International Workshop | March 10–11, 2027

Organizers: Naomi Truan (Leiden University) and Daniel Knuchel (University of Zurich)

Most research on AI and language tests what the model produces. We want to know what multilingual speakers do with it. Generative AI answers in dozens of languages and is marketed as dissolving language barriers. Yet it treats languages as separately selectable, internally uniform units, closer to a drop-down menu than to a repertoire. This workshop shifts the focus away from testing model outputs and towards what multilingual speakers actually do with these systems: their practices, experiences and language ideologies.

The ‘multilingualism’ of generative AI cannot be understood independently of the linguistic infrastructures and ideologies on which these systems are built. Over 90% of the world’s languages have little to no support in language technology, the corpora on which the systems rest are predominantly monolingual and standard-language, and model outputs systematically disadvantage non-standardized varieties. Research on earlier communication technologies has shown that multilingualism under technological mediation is neither preserved nor destroyed but reorganized. Generative AI opens a qualitatively different terrain, because linguistic practices here are produced in exchange with a system that answers, evaluates and returns text. What happens when this particular organization of language encounters speakers whose multilingualism does not operate according to the same logic?

The workshop brings together empirical work in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse studies and related fields that takes multilingual speakers and their practices as its starting point. We ask what multilingual speakers do with these systems, what these systems do to multilingual practices, and whether the concepts we use to describe multilingual interaction (addressee, audience, accommodation, repertoire) still hold when one of the ‘participants’ is a machine. Ethnographic approaches are particularly welcome.

All contributions are pre-circulated in draft form and discussed in full during the 1.5-day workshop, with half a day devoted to the coherence of the collection as a whole. Following the workshop, contributors revise their papers for submission to a journal; we are currently approaching journals regarding the publication of the collection.

Keynote speakers: Bettina Migge (University College Dublin) and Anna Weichselbraun (University of Vienna)

Submission instructions

We seek empirical contributions from sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse studies and related disciplines, organized around four strands:

• Practices: which language(s) or variety(ies) multilingual speakers use for which task with generative AI, what reasons they give, and what they do when a system fails in one language and works in another
• Language ideologies: how notions of linguistic adequacy, support and quality are inscribed in the design and marketing of these systems, enacted in their outputs, and articulated by users
• Concepts: whether sociolinguistic notions such as addressee, audience, accommodation, interlocutor, speech community or repertoire still hold when one participant is a machine
• Methods: how private, ephemeral and rarely observed interactions with AI systems can be studied, e.g. through interaction data, screen recordings, logs, digital ethnography, interviews, or combinations of these

Data may be in any language, and we welcome contributions that engage with scholarship published in languages other than English. The collection does not include model evaluation or benchmarking without an account of situated use, nor programmatic commentary unanchored in language data. Previously published papers may not be presented at the workshop.

We invite abstracts of max. 500 words (excluding references) in PDF or Word format. Please send your abstract by e-mail to both organizers.

Submission deadline: October 30, 2026
Notification: end of November 2026
Pre-circulation of drafts: February 24, 2027
Workshop: March 10–11, 2027

Submit to: n.a.l.truan@hum.leidenuniv.nl and daniel.knuchel@ds.uzh.ch

Participation in the workshop is free of charge, and catering will be provided for all participants. Travel costs and accommodation may be covered, depending on available funding.

Full Call for Papers

Full Program – tba