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Linguistics Conferences

Linguistics Conferences

Contents of this page

How to find out about upcoming conferences
General (theoretical) linguistics conferences
Specialized conferences for particular subfields

How to find out about upcoming conferences

One excellent resource is the LINGUIST List [www.linguistlist.org].

Another useful resource is the Cascadilla Proceedings Project, which gives free online access to the proceedings papers from several conferences.

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General (theoretical) linguistics conferences

Major conferences, with wide participation

(+) indicates conferences where UNC students have presented papers or posters.

The conferences listed in this category have a published conference proceedings. If your abstract is accepted as a conference talk, your paper will also be included in the proceedings — so you end up with both a presentation and a publication. Proceedings papers are usually due several months after the conference takes place, and they often have a limit of about 12 pages.The conferences in this category tend to be pretty competitive, but they are also prestigious. This means that they are likely to attract a lot of good linguists in the audience (who can give you useful comments on your work), and they are particularly nice to have on your CV.

CLS | Chicago Linguistic Society (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring (April/May)
  • Abstracts due: Winter

GLOW | Generative Linguistics in the Old World (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter — Oct 31, 2024

LSA | Linguistic Society of America (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Early January
  • Abstracts due: Summer
  • Comments: Large audience; good exposure for job-seekers

NELS | North East Linguistics Society (info) (2024) (+)

  • Conference happens: Fall (October/November)
  • Abstracts due: Spring/summer

WCCFL | West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (2025) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring (March/April)
  • Abstracts due: Fall/Winter — Dec 2, 2024

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Smaller regional conferences

(+) indicates conferences where UNC students have presented papers or posters.

Some of the conferences listed in this category have a published conference proceedings.

ALC | Arizona Linguistics Circle (info) (2023)

  • Conference happens: Fall/Winter
  • Abstracts due: Summer/Fall

FLYM | Florida Linguistics Yearly Meeting (2024)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Winter

ILLS | Illinois Language and Linguistics Society (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter
  • Comments: Student travel awards

LASSO | Linguistics Association of the Southwest (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Fall
  • Abstracts due: Spring/summer
  • Comments: Focus is on languages in the southwestern US and Mexico, and maybe on (new) empirical data rather than theoretical work

LCUGA | Linguistics Conference at U. Georgia (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Fall
  • Abstracts due: Summer

NWLC | Northwest Linguistics Conference (2024) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Winter
  • Note: Student-focused conference

PLC | Penn Linguistics Conference (info) (2025) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall/Winter — Nov 18, 2024

SECOL | Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Winter
  • Comments: Student participation is encouraged; good chance to meet linguists from around the region

TLS | Texas Linguistics Society (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall

UALC | University of Alabama Languages Conference (info)

  • Conference happens: Winter
  • Abstracts due: Fall

WECOL | Western Conference on Linguistics (info)

  • Conference happens: Fall/winter
  • Abstracts due: Summer/fall — Nov 17, 2024

WIGL | Workshop in Generative Linguistics (U Wisc) (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter

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Specialized conferences for particular subfields

(+) indicates conferences where UNC students have presented papers or posters.

Many of the conferences listed in this category have a published conference proceedings, but in some cases only selected papers from the conference are included in the proceedings. Some of these conferences are extremely competitive.

Computational linguistics

NAACL | North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (2025)

  • Conference happens: Summer
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter — Oct 15, 2024

SCiL | Society for Computation in Linguistics (info)

  • Conference happens: Early January or summer (with LSA)
  • Abstracts due: (variable)

Forensic linguistics

International Conference on Forensic Linguistics (ICFL) (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall

Heritage-language and immigrant-language linguistics

Heritage Language Research Institute (info)

  • Conference happens: Summer
  • Abstracts due: Winter

International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages (2022)

  • Conference happens: Summer, every 4 years
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter

Workshop on Immigrant Languages in the Americas (WILA) (info)

  • Conference happens: Fall
  • Abstracts due: Summer

Historical linguistics / Indo-European linguistics

American Philological Association (info)

  • Conference happens: Winter (January)
  • Abstracts due: Late spring
  • Comments: For papers on any aspect of Latin or Greek

American Oriental Society (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring (March)
  • Abstracts due: Fall (Oct/Nov)
  • Comments: For historical papers on any language of Asia, from Ancient Near East to South Asia to East Asia; any theoretical approach is welcome, but paper should also be data-oriented

ICHL | International Conference on Historical Linguistics (2025)

  • Conference happens: Summer, odd-numbered years
  • Abstracts due: Fall — Nov 20, 2024

UCLA Indo-European Conference (info)

  • Conference happens: Fall (November)
  • Abstracts due: Summer
  • Comments: Student papers encouraged; prize for best student paper

Language acquisition

BUCLD | Boston U. Conference on Language Development (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Fall (November)
  • Abstracts due: Spring

CLS | Child Language Symposium (2024)

