ISLE Summer School 2024

	The 2024 Summer School of the International Society for the Linguistics of English will take place between the 22nd and 27th of July 2024. It will be hosted by the Department of English of the University of Freiburg.   See here for a 15 min video on details of the Summer School 2024.
Image by kjpargeter on Freepik

Topic and overarching aim of this summer school:

English(es) as a Moving Target:

Exploring online data and online processing

This summer school aims to bring together innovative theoretical and methodological perspectives on online language, where ‘online’ can be interpreted in different, but complementary (and potentially intersecting) ways:

1. Focus on language use on the web (comprising, among other things, the specifics of computer-mediated discourse, computer-human interaction, hate speech, network modelling, identities and varieties on the web, etc.)
2. Focus on language processing in real time in the human mind: e.g., how do readers/listeners comprehend the incoming stream of language and integrate it with their pre-existing knowledge? How do writers/speakers plan, execute and amend the language production process, and how are all these processes modulated by variables like linguistic background (multilingualism, variety type, typological features of the language) and medium (e.g., face-to-face vs. electronic)?

These are the courses and the distinguished instructors that will form the heart of the Summer School:

•  Exploring cross-varietal diversity in online language comprehension

  Alice Blumenthal-Dramé (Freiburg)

• Language abuse in the digital age

  Isobelle Clarke (Lancaster)

• Studying linguistic innovation with online data

  Jack Grieve (Birmingham)

• Cognitive Construction Grammar and online processing

  Martin Hilpert (Neuchâtel)

• Englishes on the move: Focus on digital and diasporic settings

  Mirka Honkanen / Axel Bohmann (Freiburg)

• Digital social network analysis: Studying diffusion of innovation in online data

  Mikko Laitinen (Joensuu)

• Post-digital ethnography: Multimodality, mobility, and polymedia

Agnieszka Lyons (London)

• Visualizing forests, not trees: Aggregate varietal comparison

  John Nerbonne (Groningen)

Overall format of the ISLE 2024 Summer School:

• academic programme from 22-26 July:
• 8 full courses (7,5 contact hours): 2 all-online, 6 in-person (non-hybrid, but with attractive offers for online participants)
• 4 plenaries (60-90 minutes; hybrid, recorded)
• Alice Blumenthal-Dramé: “Operationalizing constructionhood in online processing research”
• Isobelle Clarke: “Comparing the discourses across anti-science websites”
• Jack Grieve: “The Language of Fake News”
• Mikko Laitinen: “Societal big data in English linguistics: Potential, limitations, and challenges”
• 3 panel discussions (90 minutes)
• “Research ethics” (Daria Dayter & Sofia Rüdiger)
• “Linguistics meets AI” (Jack Grieve, Lars Konieczny & John Nerbonne)
• “Online data, online processing and the future of English linguistics”
• expert consultancy for PhD students and postdocs (15-30 minute slots, online and in-person)
• poster sessions for PhD students

• social programme:
• interspersed elements during the week
• excursion / Black Forest hike: Saturday (27 July 2024)

Please note the application deadlines for

• bursaries (30 November 2023),
• early-bird registration (deadline extended to 31 January 2024), and
• reduced accommodation rates (deadline extended to 31 January 2024).

We look forward to welcoming you to our Summer School! 

For the programme, please click here.