Call and submission

Call for papers

Variation is a fundamental property of human language, and language learners face a dual task with respect to it: they must acquire stable linguistic knowledge and interpret utterances despite differences in speakers, accents, and linguistic forms, while simultaneously using those very same differences to gain insight into speakers’ social identities, regional backgrounds, and culturally specific communication norms. The Variation in Language Acquisition (ViLA) conference is an interdisciplinary forum bringing together researchers from across the language, cognitive, social, and educational sciences who are interested in how learners navigate variation during language acquisition (first or subsequent languages), especially as it relates to the interplay between linguistic knowledge and social knowledge/meaning.

The 7th edition of the conference will be held at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, on June 24–25, 2027.

Among the questions that the ViLA conference aims to tackle are the following:

  • How does the production, perception, and/or evaluation of socially meaningful variation emerge and develop? How is it mentally represented and processed?
  • How do variation/variability in learners’ input, for example, exposure to multiple languages, dialects, speakers, etc., shape language acquisition?
  • How do differences between learners (cognitive abilities, prior linguistic experience, age, and social environment) shape their sensitivity to, and use of, socially meaningful variation?
  • How do atypical learners (e.g., learners with DLD, autism) acquire and deploy socially meaningful variation, and what does this reveal about the mechanisms involved?
  • How do sociolinguistic and metalinguistic awareness develop, and what factors influence their development?

We welcome contributions across the full range of acquisition contexts, populations, and methods, including but not limited to:

  • Theory and methods: theoretical and computational models of the acquisition of variation; methods suited to eliciting production, perception, and evaluation of variation
  • Linguistic input and experience: sources of input (caregivers, peers, teachers, media, and wider community); exposure to multiple speakers, accents, languages, dialects, and registers; amount, variability, and distributional structure of input
  • Linguistic levels: phonetic/phonological, morphosyntactic, lexical, discourse-pragmatic
  • Learners and acquisition contexts: typically and atypically developing learners; monolingual learners; bilingual and bidialectal learners; second language learners (classroom, migration, study abroad); second-dialect learners; heritage language learners

Invited speakers

Submission guidelines

We invite abstracts for talks and posters by January 15, 2027 (note that the deadline will not be extended) through the submissions portal: https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/ViLA7/

Please use our template (https://vila7.sites.uu.nl/wp-content/uploads/sites/1338/2026/09/ViLA7_template.docx).

Abstracts should not exceed one page (maximum 500 words). An additional page may be used for figures, tables, and references only.

Important dates

Abstract submission opens: September 2026

Deadline for submission: January 15, 2027

Notification of acceptance: mid-February 2027

Conference: June 24–25, 2027