Sociolinguistics and AI: Approaches, Themes and Insights

CALL FOR PAPERS

Sociolinguistics and AI: Approaches, Themes and Insights

Journal: Language Sciences

Publisher: Elsevier

Submission Deadline: 31 December 2026

Introduction

Machine-learning involving language — or AI — has recently become ubiquitous in all aspects of life in many parts of the world, driven by a commercially driven agenda by a handful of big tech companies from the US and China. Although language is core to the functioning of AI technologies — and AI technologies are arguably affecting language practices, understandings of language, and research practices — there is, to date, little published sociolinguistic research that examines these changes.

This Open Call Special Issue aims to encourage exploration of the effects of AI on language in its social context. It invites contributions from all branches of the broad area of language in society — and encourages papers applying qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approaches that examine written, spoken, or multimodal language and discursive practices.

Scope & Significance

While sociolinguistics has a tradition of investigating the linguistic practices of technology users and their social indexicalities, there is little research on how linguistic contexts and understandings of language practices are being reshaped by the rise in algorithmic machine-learning tools. Important reasons for this gap include difficulties accessing algorithmic processes due to Big Tech secrecy, researchers' lack of training in computational approaches, and uncertainty about the appropriateness of existing methodological approaches for studying increasingly intertwined human-machine-generated practices.

This Special Issue proposes that the sociolinguistic toolkit offers multiple avenues for tackling these challenges — through language ideology approaches, investigation of emerging linguistic practices, critical case studies of digital tools, and methodological innovation.

Key Research Directions

Language Ideologies and Discursive Positioning How do different actors — users, companies, designers, media, researchers, language authorities, activists, and policymakers — discursively position themselves toward AI tools and their outputs?

Emerging Linguistic Practices How are algospeak, AI-driven terminology, and new discursive practices driven by technology affordances reshaping social and cultural indexicalities of digital tools?

Sociolinguistic Phenomena and Digital Tools How do digital tools deal with, reproduce, counter, or co-construct linguistic variation, multilingual practices, socially stigmatised linguistic practices, and languages with few digital resources?

Critical Analysis of LLMs and AI Components What sociolinguistic investigations of Large Language Models — including datasets, algorithm design, annotation, and training — can provide about the conceptualisation of language and its implications for sociolinguistic hierarchies?

List of Topic Areas

Manuscripts are invited on themes including, but not limited to:

1. Language ideologies and AI — discursive positioning of actors toward AI tools and outputs

2. Algospeak and emerging AI-driven linguistic practices

3. Linguistic variation and AI — how algorithms handle, reproduce, or reinforce dialectal and sociolinguistic variation

4. Multilingual practices and AI — algorithmic treatment of multilingualism

5. Socially stigmatised language practices in AI systems — bias, discrimination, and inequity

6. Languages with few digital resources — challenges and implications for AI language models

7. Users' practices of resistance and accommodation toward AI-mediated language

8. Critical analysis of Large Language Models from a sociolinguistic perspective

9. Datasets and data preparation in AI — a sociolinguistic critique

10. Algorithm design, annotation, and training — social and linguistic implications

11. How algorithms impact the distribution of genres and linguistic features

12. AI and the ecology of language — language assemblages and power dynamics

13. Racial, gender, and social disparities in automated speech recognition and NLP systems

14. Promotional discourse and media representations of AI and language technologies

15. Methodological innovations in sociolinguistics for studying AI-mediated language practices

Guest Editors

Dr. Iker Erdocia Dublin City University, Ireland Email: iker.erdocia@dcu.ie

Prof. Bettina Migge University College Dublin, Ireland Email: bettinamigge@ucd.ie

Prof. Britta Schneider European University Viadrina, Germany Email: bschneider@europa-uni.de

Key Deadlines

Manuscript Submission Opens: 1 January 2026 Manuscript Submission Deadline: 31 December 2026

Note: Articles will be published continually throughout this period as soon as they are accepted.

Submission Guidelines

Submit your manuscript via the journal's official submission system. When submitting, select Article Type:

"VSI: Sociolinguistics and AI"

The Special Issue welcomes case studies, assessments of current trends, agendas, and methodological changes from all branches of language in society research.

All submissions must be original and must not be under review elsewhere at the time of submission.

For any questions regarding topics, contact the Guest Editors directly.

For author guidelines, visit the official Language Sciences journal page on the Elsevier ScienceDirect website.

About the Journal

Language Sciences, published by Elsevier, is an international peer-reviewed journal with a CiteScore of 3.2 and Impact Factor of 1.1. It supports open access publishing and is dedicated to advancing theoretical and empirical research across linguistics — providing a global platform for interdisciplinary scholarship exploring language structure, use, variation, and change in cognitive, social, and cultural contexts worldwide.

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