[Event at CIG] Conference CFP: Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century 2026

[yannis.haralambous at imt-atlantique.fr]

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GRAPHOLINGUISTICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
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https://grafematik2026.sciencesconf.org
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G21C (Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century), also known as
/gʁafematik/, is a biennial academic conference that convenes
scholars from disciplines engaged with grapholinguistics and, more
broadly, the systematic study of writing systems and their
manifestation in written communication. The conference seeks to
examine the current state of scholarship in this domain and to assess
the significance of writing and writing systems within adjacent
disciplines, including computer science, communication studies,
linguistics, typography, psychology, and pedagogy. Of particular
concern is the investigation of the expanding influence of Unicode
and its implications for the future of literacy and textual practices
in human societies.

Reflecting the diversity of scholarly perspectives on writing
systems, G21C is fundamentally interdisciplinary in orientation. The
conference welcomes submissions from researchers across information
technology, language and communication studies, graphic
communication, and the social sciences.

G21C endeavors to establish a forum for discourse on the varied
approaches to writing systems, with particular emphasis on fostering
dialogue between linguistic, informatic, and other disciplinary
frameworks. The conference provides a venue for scholarly inquiry
into terminology, methodology, and theoretical paradigms relevant to
the delineation of an emerging interdisciplinary research area that
intersects with substantial practical developments in writing system
implementation.

The Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century Conference receives
endorsement from the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
and the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI).

The first edition of G21C was held in Brest, France, on June 14–15,
2018, the second edition was held online on June 17–19, 2020, the
third edition of G21C was held in Palaiseau, on June 8–10, 2022, and
the fourth edition of G21C was held in Venice, on October 23–25,
2024.

Sponsored by IMT Atlantique and LabSTICC CNRS laboratory (UMR 6285).

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THE THEME: Entangled Scripts, Cultures, Disciplines
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Entanglement operates at multiple levels in the study of writing.
Scripts may be entangled within a single writing system—as in
Japanese—or across different languages and, therefore, writing
systems, as seen in multilingual documents and public signage. Such
entanglements raise fundamental questions: How do scripts/writing
systems interact graphically, linguistically, and semiotically?

Because scripts carry the cultural histories of the writing systems
that use or have used them, script entanglement often triggers
cultural entanglement. Yet the relationship is not unidirectional.
Two cultures coexisting in shared physical or virtual spaces may
deploy their respective scripts as markers of distinct identity—using
writing not to entangle but to disentangle, to assert boundaries
rather than dissolve them.

The concept of entanglement extends beyond scripts themselves. Since
its inception in 2018, the /gʁafematik/ conference has demonstrated
that grapholinguistics is inherently entangled with multiple
disciplines: linguistics, naturally, as its parent field, but also
history, archaeology, paleography, typography, computer science,
artificial intelligence, psychology, education sciences, and others.
These disciplines do not merely coexist within the conference’s
knowledge domain—they reach toward one another, interweaving their
methods and insights in the study of that profoundly human act:
reading and writing.

For the fifth iteration of /gʁafematik/, it is time to foreground and
examine these three levels of entanglement: within writing systems,
between cultures, and across disciplines.

