The 16th Linguistic Landscape Workshop: “Spaces of collapse and transformation”

Since the first international meeting convened in Tel Aviv in 2008, the annual Linguistic Landscape Workshop established itself as the leading conference for interdisciplinary research on language in public space. The 2025 conference theme “Spaces of collapse and transformation” aims to address the dynamics of transformations that unfold in societies trending toward collapse through war, poverty, overexploitation of resources, environmental destruction, etc. Collapse and transformation are concepts addressed by scholars working in various disciplines. And in the focus of LL research are transformative socio-spatial practices that push us to consider uncomfortable challenges facing humanity, opportunities for structural change, critical points where the survival of humanity is threatened, as well as new ideas, values, and technologies that potentially enable us to avoid variations of collapse. Please note, however, that LL16 also welcomes contributions which address other topics of relevance to the field.

We invite you to submit your abstract no later than 1 December 2024. Paper and poster abstracts should be no more than 300 words (specifying theoretical and analytical approaches as well as data under investigation), not including references. We also invite a limited number of panels which comprise five 30-min slots and a 30-min discussion. Panel outlines should be no more than 500 words, not including 150-word abstracts and references. The official language of the conference is English. All submissions are managed on ConfTool: https://www.conftool.com/ll16-ude

The conference is traditionally preceded by a workshop programme on 2 September 2025. The workshop “Disorienting encounters in/with semiotic landscapes” is facilitated by Dr. Sean P. Smith and Dr. Natasha Volvach. It is open to all and can be attended independent of the LL16 conference.