8th LRI Workshop for Early-Career Researchers

Oral Communication and Plurilingualism

Merano/Meran, 11-12 June 2026

Call for Papers

Each Linguistic Colloquium workshop has a specific topic of interest. The 8th edition will address topics related to oral communication and plurilingualism. In contexts characterised by territorial multilingualism and/or increasing levels of linguistic diversity, language manifests itself as a complex dialogical process involving multiple resources – registers, varieties, and discourses – which speakers select to engage in processes of meaning-making, identity negotiation, and to act upon their realities. With this in mind, we welcome contributions that deal with orality and spoken language, focusing in particular on oral communication in connection with:

• communicative acts within a specific genre of private or institutional communication, e.g., family talk, communication at school and university, with public authorities, medical practitioners, etc.;
• the linguistic features of spoken language from a phonetic-phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactical, pragmatic, or interactional point of view; this may also include the contrast between different languages and varieties or between spoken and written languages;
• the teaching and learning of oral competences in formal and informal contexts;
• the positioning of speakers from a sociolinguistic or variational linguistic perspective;
• translanguaging and mediation practices among plurilingual speakers in private or institutional settings;
• oral communication and spoken language in experiences of mobility and migration;
• methodological, epistemological and/or ontological challenges in research on oral communication and spoken language.

Different languages and varieties in the Alpine region will provide the focal points of the workshop; however, the workshop is also open to related topics and projects, including overarching dimensions such as language ideologies and Artificial Intelligence in connection with spoken language and orality.

Conference venue:

Academy of German-Italian Studies, Villa San Marco, Merano/Meran (Italy)

Keynote speakers:

Katrijn Maryns (Universiteit Gent)
Fabiana Fazzi (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia)

Submission of abstracts:

If you are interested in presenting your research project at the workshop, submit your anonymised abstract of max. 500 words (references excluded) via ConfTool.
Deadline for abstract submission: 15th January 2026

All dates at a glance:

Presentation types:

Oral presentation (20 minutes speaking time plus 20 minutes discussion time), poster presentation (including 3 minutes teaser presentation).

Workshop format:

The aim of the workshop is to facilitate constructive discussion of the projects presented. For this purpose, there will be 20 minutes of discussion time after each presentation.  Posters will be presented in small groups to promote deeper discussion and exchange.

Languages:

LRI workshops are multilingual. We welcome presentations in German, English, and Italian.

Fees:

None, meals on own account.

Local organizers:

Aivars Glaznieks, Eurac Research Bolzano, Italy
Marta Guarda, Eurac Research Bolzano, Italy
Giorgia Andreolli, Eurac Research Bolzano, Italy
Stephanie Risse, Free University of Bolzano, Italy
Mara Maya Victoria Leonardi, Free University of Bolzano, Italy

International organizers:

Monika Dannerer, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Andrea Ender, University of Salzburg, Austria
Peter Mauser, University of Salzburg, Austria
Claudia Maria Riehl, University of Munich, Germany
Prof. Dr. Regula Schmidlin, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Contact: lri@eurac.edu