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PROGRAM COMMITTEE
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Jannis Androutsopoulos, Universität Hamburg, Germany
Vlad Atanasiu, Université de Fribourg, Switzerland
Kristian Berg, Universität Oldenburg, Germany
Peter Bilak, Typothèque, The Hague, The Netherlands
Florian Coulmas, Universität Duisburg, Germany
Jacques David, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France
Mark Davis, Unicode Consortium & Google Inc., Switzerland
Joseph Dichy, Université Lumière Lyon 2, France
Christa Dürscheid, Universität Zürich, Switzerland
Martin Dürst, Aoyama Gakuin University & W3C, Sagamihara, Japan
Martin Evertz, Universität Köln, Germany
Amalia Gnanadesikan, Princeton University, Washington DC, USA
Claude Gruaz, formerly at CNRS, Rouen, France
Yannis Haralambous, IMT Atlantique & CNRS Lab-STICC, Brest, France
Daniel Harbour, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Keisuke Honda, Imperial College London and University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Shu-Kai Hsieh, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Dejan Ivković, York University, Toronto, Canada
Jean-Pierre Jaffré, formerly at Université Paris 5, France
Terry Joyce, Tama University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
George Kiraz, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA
Marc W. Küster, Office de traduction de l'Union européenne, Luxembourg
Frédéric Landragin, CNRS - Laboratoire Lattice, Montrouge, France
Christophe Lemey, URCI Mental Health Department, Brest Medical University Hospital, Brest, France
Gerry Leonidas, University of Reading, United Kingdom
Kamal Mansour, Monotype Imaging, Los Altos, California, USA
Klimis Mastoridis, University of Nicosia, Cyprus
Dimitrios Meletis, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria
Tomi S. Melka, formerly at Parkland College, Champaign, Illinois, USA
Ghassan Mourad, Université Libanaise, Beirut, Lebanon
James Myers, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan
Panchanan Mohanty, University of Hyderabad, India
Lisa Moore, Unicode Consortium, USA
Shigeki Moro, Hanazono University, Kyoto, Japan
Sonali Nag, University of Oxford, UK
J.R. Osborn, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
Jean-Christophe Pellat, Université de Strasbourg, France
Miquel Peyró, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Christian Puech, Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle, Paris, France
François Rastier, formerly at CNRS, Paris, France
Cornelia Schindelin, Universität Mainz, Germany
Virach Sornlertlamvanich, SIIT, Thammasat University, Phatum Thani, Thailand
Jürgen Spitzmüller, Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria
Richard Sproat, Google Research, Tokyo, Japan
Irmi Wachendorff, University of Reading, United Kingdom
Susanne Wehde, MRC Managing Research GmbH, München, Germany
Kenneth Whistler, Unicode Consortium, Berkeley, California, USA

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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
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The keynote speakers will be Amalia Gnanadesikan (“A Philographer’s
Manifesto: How and Why a Linguist Studies Writing Systems”), Adam
Jaworski (“Sculptural Place Names: Between Elitism and Egalitarianism
in High-Value Urban Spaces”), and Zanna van Loon (“How material forms
shape early modern missionary linguistic knowledge”).

See <https://grafematik2026.sciencesconf.org> for more information.

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ORGANIZERS
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Yannis Haralambous, IMT Atlantique & CNRS Lab-STICC, Brest, France
Gerry Leonidas, Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, UK
Irmi Wachendorff, Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, UK

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LOCATION
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The conference will be held in hybrid mode: participants can present
and interact in videoconference mode or attend physically. The
physical location will be the Department of Typography & Graphic
Communication (Whiteknights Campus, Earley Gate), University of
Reading, Reading, United Kingdom.

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IMPORTANT DATES
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Submission deadline: January 26th, 2026
Notification of acceptance: April 6th, 2026
Conference: June 24–26, 2026
Submission of paper for Proceedings: October 5th, 2026

For more information on the conference please visit 

https://grafematik2026.sciencesconf.org
and follow
https://bsky.app/profile/grafematik.bsky.social

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SUBMISSION DETAILS
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To submit a presentation proposal, please connect to
<https://easychair.org/my2/conference?conf=g21c0> and provide an
extended ANONYMOUS abstract of at least 500 and at most 1,000 words,
followed by at least 10 (ten) bibliographical references in a PDF
file.

Proposals not respecting these constraints will not be considered.

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REGISTRATION FEE
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Registration for delegates who are not submitting abstracts and for
online participants is open at:
https://www.store.reading.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-arts-humanities-social-science/typography-graphic-communication/grapholinguistics-2026 
Speakers will be asked to register after the
conclusion of the proposal review process.

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PROCEEDINGS
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The Proceedings will be published by Fluxus Editions publishing house
(Brest, France) as a volume of the Grapholinguistics and Its
Applications Series. Articles in the Proceedings can be 12–60 pages
long (LaTeX “article” document class) and can be written in English,
French, or German.

Yannis HARALAMBOUS
Professor, Data Science Department, IMT Atlantique
 <https://www.imt-atlantique.fr/>
Une école de l'IMT <https://www.imt.fr/>
Technopôle Brest-Iroise CS 83818 29238 Brest Cedex 3
yannis.haralambous at imt-atlantique.fr <mailto:yannis.haralambous at imt-atlantique.fr> (professional email)
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