The George Washington University welcomed more than 100 linguists, educators, and researchers to its Washington, DC campus in early May for the 38th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-38), a gathering that underscored just how deeply artificial intelligence has reshaped the study of language.
Held from May 8–10, 2026, and organized by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, the conference drew 127 participants from 92 institutions across 18 countries and regions on five continents. This reflects both NACCL's standing as the premier North American platform for Chinese linguistics research and the global urgency of its chosen theme: Chinese Language and Linguistics in the Age of AI.
"Debates on modern linguistics and its relation to AI go back decades," the conference organizers noted in their program materials, "but recent breakthroughs have created new challenges and opportunities for the field." Those challenges were on full display throughout the three-day program, which opened with a pair of workshops, led by Dr. Lara Bryfonski of Georgetown University (pictured on left) and Dr. Bronson Hui of the University of Maryland, College Park. They offered hands-on training in applying AI tools to linguistics research, from qualitative and quantitative analysis to systematic review and meta-research. The practical focus set the tone for a conference that was as concerned with methodology as with theory.
The conference featured four distinguished plenary speakers who are internationally recognized leaders at the forefront of linguistics and AI research. Together, they represented a diverse range of academic fields, including computational linguistics, corpus linguistics, pragmatics, second language acquisition and pedagogy, phonetics and phonology. Their presentations highlighted recent advances in these areas while demonstrating how artificial intelligence is transforming research methodologies and opening new directions for the study of language. By bringing together expertise from both the language sciences and computer science, the plenary talks promoted interdisciplinary dialogue, encouraged collaboration across fields, and inspired participants to explore innovative approaches to linguistic research in the age of AI.
Three keynote addresses anchored the main program. Dr. Chu-Ren Huang of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (pictured on right) explored what large language models reveal about the nature of language. Dr. Rebecca Hwa, a computer scientist at GWU, examined how symbolism and meaning create challenges for LLMs, bridging the disciplinary gap between linguistics and computer science. Dr. Hongyin Tao of UCLA delivered a keynote talk on multimodal technology and its applications to second-language teaching. A special guest address by Dr. Marjorie K. M. Chan of The Ohio State University on generative AI and its application to research on affective speech prosody closed the conference plenary sessions on May 10.
Beyond the plenary sessions, 115 presenters delivered 86 individual talks and 24 posters, spanning phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, and language pedagogy. The participant pool was notably diverse in career stage: 61 graduate students attended alongside 58 faculty and postdoctoral researchers, as well as undergraduates and independent scholars.
Geographically, the conference stretched well beyond North America. While the United States contributed the largest share of institutions at 45 including major research universities such as Harvard, MIT, UCLA, and University of Hawai‘i, China was represented by 14 universities including Peking University and Zhejiang University, Taiwan by 8 including National Taiwan University and National Tsing Hua University, and there were talks and posters representing researchers from as far as Morocco, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Ireland. In all, institutions from Europe, East Asia, Oceania, Africa, and the Americas were featured at this conference.
Attendee responses in the days after the conference were effusive. "The conference was exceptionally well organized," wrote one participant, "and I had a wonderful experience attending the presentations, workshops, and discussions throughout the weekend." Another described it as "intellectually engaging and welcoming," while a third said that it was "a great honor to present my paper and share my research with fellow scholars in the field." These words are representative of the overall atmosphere of the conference, which proved to be a great success in terms of its logistical organization, academic programming, and scholarly exchange. The event was marked by smooth coordination across all operational aspects, a rich and well-curated program of presentations, and a vibrant intellectual environment that fostered meaningful discussions among participants. Taken together, these elements contributed to a highly productive and collegial conference experience.
NACCL-38 was supported by several units within GWU, including the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the East Asia National Resources Center, the Chinese Arts and Humanities Initiative, and the Taiwan Education and Research Program. Conference proceedings are expected to be published in November 2026.