11th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics ofContemporary English (BICLCE), 3rd– 5th July 2026, Klagenfurt, Austria

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are pleased to inform you that the 11th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of ContemporaryEnglish (BICLCE) will be held from 3rd to 5th July 2026 in Austria, at the University of Klagenfurt.

For over two decades, the BICLCE conference series has been a forum for researchers who are interested in the linguistics of contemporary English. It is open to different theoretical and methodological perspectives. Previous conferences were held in Edinburgh (2005), Toulouse (2007), London (2009), Osnabrück (2011), Austin TX (2013), Madison WI (2015), Vigo (2017), Bamberg (2019), Ljubljana (2022) and Alicante (2024). BICLCE 2026 wishes to continue this long-standing tradition of exploring contemporary English. For the General Sessions, we invite proposals on all aspects of contemporary English. We particularly welcome work on variation in English, second language acquisition and development, learner corpora, discourse and metadiscourse, constructions, metaphor, politeness, formulaic language, academic writing, language contact, corpus-based studies, and statistical modelling. Proposals on historical or contrastive topics should clearly connect to present-day English. BICLCE11 highlights the theme of English in a geopolitically changing world. We thus especially encourage contributions addressing how shifting global alignments, mobility and migration, digital infrastructures, and emerging inequalities influence the uses and perceptions of English worldwide.
In addition, there are seven Thematic Workshops also extending their Call:
(1) Exploring contemporary English(es) using the BSLVC database.
(2) English as a catalyst of change? Gender inclusivity, cross-linguistic dynamics, and colonial legacies.
(3) Comparing the incomparable – Exploring the synchronic relevance of historical sociolinguistic insights.
(4) Social variation and norms in Outer Circle Englishes.
(5) A matter of concord: English agreement across varieties and registers.
(6) When English is no longer a ‘foreign’ language – Signifiers, attitudes and didactic approaches.
(7) The applied linguistics of ELF communication.
Submit your proposals via https://conference3.aau.at/event/156/abstracts/ by 15th January 2026. The abstracts should conform to the template found HERE. The deadline is January 15, 2026. Notifications will be sent out by 15th March. All inquiries about the conference should be sent to biclce11@aau.at.

Submit your proposals via https://conference3.aau.at/event/156/abstracts/ by 15th January 2026. The abstracts should conform to the template found HERE. The deadline is January 15, 2026. Notifications will be sent out by 15th March.
All inquiries about the conference should be sent to biclce11@aau.at.

Keynote speakers: Daniel Davis, Maria Kuteeva, Marc Xu, Barbara Seidlhofer, and José Fajardo.

For all further information visit the conference website at: https://www.aau.at/en/english/conferences/biclce11.

We look forward to welcoming you in Klagenfurt!