Call for Papers

The focus of contributions to the conference can be on any aspect of human, human-like and/or non-human voice(s). Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following: 

Literature 

• Non-human voices: robots, animals, plants, spirits, and others   
• Singing and reciting literary works (giving voice to texts)   
• Spoken-word poetry and recitation  
• Authorial and character voices in prose and poetry   
• Unheard or invisible voices: digressions, asides, voice-over, and others  
• Vocality and voice work in drama and performances, audio books and audio drama  
• Declamation, speech and rhetoric 
• Voice and trauma
• Silenced voices and recovered voices

• Embodied voice and communication (e.g. health humanities, environmental humanities, migration settings)  

   

Linguistics  

• Spoken language and spoken interactions 
• Sociophonetic variation 
• Pronunciation, prosody, voice quality   
• Agency - active vs passive voice  
• Metadiscourse in written and spoken texts   
• Expressions of stance 
• Silences in conversation analysis  
• The representation of various voices (e.g. minority groups, political groups, companies, etc.) 
• L1 and L2 English voices
• Varieties of English and multilingualism   

• Characterisation of human voice(s) vs GenAI voice(s) 

   

Translation (including subtitling) and interpreting (including sign-language) 

• The translator or interpreter’s own voice 
• Voice skills in interpreting 
• The interpreter as an embodied or disembodied voice 
• The voice/text or voice/sign interface 
• Preserving the voice of a text in translation 
• Conveying the speaker’s voice in signing and subtitling 
• Speech bubbles and sound effects 

• GenAI's voice in translation and interpreting 

   

English language teaching 

• The teaching of spoken language and pronunciation  
• Voices represented in teaching materials 
• Teacher talk 
• Conversation in (and beyond) the classroom 
• AI-assisted task production 
• AI-assisted feedback 
• AI-assisted course design 
• AI-generated teaching materials 

• AI-assisted DDL 

   

Please send a 500-word abstract for a 20-minute paper to baahe-2026@uclouvain.be  by 1 7 September 2026  Participation in the conference is free for BAAHE members; non-members pay a modest registration fee (lunch not included). Participants are invited to submit papers or proposals for a special issue to English Text Construction, BAAHE’s international peer-reviewed journal published with John Benjamins.