37.1610, Summer Schools: The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language Processing (Spain)

Wed Apr 29 15:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1610. Wed Apr 29 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1610, Summer Schools: The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language Processing (Spain)

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Date: 29-Apr-2026
From: ِAmal Haddad Haddad [amalhaddad at ugr.es]
Subject: The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language Processing

The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language
Processing

Host Institution: Universidad de Alicante
Website: https://summer-school.gplsi.es

Dates: 11-Jun-2026 - 12-Jun-2026
Location: Alicante, Spain

Minimum Education Level: PhD and MA

Focus: Natural Language Processing (NLP) has witnessed a clear
paradigm shift: the transition from rule-based approaches to
data-driven language models. While rule-based approaches dominated NLP
for many years, during the 1990s and early 2000s they gradually gave
way to statistical and machine-learning methods. It would be fair to
say that data-driven models—and, most prominently, Deep Learning (DL),
including more recently Large Language Models (LLMs)—have taken the
world by storm. Deep Learning models are now used almost everywhere,
across nearly every discipline, and Natural Language Processing is no
exception. DL has proved highly promising so far, delivering
improvements for almost every NLP task and application. However, as
observed on numerous occasions, the outputs of DL models are not
always ideal, with some studies reporting cases in which
machine-learning approaches do not necessarily outperform the
‘old-fashioned’ rule-based ones.
The overarching theme of the summer school will be this paradigm
shift, with lectures and practical sessions reflecting the latest
trends at both theoretical and practical levels. More specifically,
the programme will combine lectures focusing on theoretical
foundations with hands-on practical sessions. See the confirmed
lectures below.
The summer school will be ideal for both newcomers and experienced
professionals in NLP, computer science, data science, cybersecurity,
corpus linguistics, language technologies, and related disciplines,
offering a unique opportunity to deepen expertise and engage with the
rapidly evolving world of LLMs.
Description:
The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language
Processing
International Summer School
Alicante, Spain, 15, 16 and 17 June 2026
https://summer-school.gplsi.es
Third Call for Participation
Natural Language Processing (NLP) has witnessed a clear paradigm
shift: the transition from rule-based approaches to data-driven
language models. While rule-based approaches dominated NLP for many
years, during the 1990s and early 2000s they gradually gave way to
statistical and machine-learning methods. It would be fair to say that
data-driven models—and, most prominently, Deep Learning (DL),
including more recently Large Language Models (LLMs)—have taken the
world by storm. Deep Learning models are now used almost everywhere,
across nearly every discipline, and Natural Language Processing is no
exception. DL has proved highly promising so far, delivering
improvements for almost every NLP task and application. However, as
observed on numerous occasions, the outputs of DL models are not
always ideal, with some studies reporting cases in which
machine-learning approaches do not necessarily outperform the
‘old-fashioned’ rule-based ones.
The overarching theme of the summer school will be this paradigm
shift, with lectures and practical sessions reflecting the latest
trends at both theoretical and practical levels. More specifically,
the programme will combine lectures focusing on theoretical
foundations with hands-on practical sessions. See the confirmed
lectures below.
The summer school will be ideal for both newcomers and experienced
professionals in NLP, computer science, data science, cybersecurity,
corpus linguistics, language technologies, and related disciplines,
offering a unique opportunity to deepen expertise and engage with the
rapidly evolving world of LLMs.
Keynote speech: Roberto Navigli, ‘Is Lexical Semantics Dead in the LLM
Era?’
We are delighted to announce Roberto Navigli (Sapienza University of
Rome) as keynote speaker of the summer school who will deliver a
keynote speech ‘Is Lexical Semantics Dead in the LLM Era?’
Summer school programme
The summer school programme will feature the following lectures:
Invited lecture
‘Quantum Natural Language Processing: Foundations, Challenges, and
Insights’
Ellena Lloret (University of Alicante)
‘Explainable AI in Natural Language Processing’
Salima Lamsiyah (University of Luxembourg)
‘Quality Estimation for Machine Translation’
Tharindu Ranasinghe (Lancaster University)
‘Understanding Language Models’
Hansi Hettiarachchi (Lancaster University)
‘LLMs for low-resource languages’
Robiert Sepúlveda Torres and Iván Martínez (University of Alicante)
‘Fairness in Machine Learning: Evaluating Gender Bias in LLMs’
Juan Pablo Consuegra-Ayala (University of Alicante)
‘Gaze data for NLP research: recording methods and analysis’
Cengiz Acarturk (Jagiellonian University)
‘Beyond the Single Text: NLP Reading in Digital Humanities’
Isuri Anuradha (Lancaster University)
‘Automatic hyperparameter optimisation and model selection for NLP
pipelines’
Ernesto Luis Estevanell (University of Alicante)
‘Legal NLP in the LLM era’
Damith Premasiri (Lancaster University)
‘Machine Translation for Low-Resource Languages’
Alicia Picazo-Izquierdo (University of Alicante)
‘Sentiment analysis: from rule-based methods to Large Language Models’
Maram Alharbi (Lancaster University)
Panel discussion
A panel discussion ‘The future of NLP methods and language models’ is
scheduled as part of the summer school
(https://summer-school.gplsi.es/panel/). The panel will be
hosted/moderated by Ruslan Mitkov (Lancaster University and University
of Alicante) and will include contributions from
Roberto Navigli (Sapienza University of Rome)
Elena Lloret (University of Alicante)
Tharindu Ranasinghe (Lancaster University)
Salima Lamsiyah (University of Luxembourg)
Nasredine Semar (CEA)
Yoan Gutiérrez Vázquez (University of Alicante)
Gražina Korvel (Vilnius University)
Venue, dates and accommodation
The summer school will take place at the Research Institute of
Informatics of the University of Alicante and will take place on 15,
16 and 17 June 2026. See the summer school website for recommended
accommodation options (prospective participants are advised to book
accommodation at their earliest convenience, as availability is
limited) or more details in general.
Summer School Directors
Tharindu Ranasinghe (University of Lancaster)
Salima Lamsiyah (University of Luxembourg)
Summer School Chair
Ruslan Mitkov (University of Alicante)
Advisory Committee
Manuel Palomar Sanz (University of Alicante)
Rafael Muñoz Guillena (University of Alicante)
Andrés Montoyo Guijarro (University of Alicante)
Organising Committee
Raúl García Cerdá (University of Alicante)
Alicia Picazo Izquierdo (University of Alicante)
Ernesto Luis Estevanell (University of Alicante)
Maram Alharbi (Lancaster University)
Registration
Registration can be completed at
https://summer-school.gplsi.es/registration/. Kindly note that
early-bird registration closes on 25 May 2026.
Related events
The summer school will follow the second international conference
Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence (NLPAICS’2026)
which will take place in Alicante on 11 and 12 June 2026
(https://nlpaics2026.gplsi.es). Those who register for both events
will benefit from a discounted registration fee.

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics

Registration Open until 10-Jun-2026

Apply by Email: summer-school at dlsi.ua.es
Apply on the web: https://summer-school.gplsi.es

Registration Instructions:
Registration
Registration can be completed at
https://summer-school.gplsi.es/registration/. Kindly note that
early-bird registration closes on 25 May 2026.

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1610
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