpreting studies - Corpus-based studies applied to interpreting - Corpora and resources for interpreting - Interpretese - Resources for interpreting and interpreting technology applications - Cognitive effort and eye-tracking experiments in interpreting ## Interpreting technology - Machine interpreting - Computer-aided interpreting - NLP for dialogue interpreting - Development of NLP based applications for communication in public service settings (healthcare, education, law, emergency services) ## Emerging Areas in Translation and Interpreting - MT and translation tools for literary texts and creative texts - MT for social media and real-time conversations - Sign language recognition and translation ## Subtitling - NLP and MT for subtitling - Latest technology for subtitling ## User needs - Analysis of translators’ and interpreters’ needs in terms of translation and interpreting technology - User requirements for interpreting and translation tools - Incorporating human knowledge into translation and interpreting technology - What existing translators’ (including subtitlers’) and interpreters’ tools do not offer - User requirements for electronic resources for translators and interpreters - Translation and interpreting workflows in larger organisations and the tools for translation and interpreting employed ## The business of translation and interpreting - Translation workflow and management - Technology adoption by translators and industry - Setting up translation /interpreting / language provider company ## Teaching translation and interpreting - Teaching Machine Translation - Teaching translation technology - Teaching interpreting technology - Latest AI developments in the syllabi of translation and interpreting curricula ## Ethical issues in translation and technology - Bias and fairness in MT - Privacy and security in cloud MT systems - Transparency and explainability of MT systems - Environmental impact on MT systems # Special Theme Track - Future of Translation and Interpreting Technologies in the Era of LLMs and Generative AI We are excited to share that NeTTIT’2026 will have a special theme with the goal of stimulating discussion around Large Language Models, Generative AI and the Future of Translation and Interpreting Technologies. While the new generation of Large Language Models such as CHATGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek and LLAMA showcase remarkable advancements in language generation and understanding, we find ourselves in uncharted territory when it comes to their performance on various Translation and Interpreting Technology tasks with regards to fairness, interpretability, ethics and transparency. The theme track invites studies on how LLMs perform on Translation and Interpreting Technology tasks and applications, and what this means for the future of the field. The possible topics of discussion include (but are not limited to) the following: - Changes in (and the impact on) the translators and interpreters’ professions in the new AI era especially as a result of the latest developments in LLMs and Generative AI - Generative AI and translation - Generative AI and interpreting - Augmenting machine translation systems with generative AI - Domain and terminology adaptation with Large Language Models - Literary translation with Large Language Models - Translation for low-resourced and minority languages with LLMs - Improving Machine Translation Quality with Contextual Prompts in Large Language Models - Prompt engineering for translation - Generative AI for professional translation - Generative AI for professional interpreting # Invited speakers Yves Champollion, Wordfast LLC Marko Grobelnik, Josef Stefan Institute # Submissions and publication NeTTIT’2026 invites the following types of submissions in English: ## Academic papers - Regular long papers: These can be up to eight (8) pages long, presenting substantial, original, completed, and unpublished work. - Short papers: These can be up to four (4) pages long and are suitable for describing small, focused contributions, work-in-progress, negative results, system demonstrations, etc. ## User papers – for industry and practitioners. References to related work are optional. Allowed paper length: between 2 and 4 pages. Papers should be submitted through Softconf/START using the following link: https://softconf.com/p/nettit2026/user/ For submitting the papers, we invite the authors to comply with the ACL format using the templates available on the conference website. The conference will not consider and evaluate abstracts only. Further details on the submission procedure are available on the conference website: https://nettt-conference.com/2026/submissions-and-publication/ The accepted papers will be published in the conference e-proceedings with assigned ISBN and DOI and made available online on the conference website at the time of the conference. The conference organisers will seek the inclusion of the conference proceedings in the ACL anthology. # Important dates - Submissions due: 23 March 2026 - Reviewing process: 25 March-25 April 2026 - Notification of acceptance: 28 April 2026 - Camera-ready due: 25 May 2026 - Conference camera-ready proceedings ready 15 June 2026 - Conference: 24-27 June 2026 # Pre-conference Tutorials The pre-conference tutorials will include: Post-editing and AI-augmented translation – Marie Escribe (LanguageWire and Polytechnic University of Valencia) Machine Translation Quality Evaluation – Tharindu Ranasinghe (Lancaster University) Automatic Speech Recognition as a supporting tool for interpreters – Constantin Orasan (University of Surrey) # Conference Chairs - Gloria Corpas Pastor (University of Malaga) - Ruslan Mitkov (Lancaster University and University of Alicante) - Marko Tadic (University of Zagreb) # Programme Committee Chairs - Constantin Orasan (University of Surrey) - Tharindu Ranasinghe (Lancaster University) # Publication Chairs - Marie Escribe (LanguageWire and Polytechnic University of Valencia) - Alicia Picazo Izquierdo (University of Alicante) # Organising Committee and Programme Committee coordination - Marie Escribe (LanguageWire and Polytechnic University of Valencia) - ‎Alicia Picazo Izquierdo (University of Alicante) - ‎Xiaojing Zhao (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) # Publicity and Sponsorship Chair - Vilelmini Sosoni (Ionian University) # Programme committee For a list of the programme committee members visit: https://nettt-conference.com/2026/programme-committee/ # Venue The conference will take place at the Centre for Advanced Academic Studies (CAAS) of the University of Zagreb (http://www.caas.unizg.hr/) in Dubrovnik. # Sponsor Juremy.com # Sponsorship opportunities Companies working in the fields of translation technology, interpreting technology and/or related fields, are welcome to familiarise themselves with the sponsorship opportunities that the conference offers. Please visit https://nettt-conference.com/2026/sponsors/ for more details. # Further information and contact details The conference website https://nettt-conference.com/ is updated on a regular basis. For further information, please email nettit2026(a)nettt-conference.com<mailto:nettit2026@nettt-conference.com>. You can also follow us on social media for updates and announcements. LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/nettit2026/ Twitter/X - https://x.com/NeTTIT2026 Best Regards Tharindu Ranasinghe

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SIGUL March 2026