Description
In recent years, the Globalex Workshop on Lexicography and Neology series (GWLN) has evolved into an international forum for lexicographers, scholars, tool developers, and other practitioners interested in how new words and new senses emerge, are detected, are evaluated as candidates for inclusion, and described in lexicographic resources. Since its inauguration, the workshop has taken place in seven consecutive years in conjunction with annual conferences of the continental lexicography associations, including DSNA (2019), Euralex (2020 online, and 2022), Australex (2021), Asialex (2023), Afrilex (2024), as well as at eLex (2025). Each edition has brought together participants from diverse linguistic traditions – covering both high- and low-resource languages – to share their experience and exchange perspectives on the challenges, methodologies and processes for combining lexicography and neology. For the eighth iteration, GWLN is teaming up with the European Network on Lexical Innovation (ENEOLI COST Action) to further strengthen collaboration in Europe and beyond.
The main topic of GWLN-8 will be the shifting role of the lexicographer in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). While lexicography has always been an early adopter of technological advances in linguistics, corpus analysis, and dictionary production workflows, recent developments in large and custom language models and generative AI have fundamentally altered the ecology of lexical innovation, its description, and the possibilities for lexicographers. Neologisms now emerge and circulate not only through human linguistic communities, but also through AI-mediated content creation, algorithmic feedback loops, and hybrid forms of human–machine discourse. At the same time, AI-based technologies create new opportunities for lexicographers to automate detection pipelines, evaluate usage patterns, and compile entries grounded in different types of linguistic evidence and linked to highly structured lexical knowledge bases. Against this backdrop, the 2026 workshop will invite participants to reflect on lexicography’s mediating role between corpus-based empirical evidence, AI-generated content, and the need for reliable, curated and structured lexicographic data that can feed back into and support the emerging hybrid ecosystem of AI-enhanced human communication.
Besides publication in conference proceedings, GWLN papers have formed Special Issues of Dictionaries. Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America (2020), International Journal of Lexicography (2021), Lexicographica. Series Maior (2022), Lexicography. Journal of Asialex (2023), and a special section of Lexikos (2025). Selected GWLN-8 papers will be published in the form of a special issue of International Journal of Lexicography in 2027.