1. Indigenous Languages and Traditional Ecological Knowledge

• • Ecological knowledge embedded in language
  • Ethnobiological classification systems
  • Environmental knowledge and oral traditions
  • Place names, landscapes, and cultural memory

2. Language Endangerment and Biocultural Diversity

• • Language loss and knowledge erosion
  • Linguistic diversity and ecological resilience
  • Documentation of endangered languages and knowledge systems
  • Community responses to language shift

3. Language Revitalization and Community Futures

• • Community-based language revitalization
  • Intergenerational language transmission
  • Language policy and planning
  • Language activism and advocacy

4. Mother Tongue Education and Knowledge Transmission

• • Mother tongue-based multilingual education
  • Indigenous pedagogies
  • Place-based and community-based learning
  • Educational approaches to language maintenance

5. Indian Knowledge Systems and Biocultural Heritage

• • Indigenous and local knowledge traditions in India
  • Traditional ecological and environmental knowledge
  • Knowledge systems, language, culture, and place
  • Indigenous systems of agriculture, health, food, and biodiversity
  • Knowledge transmission across generations
  • Indian knowledge traditions and contemporary challenges
  • Community-led preservation, revitalization, and renewal of knowledge systems

6. Ecolinguistics and Environmental Discourse

• • Language and ecological perception
  • Environmental narratives
  • Ecological discourse analysis
  • Language and environmental ethics
  • Language, sustainability, and human–environment relationships

7. Oral Traditions, Storytelling, and Cultural Memory

• • Oral literature and ecological knowledge
  • Folklore and environmental understanding
  • Narrative traditions and cultural continuity
  • Storytelling and intergenerational knowledge transmission

8. Language Documentation and Community Archives

• • Participatory documentation
  • Digital archiving and language preservation
  • Ethical issues in documentation
  • Community ownership of knowledge

9. Indigenous Worldviews, Spirituality, and Ecology

• • Indigenous cosmologies
  • Sacred landscapes
  • Language and spiritual relationships with nature
  • Cultural values and environmental stewardship

10. Technology, AI, and Language Futures

• • Digital tools for language revitalization
  • AI and endangered languages
  • Community technologies for knowledge preservation
  • Opportunities and ethical concerns
  • Digital transmission of linguistic, cultural, and ecological knowledge

Apart from the above themes, additional topics relevant to the conference are welcome.

Researchers, faculty members, students, educators, language activists, community leaders, policymakers, and practitioners are invited to submit abstracts related to the conference theme and sub-themes.

Both theoretical and empirical contributions are welcome.

Presentation Formats

• Oral Presentations
• Poster Presentations

Selected papers may be considered for publication in an edited volume or conference proceedings subject to editorial review.

Submission Guidelines

Abstracts for ICLEC 2026 will be submitted and processed through the Microsoft Conference Management Toolkit (CMT).

The submission link will be made available on this website shortly. Please revisit this page for the submission link and further updates.

Authors will need to create a CMT account, preferably using their institutional email address.

Abstract Requirements

• Length: 350–500 words
• Keywords: Include 3–5 keywords relevant to the proposed presentation.
• Title: Provide a clear and concise title for your presentation.
• Relevance: Clearly indicate how the proposed contribution relates to the conference theme and/or one or more of the conference sub-themes.
• Language: Abstracts must be submitted in English.
• Presentation Format: Authors should indicate their preferred format:
  
  • Oral Presentation
  • Poster Presentation

Author Information

Author details will be entered separately in CMT during the submission process. Please do not include the following within the abstract itself:

• Author name(s)
• Institutional affiliation(s)
• Email addresses
• Other identifying information

For submissions with multiple authors, the presenting author should be clearly identified in CMT.

Submission Process

Through CMT, authors will be asked to provide:

1. Presentation title
2. Abstract (350–500 words)
3. 3–5 keywords
4. Author and affiliation details
5. Preferred presentation format
6. Relevant conference theme/sub-theme

Authors will receive a submission ID upon successful submission and should retain it for future correspondence.

All abstracts will undergo a review process based on their relevance to the conference, academic or substantive quality, clarity, and suitability for presentation.

Authors will be notified of the outcome according to the Important Dates listed on this website.

For all conference-related inquiries, please contact iclec@neilac.org.in.

Registration Fee:

The registration fees cover the following:

1. Conference Kit.
2. Refreshments and lunch during the conference.

Accommodation fee waivers may be available to eligible students, subject to applicable criteria.

For further details, please refer to the Travel and Accommodation section below.

For Registration: Please revisit this website by 1 October 2026 for the registration link and further updates.

Travel and accommodation grant is available exclusively to students and research scholars who are not currently employed and who are presenting papers at the conference (Oral and Poster). 

Limited, partially subsidized accommodation will be available to eligible student and non-employed research scholar presenters on a first-come, first-served basis.