  • Conference happens: Summer
  • Abstracts due: Winter

GALA | Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition (2024)

  • Conference happens: Fall, every two years
  • Abstracts due: Spring

GALANA | Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition / North America (2021) (+)

  • Conference happens: Summer/fall, every two years
  • Abstracts due: Spring

IASCL | International Association for the Study of Child Language (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Summer, every 3 years (next is 2027)
  • Abstracts due: Fall

ICPC | International Child Phonology Conference (info) (2025)

  • Conference happens: Spring/summer
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter

Morphology

AIMM | American International Morphology Meeting (2021)

  • Conference happens: Summer (on hiatus?)
  • Abstracts due: Spring

IMM | International Morphology Meeting (2024)

  • Conference happens: Spring/Summer, every two years
  • Abstracts due: Summer/Fall

Phonetics/phonology

AMP | Annual Meeting on Phonology (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Fall (September/October)
  • Abstracts due: Spring

ASA | Acoustical Society of America (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Winter and summer
  • Abstracts due: Summer and winter
  • Comments: High acceptance rate (for posters); poster abstracts are published in JASA

ETAP | Experimental and Theoretical Approaches to Prosody (2018)

  • Conference happens: Spring (on hiatus?)
  • Abstracts due: Fall

ICPhS | International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (info)

  • Conference happens: Summer, every four years
  • Abstracts due: Winter/Spring

LabPhon | Conference on Laboratory Phonology (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring/summer, even-numbered years
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter

MFM | Manchester Phonology Meeting (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring (May)
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter

NAPhC | North American Phonology Conference (2023) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring (May), every two years
  • Abstracts due: Winter

OCP | Old World Conference in Phonology (2024) (+)

  • Conference happens: Winter (January/February)
  • Abstracts due: Fall

Psycholinguistics

HSP | Conference on Human Sentence Processing (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring (March)
  • Abstracts due: Fall/Winter

Second language acquisition and pedagogy

GASLA | Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (2024)

  • Conference happens: Spring (every two years?)
  • Abstracts due: Fall

SLA Graduate Student Symposium (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring (April)
  • Abstracts due: Winter

SLRF | Second Language Research Forum (info) (+)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall

TALGS | TESOL/Applied Linguistics Graduate Students Conference (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring (February) | in NC!
  • Abstracts due: Fall

Semantics

SALT | Semantics and Linguistic Theory (info)

  • Conference happens: Spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall/Winter

SULA | Semantics of Underrepresented Languages of the Americas (2024)

  • Conference happens: Winter/Spring, every two years
  • Abstracts due: Fall/Winter

Sociolinguistics and Pidgin/Creole Linguistics

NWAV | New Ways of Analyzing Variation (2024) (+)

  • Conference happens: Fall
  • Abstracts due: Spring

SALSA | Symposium About Language and Society in Austin (info)

  • Conference happens: Winter/spring
  • Abstracts due: Fall/winter — Nov 5, 2024

SPCL | Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (info)

  • Conference happens: Winter (with LSA), summer
  • Abstracts due: Summer, winter

Conferences on particular languages or language groups

This is a sampling. Be on the lookout for other conferences dedicated to the language(s) you work on.

General

  • Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (info) (+) — abstracts Nov 1, 2024

African and Afroasiatic languages

  • ACAL | Annual Conference on African Linguistics (info) (+) — abstracts Jan 10, 2025
  • NACAL | N Atlantic Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (on hiatus?)

Arabic

  • ASAL | Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (info)

Asian and Pacific languages

  • AFLA | Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (info)
  • FAJL | Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics (on hiatus?)
  • (F)ASAL | (Formal) Approaches to South Asian Languages (proceedings info)
  • ICKL | International Circle of Korean Linguistics (2023)
  • J/K | Japanese/Korean Linguistics (2024)
  • NACCL | North American Conf. on Chinese Linguistics (info)
  • SEALS | Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (2024)
  • WAFL | Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics ((2024)

Celtic languages

  • Celtic Linguistics Conference (on hiatus?)
  • CSANA | Celtic Studies Association of North America (info)

Germanic languages

  • CGSW | Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop (2022)
  • DGfS | German Linguistic Society (info)
  • GLAC | Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (info) (+)

Indigenous languages of the Americas

  • SAIL | Symposium on American Indian Languages (info)
  • SSILA| Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (info)
  • SULA | Semantics of Under-Represented Languages in the Americas — see above under ‘Semantics’
  • WSCLA | Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of Languages of the Americas (2024)
  • WAIL | Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (info)

Romance languages

  • HLS | Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (2024)
  • Going Romance — Symposium on Romance Linguistics (info)
  • LSRL | Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (2024)
  • SIUS | Spanish in the United States (info) (+)
  • SLINKI | Spanish Linguistics in North Carolina (info) (+)

Slavic languages

  • FASL | Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (2023)
  • SLS | Slavic Linguistics Society (info)

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