Language Sciences Annual Symposium 2026: Language and Communication Across Boundaries

The CLS Symposium is an annual meeting of minds, bringing together language scientists from all disciplines across the University of Cambridge for an afternoon of talks, poster presentations, and informal networking. 

The theme of this year’s Symposium is 'Language and Communication Across Boundaries' focussing on how language and communication enable connections across social, cultural, cognitive, historical, and geographic divides, while exploring emerging research in increasingly diverse, multilingual, and multimodal contexts.

Event Programme

• 12:00 - 12:30 | Registration & Refreshments
• 12:30 - 12:35 | Welcome & Introductions 
• 12:35 - 13:15 | Research Talk 1: Professor Laura Wright, Professor of the History of the English Language (Cambridge)
• 13:15 - 13:55 | Research Talk 2: Dr Norma Schifano, Assistant Professor of Italian and Comparative Romance Linguistics (Cambridge) 
• 13:55 - 14:15 | Coffee Break & Networking
• 14:15 - 14:55 | Research Talk 3: Dr Elisabeth Norcliffe, Senior Research Fellow, Experimental Psychology (Oxford)
• 14:55 - 15:30 | Poster Slam - Part 1
• 15:30 - 16:15 | Poster Exhibition & Refreshments
• 16:15 - 16:55 | Research Talk 4: Dr Hannah Hobson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology (York)
• 16:55 - 17:35 | Research Talk 5: Dr Ariel Goldstein, Assistant Professor in Cognitive Science (Cambridge)
• 17:35 - 18:10 | Poster Slam - Part 2
• 18:15 - 19:30 | Posters & Drinks Reception

The call for posters is now closed. Accepted Posters will be presented in person at the Symposium on 19 November and hosted on the Cambridge University Press Open Engage platform. 

Poster Session Organisers: Ruchen Yu: ry328@cam.ac.uk and Oliver Dallas (DTAL)

We gratefully acknowledge the support of Cambridge University Press & Assessment in making this event possible.