Dear AILA IC colleagues,

Please see the update below, the Call for Papers deadline for BICLCE 2026 has been extended by two weeks, and colleagues are warmly encouraged to submit.

 

Dear colleagues!

 

We are pleased to announce that, due to popular demand, we have extended the Call for Papers deadline by two weeks for the Call of Papers for the 11^th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (BICLCE), to be held from 3^rd to 5^th 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.

 

We are pleased to announce the following keynote speakers:  Daniel Davis, Maria Kuteeva, Marc Xu, Barbara Seidlhofer, and José Fajardo.

This time, BICLCE11 comes with an additional thematic focus on “English in a geopolitically changing world”, motivated by the major changes the world has experienced in the last several years which may potentially influence how English is used and perceived internationally.  Therefore, we are happy to invite researchers to submit proposals addressing this topic in particular. Beyond this special theme, contributions related to English are also welcome in any of the following fields/areas: syntax, morphology, sociolinguistics, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, phonetics/phonology, applied linguistics, and more.

We invite proposals for contributions to the conference, either for the General Sessions or for one of seven Thematic Sessions:

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

For all sessions, we invite proposals for individual papers consisting of a 20-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of discussion.

Abstracts should clearly indicate the theoretical framework, the research question(s), elaborate data and methodology and discuss (expected) findings. The abstract should not exceed 300 words (excluding references). The abstract should be adapted to the Chicago Manual of Style (18^th edition), and be anonymized before its submission as they will undergo anonymous peer-review.

The abstracts should be submitted electronically and as either docx or pdf files, using the following template: https://conference3.aau.at/event/156/attachments/116/305/Template_BICLCE11.docx.

The author(s) should submit their abstract via https://conference3.aau.at/event/156/abstracts/.

The EXTENDED deadline is January 31^st, 2026. Notifications will be sent out by 15^th March.

Please forward this information to your colleagues, students and interested parties.

 

We look forward to welcoming you in Klagenfurt!

 

All the very best,

Nikola, for the BICLCE11 organization team

 

______________________________

Priv. Doz. Dr. Nikola Dobrić

Director of Doctoral Studies

Head of Klagenfurt Language Testing Centre

Co-chief Editor of Colloquium:New Philologies

Vice-Chair at European Commission