37.1371, Confs: Speech Patterns and (Dis)fluency Markers: Insights from Spoken Corpora 2026 (Romania)

Thu Apr 9 09:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1371. Thu Apr 09 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1371, Confs: Speech Patterns and (Dis)fluency Markers: Insights from Spoken Corpora 2026 (Romania)

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Date: 08-Apr-2026
From: Monica Vasileanu [workshop.spocor at gmail.com]
Subject: Speech Patterns and (Dis)fluency Markers: Insights from Spoken Corpora 2026

Speech Patterns and (Dis)fluency Markers: Insights from Spoken Corpora
2026
Short Title: SpoCor 2026

Date: 09-Oct-2026 - 10-Oct-2026
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Meeting URL: https://phonic.ro/spocor-2026/

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics; Text/Corpus
Linguistics

Submission Deadline: 10-Jul-2026

For centuries, linguistics focused on written language as “the norm”,
and all features of language were studied based on written and often
constructed artificial examples. Spoken corpora have enabled a shift
in the way we view language, e.g. from a product-based to a
process-based view on grammar, from an inherently-fluent view on
communication to stipulating a fluency–disfluency continuum, from a
verbally-centred communication to a multimodal construction of
meaning.
Data from speech corpora complement experimental findings regarding
language processing and the way in which this differs in first versus
second language acquisition. Moreover, spoken corpora bring valuable
information regarding gender speech patterns, as well as age-based
variation. Furthermore, a growing body of multimodal research has
shown that speech and gesture form a tightly integrated system:
gestures are temporally aligned with speech, predominantly occur
during fluent stretches, and tend to be held or absent when speech
breaks down. This challenges the long-held assumption that gestures
primarily compensate for expressive difficulties and instead points to
a shared production mechanism in which disfluency affects both
modalities simultaneously. Multimodal spoken corpora allow us to
investigate these dynamics across languages, age groups, and levels of
linguistic competence.
For this second edition, we also turn our attention to the rapidly
evolving landscape of tools and technologies, including AI-assisted
transcription and annotation, that are reshaping how spoken corpora
are built and exploited. Beyond theoretical advances, research on
spoken corpora has growing implications for language teaching, speech
technology, and clinical applications.
Bringing together researchers working on speech data from Romanian and
other languages, we aim to discuss methodological challenges,
linguistic patterns, and discourse phenomena captured in spoken
corpora. We especially welcome cross-linguistic approaches, while also
allowing single-language studies.
During the workshop, we aim to address the following questions:
 - What are the distinctive grammatical, lexical, and pragmatic
features of spoken language? How do these features vary across speech
styles (e.g. in monologues vs. dialogues)?
 - How does spoken language vary across social, regional, and age
groups?
 - What is the role of (dis)fluencies in spontaneous speech?
 - What role does prosody play in the organization of spoken discourse
and in signaling pragmatic meaning?
 - What are the specific challenges of building spoken corpora for
under-resourced or lesser-described languages, including varieties of
Romanian?
 - How are AI-based tools (automatic speech recognition, forced
alignment, large language models) changing the way we build,
transcribe, and annotate spoken corpora? What are their limitations?
 - How can we ensure cross-corpus and cross-linguistic comparability
in the study of spoken language? What standards are needed?
 - How do speech planning and processing differ in native and
non-native language?
 - How can findings from spoken corpora inform language teaching,
assessment, and curriculum design?
 - How does gestural behaviour pattern in fluent vs. disfluent
stretches of speech, and what does this reveal about the integration
of speech and gesture as a unified system?
Keynote speaker: Cecilia Mihaela Popescu (University of Craiova &
Romanian Academy Institute of Linguistics "Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru
Rosetti")
Languages: English, French, Romanian
Conference fee: 60 € (300 RON); 20 € (100 RON) for students or online
participation
Venue: Casa Academiei, Calea 13 Septembrie nr. 13, 050711, Bucharest,
Romania (October 9, 2026) & Faculty of Letters, University of
Bucharest, Strada Edgar Quinet nr. 5, 010017, Bucharest (October 10,
2026)
Submission Guidelines:
Presentations will be allocated 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes for
discussion. The number of submissions is limited to one
single-authored and one co-authored abstract per author (or two
co-authored ones).
Abstracts no longer than 700 words (excluding references) should be
submitted in PDF format to workshop.spocor at gmail.com. Abstracts should
clearly state: the title of the papers, 5 key-words, the objectives of
the talk, type of data used and the methodology employed, main
findings followed by a brief discussion of the results. In-text
citations and references should follow APA style. To ensure
double-blind peer review, abstracts must be fully anonymized. Author
name(s) and affiliation(s) should appear only in the body of the
e-mail, not in the submitted abstract.
The workshop will be held in a hybrid format, with both on-site and
online participation options. While we strongly encourage in-person
attendance, online participation can be accommodated in specific
cases. The event offers a platform for sharing resources, tools, and
insights into the analysis of speech in real-life contexts.
Scientific Committee:
Ana-Maria Barbu (Romanian Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu
Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti”, Romania)
Verginica Barbu Mititelu (Romanian Academy Research Institute for
Artificial Intelligence “Mihai Drăgănescu”, Romania)
Malte Belz (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)
Roxana Ciolăneanu (Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa,
Portugal)
Mihaela Constantinescu (Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest,
Romania)
Ludivine Crible (Ghent University, Belgium)
Danilo De Salazar (University of Calabria, Italy)
Adina Dragomirescu (Romanian Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu
Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti”, Faculty of Letters, University of
Bucharest, Romania)
Ionuț Geană (Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romanian
Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti”,
Romania)
Mihaela Gheorghe (Transilvania University of Brașov, Romanian Academy
Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti”, Romania)
Loulou Kosmala (Université Paris-Est Créteil, France)
Carmen Mîrzea-Vasile (Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest,
Romanian Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru
Rosetti”, Romania)
Cecilia-Mihaela Popescu (Faculty of Letters, University of Craiova,
Romanian Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru
Rosetti”, Romania)
Răzvan Săftoiu (Transilvania University of Brașov, Romania)
Loredana Schettino (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)
Andra Vasilescu (Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romanian
Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti”,
Romania)
Daciana Vlad (Faculty of Letters, University of Oradea, Romania)
Rodica Zafiu (Romanian Academy, Romania)
Organizing Committee:
Oana Niculescu (Romanian Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu
Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti”, Faculty of Letters, University of
Bucharest, Romania)
Monica Vasileanu (Romanian Academy Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu
Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti”, Faculty of Letters, University of
Bucharest, Romania)
Bianca Alecu (Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romania)

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