Call for papers for the ReN symposium at the AILA 2027 World Congress
9–13 August 2027, Vancouver (in-person only)
Organisers
- Pauliina Peltonen, University of Turku, Finland
- Clare Wright, University of Leeds, UK
Symposium theme
Sustaining plurality in second language fluency research
Description
The symposium focuses on current trends in L2 (second language) fluency research. L2 fluency is a current topic in SLA and relevant to applied linguistics more broadly, including language assessment and L2 teaching. Recently, fluency research has broadened from analyses of L2 monologic speech to dialogic speech, from L1–L2 comparisons to multilingual repertoires, from purely speech-based analyses to multimodal fluency, and from analyses of human-human communication to various computer-mediated and AI contexts. Several meta-analyses conducted on the impact of L1 speaking style on L2 fluency (Gao & Sun, 2024), the connections between L2 proficiency and L2 speech fluency (Yan et al., 2025), and the connections between speech fluency and fluency assessment (Suzuki et al., 2021) further reflect the vitality of the field.
In line with the overall theme of the Congress (“Empowering voices, sustaining pluralities: cultivating languages and collective belonging”), we invite contributions on L2 fluency research with a broad scope, with the aim of sustaining plurality within the L2 fluency research community and reaching beyond disciplinary boundaries. Contributions are welcome from a wide range of fluency research contexts, including various L1s and L2s, and from any methodological starting point (including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research).
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- connections between L1 and L2 fluency
- continuum between fluency and disfluency
- fluency and affective factors
- fluency and multilingualism
- fluency development
- fluency in interaction
- multimodal approaches to fluency
- fluency and technology, and
- task-based effects on fluency.
Instructions
Please submit an abstract of no more than 150 words (including in-text citations, no reference list required) to paupelt@utu.fi by 15th September 2026.
Further information can be found on the AILA website.
Notice that the symposium abstracts should not be submitted via the submission platform but should rather be sent to Pauliina Peltonen (paupelt@utu.fi) directly.