Thematic focus: New methods in linguistics – Epistemological and theoretical issues

Online Publication: October 31, 2026

Linguistics is currently undergoing important changes, driven mainly by substantial methodological progress, which, in turn, opens new paths to rethink the foundations of the discipline. Experimental methods have become standard in linguistic research, eye-tracking and EEG studies shed new light on language processing, and big data, quantitative methods and AI allow for simulations and projections that were completely unthinkable until very recent times. Tools such as R are now an integral part of linguistic data analysis and visualization.

The aim of this special issue is to address the potential and limitations of new methods in linguistic research by asking, for example:

• To what extent is it possible to adopt methods from the natural and social sciences and apply them to linguistic issues?


• Do the methods adequately account for the nature of the object, and may they even make us consider the object differently?


• How can new methods help to get closer to the language activity or enérgeia in the Humboldtian sense?


• To what extent may experiments capture linguistic behaviour and reflect how speakers interact?


• Can corpus-based statistical modelling truly capture language dynamics, or may it risk overlooking deeper dimensions such as individual variation, presence of different varieties, textual traditions and the general distinction between competence and performance?


• Isn’t there a danger of just analysing whatever kind of data without certainty of how representative they are? 

We invite researchers to submit contributions with an epistemological focus on methods in linguistics as well as texts exploring the possibilities of specific methods (e.g. experiments, see Zufferey/Gygax 2022; Wall et al. 2025, linguistic features and eye-tracking studies, see Schotter/Dillon 2025; Loureda et al. 2021, corpus studies, see Gerards in press, quantitative methods, see Mitkov 2014, using R, see Levshina 2015; Winter 2019, probabilistic approaches, see Grafmiller et al. 2018 to name just a few examples).

Manuscripts may be submitted in English, German, or in a Romance language.

Unpublished original contributions and documents should be submitted, considering the https://energeia-online.org/guidelines" target="_blank" rel="noopener">editorial guidelines.

Submissions will be evaluated anonymously by two independent reviewers. The authors will be contacted after the evaluation procedure is completed and shall receive an evaluation report along with a request to revise their contribution if necessary.

References

Gerards, David Paul (in press): Bare Partitives in Old Spanish and Old Portuguese. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter [= Linguistische Arbeiten/Linguistic Studies].

Grafmiller, J. / Szmrecsanyi, B. / Röthlisberger, M. / Heller, B. (2018): “General introduction: A comparative perspective on probabilistic variation in grammar”, Glossa 3(1): 94. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.690" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.690

Levshina, Natalia (2015): How to do linguistics with R: data exploration and statistical analysis, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company

López Serena, Araceli (2019): La lingüística como ciencia humana. Una incursion desde la filosofía de la ciencia, Madrid: Arco.

Loureda Lamas, Óscar / Cruz, Adriana / Recio Fernández, Inés / Rudka, Martha (2021): Comunicación, partículas discusrivas y pragmática experimental, Madrid: Arco.

Mitkov, Ruslan (ed.) (2022): The Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics, 2nd ed., Oxford: OUP, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199... href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199... target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199...

Schotter, E., Dillon, B. (2025): “A beginner’s guide to eye tracking for psycholinguistic studies of reading”. Behavior Research Methods, 57:68. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-024-02572... target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-024-02572...

Wall, Albert / Obrist, Philipp / Zeugin, Senta / Santos Rebelo, Patrick / Kabatek, Johannes (2025): “Differential Marking of inanimate direct objects across four varieties of Spanish: Evidence for grammatical differences from elicitation experiments», Glossa 10(1), 2025, 1–40. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.17201" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.17201

Winter. Bodo (2019). Statistics for Linguists: An Introduction Using R. Routledge eBooks.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315165547" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315165547