37.757, Confs: ESSLLI 2026 Workshop - Referring Expression Choice in Grounded Contexts: Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Aspects (Czech Republic)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-757. Wed Feb 25 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.757, Confs: ESSLLI 2026 Workshop - Referring Expression Choice in Grounded Contexts: Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Aspects (Czech Republic)

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Date: 22-Feb-2026
From: Louise McNally [louise.mcnally at upf.edu]
Subject: ESSLLI 2026 Workshop - Referring Expression Choice in Grounded Contexts: Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Aspects


ESSLLI 2026 Workshop - Referring Expression Choice in Grounded
Contexts: Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Aspects
Short Title: CORE Project Workshop @ESSLLI 2026

Date: 03-Aug-2026 - 07-Aug-2026
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Contact: Louise McNally
Contact Email: louise.mcnally at upf.edu
Meeting URL: https://www.upf.edu/web/glif/esslli2026-workshop

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Computational Linguistics;
Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics; Semantics

Submission Deadline: 31-Mar-2026

Workshop Description:
When we refer to entities and events in our environment, particularly
(but not only) when visual information is present, we have choices.
Depending on what has been said before, who or what else is in a
scene, and the characteristics of what we want to refer to, we might
say (among many other options) "the person running", "the runner",
"the woman in the red shirt", "the one with the glasses", or "them
over there". The extent of this variation in referring expression (RE)
choice has become evident in recent large-scale datasets (Monroe et
al. 2017, Silberer et al. 2020, He et al. 2023).
Some of the factors influencing some kinds of choices in RE use have
been amply studied – for example, between full noun phrases and
shorter expressions involving demonstratives or pronouns (Gundel et
al. 1993 and much later work), or between noun phrases with and
without modification (e.g., Degen et al. 2020, Rubio-Fernandez and
Jara-Ettinger 2020, and literature cited there). Others have received
less attention – these include choices among noun phrases that reflect
different levels of taxonomic granularity ("dog" vs. "husky", Graf et
al. 2016, Kobrock et al. 2024, Liang and Liao 2024), choices arising
from the cross-classifiability of referents (woman vs. runner,
Mädebach et al. 2022, Gualdoni et al. 2023), choices based on salience
or contrast (Clarke et al. 2013, Rubio-Fernández 2024, Bolea et al. to
appear) or options for referring to individuals based on what they are
doing or the scenes they appear in ("person running" vs. "runner",
Tagliaferri et al. 2023), sometimes with the goal of producing
particular sorts of causal inferences (Sasaki et al. 2025).
The goals of this workshop are 1) to further document and gain insight
into the range of this variation; 2) to highlight its relevance for
semantic/pragmatic theory, for theories of language and cognition, and
for the use of language in computation; and 3) to promote
communication and synergies between researchers at the interfaces of
linguistics, cognitive science, and computation who have studied
different aspects of referring expression choice in grounded contexts.
We welcome contributions on the following and other related questions:
 - Cognitive biases that influence tendencies in RE choice in grounded
contexts.
 - The role of contrast in RE choice.
 - The role of the specific available linguistic alternatives and
alternative-based reasoning in influencing RE choice.
 - The information load a referring expression has to bear given
extralinguistic sources of information in the context, especially
visual information.
 - Lexical/constructional effects and association strength between RE
options and the referent in question.
 - RE variability and language change
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts should be at most two pages in 12pt font (plus up to one
extra page for data and references). Since we want to promote
participation and discussion and no proceedings will be published,
workshop submissions are not limited to unpublished work. We welcome
proposals for both long (30 min. + discussion) and short (15 min. +
discussion) presentations. We also plan to devote one day to a poster
session accompanied by lightening talks. Please indicate on your
abstract which type(s) of participation you are interested in.
Submission Deadline: March 31, 2026. Submission is through Open Review
at: https://openreview.net/group?id=ESSLLI.eu/2026/Workshop/CORE
Contact Email: louise.mcnally at upf.edu
Important Dates:
Deadline for abstract submission:  March 31, 2026
Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2026
Workshop dates: August 3-7, 2026
Workshop URL: https://www.upf.edu/web/glif/esslli2026-workshop
ESSLLI 2026 URL: https://2026.esslli.eu



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