Call for Abstracts: Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning (X-PPL) 2025

The Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning Workshop (X-PPL) brings together the growing community of researchers working to expand the diversity of languages in the scope of psycholinguistics and the neuroscience of language. The research of this community is driven by the recognition that structural/typological and socio-cultural diversity provides important and unique opportunities to see language processing and language learning mechanisms at work and to gain deeper insights into the balance between universal and varying dimensions of these mechanisms. The bulk of processing and acquisition research represents only a small fraction of linguistic diversity, which risks biasing both our theories and our research questions.

The Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning Workshop (X-PPL) aims to overcome this bias and to fill a gap in the conference landscape by providing a platform for cross-linguistic research on language processing and learning.  

X-PPL 2025 will be hosted by the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution at the University of Zurich, and will take place on September 1 and 2, 2025.

• Sudha Arunachalam (New York University)
• Lars Meyer (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences & University Hospital Münster)

X-PPL 2025 will be held onsite in Zurich, Switzerland. However, it will be possible to accommodate a *limited* number of online talks (in a hybrid format). To make X-PPL 2025 accessible to researchers all over the world, we will stream all talks and discussions. However, we strongly encourage presenters and attendees to be present in Zurich to enhance networking opportunities and foster scientific exchange.

We invite contributions for 20-minute talks on the interface of linguistic diversity and language processing (encompassing production and comprehension), and language learning with the goal of understanding linguistic ontogeny (first language acquisition) and phylogeny (typological diversification, structural evolution). We also invite abstracts on (a) methodological, cultural or other issues that research on language processing and learning outside of the lab might encounter or (b) plans for cross-linguistic work (see below). 

Specifically, we invite contributions presenting new evidence on:

• Whether and how grammars are shaped by (cognitive and neurobiological) constraints on processing and learning, and by external pressures
• Whether and how the different grammatical properties of linguistic systems shape processing and learning strategies

We welcome in particular:

• Experimental and observational studies on under-researched languages providing implications for processing and acquisition theories
• Studies examining production, comprehension, or (L1) developmental phenomena in one or more language(s) that were chosen for their grammatical characteristics
• Studies providing processing-based or learning-based explanations of language change and typological distributions

In addition, there are several factors that make cross-linguistic and fieldwork-based research particularly challenging. Therefore, we also welcome abstracts that address:

• Methodological issues which may be specific to cross-linguistic processing and acquisition research (such as small to non-existent corpora resources, varying literacy levels among speakers, participants who aren’t familiar with experiments/technology, etc.), and the solutions which researchers have found to address these issues
• Methods for processing corpus and experimental data for psycholinguistic goals in low-resource languages

We also invite abstracts on plans for experimental cross-linguistic work that the presenters would like to get feedback on, such as from researchers new to experimental cross-linguistic work that may particularly benefit from the expertise of the community.

https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/X-PPL2025/

Abstracts should be submitted as a single PDF and should not exceed 500 words or one A4 page, 12 pt font size (plus one optional additional page for interlinear-glossed examples, references, and figures). The language(s) studied should be mentioned in the abstract. The organizing committee will then select contributions for 20 min talks.

Enquiries can be sent to x-ppl AT isle.uzh.ch.