In 2026, the 12th Conference on Language, Discourse, and Cognition (CLDC 12) will be held from 1 to 2 May 2026 at National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan. This conference will be hosted by the Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Taiwan University.
The CLDC provides a forum for researchers interested in language, discourse, and cognition to present new findings, exchange innovative ideas, and share approaches across disciplines. Topics relevant to these areas, as well as interdisciplinary studies stimulated over the past years, have given rise to a growing body of critical insights, making CLDC an important event in the field of cognitive linguistics in East Asia.
Building on this tradition, studies presented at CLDC address languages from diverse perspectives in order to enrich dialogue across the cognitive sciences. For 2026, the special theme of the conference is Language across Minds: Diversity, Aging, and Digitization, highlighting how language is acquired, processed, and adapted across the lifespan, and how research on aging, bilingualism, ambiguity, and digitization opens new directions for the study of language and cognition.
General Theme: Cognitive Linguistics and Interdisciplinary Studies
CLDC 12 provides an international forum for scholars and researchers interested in language, discourse, and cognition. Following the tradition of previous CLDC meetings, CLDC 12 continues to emphasize the theme of “Cognitive Linguistics and Interdisciplinary Studies”, with the aim of exploring diverse issues concerning the interaction among cognition, language, and neighboring disciplines.
We invite submissions of original abstracts on topics including, but not limited to:
Cognitive Syntax
Cognitive Semantics
Cognitive Pragmatics
Cognitive Sociolinguistics
Corpus and Computational Linguistics
Linguistic Typology
Cognitive Linguistics and Interdisciplinary Studies (Psychology, Neuroscience, Biology, Cognitive Science, Speech Science,
Social Science, Computer Science, etc.)
Special Theme: Language across Minds: Diversity, Aging, and Digitization
CLDC 12 spotlights how language is acquired, processed, and adapted across the lifespan. This theme links research on linguistic diversity, semantic ambiguity, bilingualism, aging, cognitive reserve, digitization of languages, and the integration of insights from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, social sciences, and computational studies.
Anchored in this theme, the keynote addresses will reflect ongoing research in areas such as bilingualism and multilingual processing, psycholinguistic approaches to meaning and context, and cognitive linguistic perspectives on language and aging. Together, these perspectives underscore how language and cognition interact across different stages of life and in diverse communicative contexts.
Highlighted panels will further extend this focus, examining topics such as language-based cognitive interventions for healthy aging, as well as inclusive NLP, corpus building, and community partnerships that sustain linguistic diversity in the digital era.
Other areas of interest include form–meaning mapping, multilingual processing, neuro/behavioral methods, and model–human alignment. CLDC aims to catalyze collaboration, share open tools and datasets, and chart responsible, human-centered language technologies.
Prospective topics may include, but are certainly not limited to, the following areas:
Language aging, attrition, and cognitive reserve
Language-based interventions for communication in older adults
Bilingualism, cross-language interaction, and neurocognitive processing
Semantic ambiguity resolution, lexical meaning, and context in comprehension
Digitization and corpus construction for linguistic diversity
Inclusive NLP and digital approaches to language documentation
Multimodal and cross-disciplinary methods in language research
Human–machine comparisons in language processing and model–human alignment
The committee eagerly anticipates original, cutting-edge contributions that advance our understanding of language and cognition across the lifespan, while opening new directions for research on aging, diversity, and digitization.