Student presenters and research scholars who are not currently employed and do not have institutional travel support may apply for a travel grant of up to INR 2,500, subject to the following provisions:

Modes of Transport Covered:

• Public transport by road or train (3 AC class or lower).
• Air travel, up to a maximum reimbursement of INR 2,500.
• Where train services are unavailable, shared taxis used as public transport (e.g., Kohima–Dimapur) may be considered.
• Private taxi expenses are not reimbursable.

• The grant is available only to students and research scholars who are not currently employed and are presenting an Oral or Poster paper.
• Applicants receiving institutional or other travel support are not eligible.
• For joint papers, only one author/presenter per paper may claim the travel grant.
• The grant is available only to presenters who attend the entire conference.
• The grant does not cover food, local transportation, or other personal expenses.

• A travel grant request form will be available from the Registration Committee on the first day of the conference.
• Applicants must submit the completed form along with original travel tickets and other required travel documents.
• Reimbursement cannot be processed without the required original travel documents. 

The conference themes can be approached from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and frameworks. The following text is offered as background reading from the perspectives of biocultural diversity, ecolinguistics, Indigenous knowledge, and language revitalization. Participants are free to approach the conference themes through other theoretical, disciplinary, or community-based frameworks.

Language, ecology, and culture are not separate domains of human life. They are deeply interconnected ways through which communities understand themselves, their histories, and the environments in which they live. Language gives expression to cultural knowledge and collective memory; culture shapes how people understand and relate to their surroundings; and particular environments influence the knowledge, practices, values, and meanings that communities develop over generations. The relationship among these three dimensions is therefore central to understanding how communities live, adapt, and make meaning in the world.

Across generations, languages have developed within particular social and ecological settings. They carry histories and worldviews, but also ways of naming landscapes, identifying plants and animals, understanding seasons, describing agricultural practices, and expressing relationships with particular places. Cultural practices give this knowledge a lived context. A place name may preserve both a historical memory and an understanding of a landscape; knowledge of a plant may encompass its name, habitat, uses, seasonality, and cultural significance; a story may carry ecological knowledge alongside values and responsibilities. In this way, language, culture, and ecology continually shape one another.

These relationships are reflected in the concept of biocultural diversity, which recognizes biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity as interconnected dimensions of life (Harmon 1996; Maffi 2005, 2007). Research has also demonstrated significant geographical overlap between areas of high biological and linguistic diversity (Gorenflo et al. 2012). Such patterns point to long histories of interaction between communities and their environments, through which people have developed distinctive forms of knowledge, practices, and ways of relating to the living world.

Ecological knowledge accumulated through these relationships may concern plants, animals, forests, rivers, agriculture, weather, seasons, food systems, medicinal resources, and the management of local environments. It may be expressed through linguistic categories and terminology, but also through oral traditions, songs, narratives, rituals, customary practices, and place names (Maffi 2005). What appears to be linguistic knowledge may therefore also carry cultural memory and ecological understanding.

The weakening of a language can consequently affect more than communication. Where language is closely connected to cultural practice and knowledge of place, language shift may also alter the ways in which particular knowledge is accessed and transmitted. Yet communities do not simply lose knowledge when languages change. They translate, adapt, reinterpret, and create new forms of expression. The important question is therefore not only what is preserved or lost, but how knowledge continues to move, change, and remain meaningful across generations.

This makes intergenerational transmission central to the 2026 conversation. Knowledge is learned not only through words but through participation – in families and communities, through storytelling, work, ceremonies, observation, and everyday engagement with particular places. Language is part of these relationships. When the contexts in which languages are used change, the pathways through which knowledge is transmitted may change as well.

Language revitalization can therefore contribute to more than linguistic continuity. Community-based documentation, immersion and mentorship programmes, mother tongue-based multilingual education, culturally grounded curricula, oral-history initiatives, and place-based learning can create spaces where language remains connected to cultural practice and local knowledge. Education is particularly significant: when children’s languages and community knowledge are excluded from schooling, these connections may weaken; when they are meaningfully incorporated, education can become a space for cultural and linguistic renewal. UNESCO has emphasized the importance of multilingual education and education in learners’ first languages for inclusive learning, participation, and cultural continuity (UNESCO 2025).

The field of ecolinguistics provides another perspective on these relationships by examining language within the wider interactions between humans, other species, and the physical environment. It asks how language and discourse shape the ways people understand the natural world and how they may contribute either to environmentally destructive or more sustainable relationships with it (Penz & Fill 2022). In this respect, ecolinguistics complements the biocultural diversity perspective by bringing language into dialogue with broader ecological concerns.

These questions also invite closer engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems. In many Indigenous contexts, ecological knowledge is inseparable from language, culture, place, social relationships, and ethical responsibilities. Knowledge of a forest, river, animal, plant, or landscape may simultaneously be practical, historical, cultural, spiritual, and ecological knowledge. It is often learned through participation in community life rather than through formal instruction alone. Its continuity therefore depends not simply on recording information, but on sustaining the relationships and contexts through which knowledge is lived.

