37.1470, Confs: New Ways of Analyzing Variation 54 (Canada)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1470. Fri Apr 17 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1470, Confs: New Ways of Analyzing Variation 54 (Canada)

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Date: 16-Apr-2026
From: Julie Auger [julie.auger.4 at umontreal.ca]
Subject: New Ways of Analyzing Variation 54


New Ways of Analyzing Variation 54
Short Title: NWAV 54
Theme: Voices in motion: Migration, contact, and minority
communities/Les voix en mouvement: migration, contact et communautés
minoritaires

Date: 22-Oct-2026 - 24-Oct-2026
Location: Montréal, Canada
Meeting URL: https://nwav54.org

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

Submission Deadline: 01-Jun-2026

The organizing committee of New Ways of Analyzing Variation 54 (NWAV
54) invites abstract submissions for the conference to be held at the
Université de Montréal from October 22 to 24, 2026.
Since its first meeting in 1972, NWAV has served as a major
international forum for research on language variation and change. The
conference brings together scholars interested in understanding how
linguistic practices vary across speakers, communities, and social
contexts, and how such variation contributes to processes of
linguistic change. Over the past five decades, NWAV has become a
central venue for empirical, theoretical, and methodological
innovation in sociolinguistics.
Montréal provides an especially rich setting for these conversations.
As a multilingual metropolis shaped by longstanding contact between
French and English and by successive waves of migration, the city
offers a dynamic sociolinguistic landscape in which mobility, contact,
and linguistic diversity play a central role. Montréal has also played
an important role in the development of variationist sociolinguistics,
with influential research conducted in the city contributing to the
empirical and theoretical foundations of the field.
Reflecting this context, the theme “Voices in Motion: Migration,
Contact, and Minority Communities” highlights the role of mobility and
social diversity in shaping linguistic practices. We particularly
encourage submissions examining how variation emerges and evolves in
contexts of migration, language contact, minority language
communities, and sociopolitical transformation.
Plenary Sessions:
 - Heather Burnett, Université Paris Cité
 - Philip Comeau, Université Sainte-Anne
 - Derek Denis, University of Toronto Mississauga
 - Marie-Claude L’Homme et Yvette Mollen, Université de Montréal
Topics of interest include
 - sociolinguistic variation and language change
 - multilingualism and language contact
 - dialect contact and new dialect formation
 - linguistic practices in minority and heritage language communities
 - migration, mobility, and linguistic diversity
 - sociophonetics and socially embedded phonetic variation
 - grammatical variation
 - stylistic variation, stance, and identity
 - language and gender
 - corpus-based and computational approaches to variation
 - ethnographic and community-centered sociolinguistic research
 - the teaching of sociolinguistics
We particularly welcome submissions that bring variationist
perspectives into dialogue with related areas of inquiry, including
linguistic anthropology, sociophonetics, corpus linguistics,
linguistic ethnography, and computational approaches to language.
Graduate students and early-career researchers are especially
encouraged to submit abstracts.
Abstract Guidelines:
Abstracts must not exceed 500 words. References, examples, tables, and
figures may be included on additional pages and do not count toward
the word limit.
All abstracts must be fully anonymized and should not contain any
identifying information about the author(s).
Abstracts may be submitted in English or French. Authors are welcome
to include an optional second version of their abstract in another
language for inclusion in the conference program.
Submission Types:
Regular Papers and Posters
Both papers and posters will be presented in person and will include
time for discussion.
The standard presentation format will be 10 minutes followed by 5
minutes of discussion. A limited number of presentations may be
scheduled in a 20-minute format at the discretion of the program
committee. Authors do not need to indicate a preferred presentation
length.
Project Launch
Project Launch submissions provide an opportunity for researchers to
present the early stages of a research project and receive feedback
from the NWAV community. This format is particularly well suited for
graduate students and early-career researchers. All Project Launch
presentations will take place in poster format to facilitate
discussion and interaction.
Special Sessions
Proposals for themed sessions are welcome, particularly those aligned
with the theme of the conference. A special session proposal should
include:
 - an abstract describing the proposed session
 - an abstract for each individual paper included in the session
Proposals should be submitted as a single PDF file, with each abstract
on a separate page.
Individual paper abstracts must remain anonymized. The session
description itself may include identifying information if necessary
for evaluation.
Prospective organizers of special sessions are encouraged to contact
the organizing committee at: nwav54 at ling.umontreal.ca
Submission Limits:
Each author may submit:
 - one single-authored and one co-authored abstract, or
 - two co-authored abstracts
This limit applies across all presentation types.
Submission Platform:
Abstracts will be submitted through Oxford Abstracts. The submission
portal will open on May 1, 2026 and will close on June 1, 2026
(11:59pm EDT).
NWAV 54 is committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful
scholarly environment. We welcome submissions from researchers at all
career stages and from all regions of the world, and we particularly
encourage proposals from those working with underrepresented
communities and languages. We look forward to welcoming scholars from
around the world to Montreal and to continuing NWAV’s long-standing
tradition as a vibrant forum for scholarly exchange on linguistic
variation and change.



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