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Deutsches Seminar Social Encounters with Artificial Others

Call for papers

Abstract:

Over the past years, interactions between humans and artificial interlocutors have increasingly become part of everyday life. AIs such as ChatGPT, Woebot, and Replika are perceived not merely as tools, but as helpers, confidants, or even romantic partners. These encounters compel us to rethink the linguistic, social, and epistemic foundations of concepts such as “(social) interaction,” and furthermore to reconsider the boundaries of subjectivity and identity.

This interdisciplinary workshop explores how language functions as a medium through which humans and machines establish, negotiate, and sustain relationships. It seeks to address how identity, intimacy, and social and emotional connection are linguistically and discursively constructed in dialogues with artificial entities — and how such exchanges transform broader understandings of being human in the age of personable AI.

We invite contributions from psycholinguistics, discourse and conversation analysis, pragmatics, psychology, social studies, communication and media studies, and related fields.

 

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Linguistic and pragmatic practices in human–AI interaction
  • Conversational routines and ritualized interaction in everyday exchanges with AI partner
  • Discursive constructions of self and other in dialogues with AI
  • The notion of machine identity: do AIs display “person-like” characteristics in interaction?
  • Adaptation, alignment, and repair phenomena in speech-based human–AI interaction
  • Language as a resource for intimacy, trust, and affective alignment
  • Corpora and methodologies for analyzing human–machine communication
  • Relationality, anthropomorphism, and the ethics of address
  • Interpersonal and narrative positioning in chat- and voice-based interfaces
  • Psychological effects of AI interaction on mental health
  • Interactional norms (e.g. politeness, alignment) in conversations with voice assistants (e.g., Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant)
  • Metapragmatic awareness and users’ reflections on communicating with AIs
  • Shifting notions of agency and accountability in human–machine communication

We particularly encourage contributions that combine empirical and theoretical perspectives, and that foster dialogue between linguistic, psychological, and social approaches to Human–AI Interaction. We explicitly welcome work in progress, pilot studies, and exploratory projects that present new data, innovative methodologies, or emerging conceptual frameworks. The workshop aims to provide a space for discussion, exchange, and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, with a focus on understanding the linguistic and psychological mechanisms that shape human engagement with artificial interlocutors.

 

Format and submission:

The workshop will include individual paper presentations, data sessions, and a closing roundtable on the conceptual boundaries of “personhood” in human–machine communication.

Please submit an abstract of 400–500 words (excluding references) to florina.zuelli@ds.uzh.ch by January 20, 2026. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by January 26, 2026.

 

Venue and dates:

University of Zurich, Switzerland

16–17 April 2026

 

Proceedings/Special Issue: A special issue featuring selected papers from the workshop is planned for Frontiers in Psychology (section Language Sciences).

For questions or expressions of interest, please contact the organizers at florina.zuelli@ds.uzh.ch or elisabeth.zima@ds.uzh.ch.