2026 Summer School

The summer school will feature two advanced theoretical courses on language change, both with a focus on quantitative methods. The third course will be introductory and will focus on statistical methods of hypothesis testing, providing foundational knowledge and hands-on skills that are required when investigating language change in modern frameworks. Each day will end with a tutoring session.

1. Grammaticalization as language change from individual to community level (prof. dr. Freek Van de Velde, KU Leuven). 

This course will offer a closer look at how language change is studied at different levels, taking grammaticalization as a case study. It will begin with the concept of innovation, i.e. reanalysis, assuming that it takes place at the level of the individual, and discuss the traditional qualitative approaches to studying semantic and syntactic shifts. Subsequently, the course will bring into picture the propagation of changes across the community – generally the field of variationist linguistics, focusing on frequency shifts via quantitative methods. The case study of grammaticalization will serve to show that reanalysis and frequency shifts cannot be neatly separated. Lastly, the course will propose a method to operationalize the degree of grammaticalization, using large-scale historical corpora, and will also look at  individual behavior within the wider dynamics of communal language change.

2. Contact-induced language change (prof. dr. Kaius Sinnemäki, University of Helsinki)

In this course, an overview of the different theories about language contact and subsequent change is given together with the typological methods to study contact and adaptation, and how to create meaningful data samples for this. The course will teach the students how to decide what the relevant factors to collect data on are for their individual research projects (e.g. Kashima et al. 2023). The focus will be on a sociolinguistic approach but the discussion will also be opened up to other linguistic approaches (Sinnemäki et al. 2024, van Gijn et al. 2023). We will further learn how to create a suitable questionnaire for a contact study, mostly from a multivariate angle (e.g. Di Garbo et al. 2021). Lastly, the students will get an introduction on how to apply statistical methods to analyze such typological data for studying language contact.

3. Topics in statistical hypothesis testing  (Dr. Alena Witzlack-Makarevich, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem/University of Cologne)

This course focuses on the principles and practice of selecting appropriate statistical tests for different types of research data. Students will gain experience in matching research questions and datasets with suitable quantitative methods and in evaluating the assumptions underlying them. The course will also involve a hands-on component in which participants work with a selection of example datasets, drawn from the topics covered in courses I and II. They will be asked to consider the research questions that can be asked, operationalize them for hypothesis testing, select suitable statistical tests, justify their choices, run the tests using R, and interpret the result. By the end of the course, students will be equipped with foundational skills to navigate the process of choosing, applying, and interpreting statistical tests across a range of relevant research contexts.

4.  Tutoring sessions

A valued tradition of the summer school is the daily tutoring session at the end of each day. These sessions are designed to help participants consolidate and deepen the knowledge gained during the lectures by offering space to revisit the material, discuss concepts in detail, and clarify any remaining questions together with peers and lecturers. Participants also benefit from the opportunity to seek feedback from lecturers on their own research projects. This format not only strengthens understanding but also fosters peer-to-peer learning, collaboration, and exchange among linguists across diverse fields and career stages.

Conference

One day of the summer school is dedicated to a conference with presentations and a poster session, which forms an integral part of the program. This event gives participants the chance to present their research and receive constructive feedback in an encouraging setting. It underscores our focus on collaboration by enabling participants to refine their work through feedback, share research interests, engage in dialogue with peers, and establish new academic contacts.

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The summer school is primarily aimed at advanced MA and PhD students and early-career researchers in linguistics who wish to deepen their understanding of language change from both a theoretical and methodological perspective. The core audience includes students specializing in historical linguistics, areal linguistics, sociolinguistics, and typology, but the school is also relevant to participants from related fields such as corpus, experimental, and theoretical linguistics. While the focus of the courses is on the study of language change, the methodological training – particularly the course on statistical testing – will be of value to any participant seeking to strengthen their empirical toolkit for linguistic research more generally. For this reason, we expect to attract students from a wide range of linguistic backgrounds, including those whose work may not directly address diachrony but who wish to incorporate quantitative and corpus-based methods into their projects.

The summer school will take place at the “Inovatorių slėnis” (Innovators’ Valley) cultural hub in Antalieptė, a small charming village in northeastern Lithuania. Attendants of the summer school will be accommodated in one of two distinctive locations, each offering its own special appeal: 

• The “Medus” (“Honey”) laboratory: Spacious and cozy rooms (4-5 beds each) ensure a comfortable rest after a day of engaging lectures. This area is located in the same building where the lectures and coffee breaks take place, meaning it will be a lively and dynamic environment throughout the day.
• The Discalced Carmelites Monastery: More basic accommodation with rooms for 4–8 people. It provides an unforgettable atmosphere as it is a fascinating historic site which has served various purposes over the years. Besides having been a monastery, throughout history it has also served as an orphanage, a school, a military base, and an agricultural technical school. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served in the monastery.

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As you’ve probably gathered, participants will share rooms. Although this might make you remember times in a summer camp, this experience fosters a strong sense of community and creates opportunities for late-night linguistic discussions—if your roommates are up for it, of course! And if you are a fan of an active lifestyle, a morning swim in the pond might be just the thing you didn’t know you needed. There is also a lake 2 km away.

While there is a café in the monastery, full board (i.e. breakfast, lunch, and dinner) is provided by the organizers and included in the attendance fee. The food is hearty and tasty, rooted in the local cuisine and prepared with care and dedication by the Antalieptė locals. Vegan and vegetarian options will be available. If you have special dietary needs, please let us know in the registration form, and our cooks will do their best to accommodate you. There is also a shop in the village where you can buy basic food items, sweets, snacks, and drinks.

You can contact us by sending an email to info@academiasalensis.org. Follow us on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram), where we post news, photos and impressions from the summer school and conference.