About the conference

The 18th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC18) will take place at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg from 20-24 August 2027 with pre-conference workshops from the 18th to the 20th and post-conference excursions on the 25th.

The ICLC is the leading biennial meeting in Cognitive Linguistics (CL), bringing together researchers from around the world to present new research on the relationship between language and cognition, exchange ideas, and discuss emerging theoretical and methodological developments and challenges.

The conference is jointly organized by the Department of English and American Studies and the DFG Research Training Group Dimensions of Constructional Space. The special theme of ICLC18 is "Exploring constructional and cognitive space". It brings together approaches to linguistic knowledge as networks of cognitively entrenched form-meaning pairings and explorations of cognitive space. The theme invites dialogue across theoretical frameworks and methodologies, including corpus-based and experimental approaches, while welcoming contributions from all areas of CL. Our confirmed plenary speakers are:

• Adele Goldberg, University of Princeton
• Remi van Trijp, Sony Computer Science Lab Paris
• Katrien Beuls, Université de Namur
• Aslı Özyürek, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
• Ev Fedorenko, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Ping Andrew Li, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• Erin Wilkinson, University of New Mexico

All information on the conference can be found on the official website https://www.iclc18.fau.de/.

For conference participation there is no requirement to be an ICLA member, but members will receive a substantial reduction in the conference fees. (More information on registration and member signup via the ICLA website can be found on the conference homepage). The language of the conference is English.

We invite submissions presenting research on any aspect of language and cognition. Topics may address any area of CL, including, but not limited to, the following:

• applied linguistics and pedagogy
• cognitive grammar
• cognitive phonetics and phonology
• cognitive semiotics
• cognitive sociolinguistics
• cognitive typology
• constructicography
• construction grammar
• corpus linguistics
• discourse analysis
• frame semantics
• language acquisition
• language change and grammaticalization
• language evolution
• language processing
• metaphor and metonymy
• motion and space
• multimodality
• neurolinguistics
• pragmatics and cognition
• prototypes and categorization
• sign language research
• translation and cognition

Call for papers

Theme Sessions:

Theme sessions can be 6 to 10 papers + 2 (intro and/or discussion).

There are two stages for submissions for a theme session. First, theme session organizers should submit their theme session proposals directly to the conference organizers at the following address by October 15, 2026: conference-iclc18@fau.de

Theme session proposals should include: the session title, the name and affiliation of the theme session organizer(s), an introduction of up to 400 words (excluding examples and references) explaining the theme, as well as a list of the authors and titles of the individual papers, and all abstracts of the papers in the proposed theme session (100 words each) in a suitable order.

We strongly encourage diversity at the level of the affiliations involved in the theme session. We also encourage theme session organizers to take other diversity aspects into account, e.g. by aiming at a good gender balance. The acceptance of theme session proposals will be announced on the 1st of November, 2026.

Once a theme session has been accepted as a whole, individual theme session authors will need to submit their full abstracts for review, following the same guidelines of submission and anonymous peer review for general and poster sessions described below. Papers need to be individually accepted in order to be part of a theme session. In case the theme session is not accepted, authors are free to submit their papers for the general session. If the theme session organizers are unable to fill 1 or 2 presentation slots in their proposal, papers may be added later in the general round.

General Session and Poster Session:

Abstracts for (oral) sessions and poster presentations are to be submitted through our abstract submission page, following the guidelines below. On the submission page you are asked to state whether the paper should be considered for oral session only, poster session only, or both.

There you also have to indicate if the paper should be part a themed session. The deadline for abstract submission is the 1st of December, 2026.

Each presentation slot in the general session will be 25 minutes long, including questions and discussions (20 minutes of presentation + 5 minutes for questions and discussion).

Posters will be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions, and will be thematically organized in terms of time and space of display.

Submission guidelines

Abstract submissions will be handled via our homepage starting mid October 26.

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words (excluding examples and references). Graphics, tables and figures are permitted but the abstract should not exceed 3 pages. Abstracts should provide a title of the paper and up to 5 keywords, be written in font 12, line spacing 1,15 and should be submitted as pdfs. Author names should not appear anywhere in the text (you may cite yourself as [Author] or in the third person for previously published work). Theme session authors should make sure to note the title of the theme session at the top of their abstracts. References should be formatted according to the Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics.

Each author may submit a maximum of one single-authored paper and one first-authored paper (or two first-authored papers), regardless of whether they are intended for the general, poster, or theme session. Details on the submission and registration process will follow in a separate call.

Important Dates

• Deadline for theme session proposals: 15.10.2026
• Notification of acceptance of theme session proposals: 01.11.2026
• Deadline for abstract submission: 01.12.2026
• Notification of acceptance: ~ 15.03.2027
• Date of conference: August 20-24, 2027

Please direct all enquiries to conference-iclc18@fau.de.

ICLC18 Organizing Committee

Lotte Sommerer (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)

Peter Uhrig (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)