Final call for paper: BriGap-2, Bridges and Gaps between Formal and Computational Linguistics (an IWCS 2025 workshop)

[Timothee Mickus]

Final call for paper: BriGap-2, Bridges and Gaps between Formal and Computational Linguistics (an IWCS 2025 workshop)

(with our apologies for cross-posting)

Venue: IWCS 2025 (https://iwcs2025.github.io/), Düsseldorf, Germany
Date: September 24th, 2025 (main conference: 22nd-23rd)
Workshop website: https://brigap-workshop.github.io/

BriGap-2 is a venue for linguists and NLP scientists to meet: what fruitful interactions can we have? How do we build upon each other’s work?

The workshop is designed with a widely inclusive submission policy so as to foster as vibrant a discussion as possible.
In particular, we will accept:

• Archival submissions, corresponding to novel and unpublished research, to be included in the workshop proceedings,
• Non-archival submissions, corresponding to work in progress and early results,
• Dissemination submissions, aticles presented in other venues that engage with the topics of the workshop.

* Description *
In recent years, the natural language processing (NLP) community has shifted its focus towards engineering questions. This state of affairs is in no small part due to the recent technical advances that have transformed NLP as a field. In the current large language model (LLM) era, much of what was deemed near impossible to achieve a few years prior is now taken for granted and it stands to reason that mapping how far ahead new computational models have advanced the field has become a central topic for the NLP community. Hence, the current ongoing discourse in NLP focuses more on what can be achieved through language rather than studying language for its own sake. It seems thus that computational and formal linguistics are now separate domains, and that the former is no longer rooted in the latter.
To what extent are these traditions truly divorced, and what fruitful bridges can be (re)built? To answer these questions, the second iteration of the workshop on Bridges and Gaps between Formal and Computational Linguistics (BriGap-2) intends to provide a space for formal linguists, computational linguists, and NLP scientists to exchange their perspectives on how their different domains of research can build upon one another.

* Workshop topics *
- investigation of the linguistic properties of machine learning models,
- linguistic representations, vector space semantics, and their relations with theoretical concepts such as compositionality,
- use of information-theoretical and computational methods for linguistic inquiry,
- formal distributional semantics and neural-symbolic integration for NLP,
- formal grammars, symbolic structures and their applications for computational linguistics and NLP,
- trends in the history of computational linguistics and NLP,
- …

* Invited speakers *
- Anna ROGERS, IT University of Copenhagen
- Kees VAN DEEMTER, Universiteit Utrecht

* Submission details *
The workshop accepts both archival (original and unpublished research) and non-archival (work-in-progress, dissemination of research published or accepted elsewhere, etc.) submissions in either short (up to 4 pages) or long (up to 8 pages) format. Camera-ready versions of papers will be given one additional page of content so that reviewers’ comments can be taken into account.
Each submission should mention whether it targets archival or non-archival status. Archival papers accepted at BriGap-2 will be indexed in the ACL Anthology.
Please use the ACL style templates available here: https://github.com/acl-org/acl-style-files
The submissions need to be done in PDF format via OpenReview, using the following link: https://openreview.net/group?id=IWCS/2025/Workshop/BriGap-2

* Important dates *
- Submission deadline: Friday, June 6th 2025
- Notification of acceptance: Friday, August 1st 2025
- Workshop: September 24th, 2025 (main conference: 22nd-23rd)

* Contact *
For questions, please send an email to brigapw...@gmail.com or contact one of the workshop chairs:
- Timothée Bernard, Université Paris Cité, timothee...@u-paris.fr
- Timothee Mickus, University of Helsinki, timothe...@helsinki.fi
- Grégoire Winterstein, Université du Québec à Montréal, winterstei...@uqam.ca