New technologies are creating additional possibilities for documentation and transmission. Digital archives, language-learning applications, multimedia resources, and artificial intelligence can support language teaching, documentation, and revitalization. At the same time, they raise questions about ownership, consent, representation, access, and the appropriate use of community-held knowledge. The challenge is to ensure that technology strengthens community agency and intergenerational transmission rather than separating knowledge from the people, practices, and places in which it has meaning.

North East India provides a particularly important context for exploring these intersections. The region combines remarkable linguistic and cultural diversity with considerable ecological richness. Its Indigenous and minority communities have developed diverse relationships with forests, rivers, mountains, agricultural landscapes, plants, animals, and other elements of their environments. These relationships are expressed through languages and sustained through cultural practices, livelihoods, institutions, stories, and knowledge systems.

At the same time, language shift, migration, changing livelihoods, educational practices, technological change, and environmental transformation are reshaping the conditions under which linguistic, cultural, and ecological knowledge is transmitted. The region therefore provides an important setting for examining not only language endangerment, but also the changing relationships among language, culture, knowledge, and place.

The inaugural International Conference on Language, Ecology, and Culture (ICLEC 2024) opened a space for examining these relationships through the perspectives of biocultural diversity and integral ecology. ICLEC 2026 builds on that foundation by drawing particular attention to the ways in which the interconnected knowledge and practices associated with language, culture, and ecology are transmitted, transformed, and renewed across generations.

The conference welcomes perspectives from linguistics, anthropology, ecology, education, Indigenous studies, cultural studies, ecolinguistics, language revitalization, technology, policy, and related fields, as well as contributions grounded in community experience and practice. It seeks to bring different forms of knowledge into conversation and to explore the conditions that allow the relationships among language, culture, and ecology to remain dynamic and meaningful in a changing world.

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 References:

Gorenflo, L. J., Suzanne Romaine, Russell A. Mittermeier & Kristen Walker-Painemilla. 2012. Co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in biodiversity hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(21), 8032–8037. doi:10.1073/pnas.1117511109 (16 October, 2023).

Harmon, David. 1996. Losing species, losing languages: Connections between biological and linguistic diversity. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 15, 89–108.

Krauss, Michael. 1992. The World’s languages in crisis. Language 68(1), 4–10.

Maffi, Luisa (ed.). 2001. On biocultural diversity : linking language, knowledge, and the environment. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. http://archive.org/details/isbn_9781560989301 (1 May, 2024).

Maffi, Luisa. 2005. Linguistic, Cultural, and Biological Diversity. Annual Review of Anthropology 34(1), 599–617. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.34.081804.120437 (2 April, 2024).

Maffi, Luisa. 2007. Biocultural diversity and sustainability. In Jules Pretty, Andy Ball, Ted Benton, Julia Guivant, David R. Lee, David Orr, Max Pfeffer & Professor Hugh Ward (eds.), The SAGE handbook of environment and society, 267–278. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore: SAGE.

Maffi, Luisa. 2018. Biocultural Diversity. The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 1–14. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. doi:10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1797. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1797 (1 May, 2024).

Mühlhäusler, P. 1995. The interdependence of linguistic and biological diversity. In D Myers (ed.), The Politics of Multiculturalism in Asia/Pacific. Darwin, Aust: North Territory University Press.

Penz, Hermine & Alwin Fill. 2022. Ecolinguistics: History, today, and tomorrow. Journal of World Languages 8(2), 232–253. doi:doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2022-0008.

Sapir, Edward. 1912. Language and environment. American Anthropologist 14(2), 226–242. doi:10.1525/aa.1912.14.2.02a00020 (2 February, 2024).

Scholz, Barbara, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Geoffrey K. Pullum & Ryan Nefdt. 2024. Whorfianism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/whorfianism.html (2 April, 2024).

Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & David Harmon. 2015. Biological Diversity and Language Diversity: Parallels and Differences. The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics.

Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove, Luisa Maffi & David Harmon. 2003. Sharing a world of difference: the earth’s linguistic, cultural and biological diversity. UNESCO.

Smith, Eric A. 2001. On the coevolution of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity. In Luisa Maffi (ed.), On biocultural diversity : linking language, knowledge, and the environment, 95–117. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. (1 May, 2024).

Stanlaw, James. 2020. Ecolinguistics. The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, 1–2. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. doi:10.1002/9781118786093.iela0110. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118786093.iela0110 (1 May, 2024).

Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1940. Science and linguistics. Technological Review 41, 229–231, 247–248.

The event is organized in collaboration with the Laudato Si’ Research Institute  based at Campion Hall at the University of Oxford, and is a work of the Jesuits in Britain. Since opening in 2019, LSRI has been inspired by Pope Francis’ vision in the encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, which calls all people to respond to the “cry of the earth” and the “cry of the poor”.

Inspired by Ignatian traditions and drawing insights from the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, the Institute’s mission is to develop an integral ecology paradigm to create a hope-filled future for socio-ecological transformation.