The 11th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (BICLCE) will be held between 3rd and 5th July 2026 at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria).
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 Sessions also extending their Call:
- Exploring contemporary English(es) using the BSLVC database
- English as a catalyst of change? Gender inclusivity, cross-linguistic dynamics, and colonial legacies
- Comparing the incomparable – Exploring the synchronic relevance of historical sociolinguistic insights
- Social variation and norms in Outer Circle Englishes
- A matter of concord: English agreement across varieties and registers
- When English is no longer a ‘foreign’ language – Signifiers, attitudes and didactic approaches
- The applied linguistics of ELF communication
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 (18th edition), and be anonymized before its submission as they will undergo anonymous peer-review. The abstracts should be submitted as either docx or pdf files.
The author(s) should submit their abstract via this page. The EXTENDED deadline is January 31st, 2026. Notifications will be sent out by 15th March. All inquiries about the conference should be sent to biclce11@aau.at not through the platform used for the abstract submission stage.