2nd International Workshop on
Language and Language Models
Dubrovnik, Croatia | October 12-13, 2026

caas_residence_view_1_cropped
main-building_cropped
mshs_017_cropped
mshs_022_cropped
mshs_026_cropped

About WoLaLa

The 2nd International Workshop on Language and Language Models (WoLaLa) continues the interdisciplinary initiative launched by the ELTE Research Centre for Linguistics to support a sustained scholarly community at the intersection of language, culture, and artificial intelligence. Following the first workshop held in Budapest on 20–21 November 2025, the second edition will take place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on 12–13 October 2026. The workshop aims to provide a forum for critical and methodologically grounded discussion of large language models (LLMs) and their relevance for research in the social sciences and humanities.

Our Mission

  • Bridge SSH and AI: Empower scholars in the social sciences and humanities – linguists, philosophers, digital humanists and beyond – to engage directly with LLM technologies, share best practices, and co-create methodologies that respect language, cognition and culture.
  • Demystify the hype: Move beyond buzzwords to rigorously probe the real capabilities, limitations and ethical dimensions of state-of-the-art language models, with special attention to under-resourced and “small” languages.
  • Foster sustainable collaboration: Establish WoLaLa as a recurring forum, where friendships, partnerships and joint projects can flourish across institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and around the globe.

What we hope to achieve

  • Cultivate an SSH-driven research agenda that directs AI development toward richer, more equitable language technologies.
  • Build an open network of practitioners who will continue to exchange insights, co-author publications and mentor the next generation of humanities-centered AI researchers.
  • Seed innovative applications of LLMs in linguistic analysis, cultural heritage, cognitive science and beyond, demonstrating the fertilizing power of AI when steered by humanistic values.

WoLaLa should be understood as part of a broader, continuing effort to examine how language scholarship and artificial intelligence can inform one another in a rigorous and productive way. The second edition in Dubrovnik seeks to extend the conversations initiated in Budapest and to provide a stable framework for future exchange.