📢 Call for Papers — EMNLP 2026
👐 2nd Workshop on Sign Language Processing
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- 📍 Location: EMNLP 2026 , Budapest Hungary
- 📅 Date: October 29th, 2026
- 🤝 Held in conjunction with: The 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
🌐 Overview
We invite submissions to the 2nd Workshop on Sign Language Processing (WSLP-2026), held at EMNLP 2026. This one-day event brings together researchers and practitioners working on technologies for translating sign languages, with a focus on low-resource and underrepresented contexts.
While datasets like PHOENIX14T and CSL-Daily have driven progress in sign language translation (SLT), many sign languages remain underrepresented due to limited annotated data. This workshop aims to support and showcase research across all sign languages, fostering inclusive, multilingual, and culturally aware SLT technologies.
🔍 Topics of Interest
We welcome submissions on topics including, but not limited to:
- Sign Language Translation for low-resource and underrepresented languages
- Continuous and gloss-free SLT methods
- Multilingual, cross-modal, and zero-shot SLT
- Knowledge transfer across sign languages or modalities
- Cultural and dialectal variation in sign language modeling
- Context-aware sign translation models
- Sign language corpus creation and annotation practices
- Fairness, bias, and ethical considerations in SLT
- Applications supporting Deaf communities in low-resource settings
📝 Submission Details
Submissions are managed through the OpenReview. We welcome:
- Long papers (up to 8 pages + references)
- Short papers (up to 4 pages + references)
All submissions must follow the ACL 2026 formatting guidelines and use the ACL template. Papers should be submitted via OpenReview. Submissions are peer-reviewed under double-blind conditions. Accepted papers will be published in the official EMNLP 2026 proceedings in the ACL Anthology.
📄 Submission Types
- Archival papers: Long papers (up to 8 pages + references) or short papers (up to 4 pages + references) reporting completed, original, and unpublished research. An optional appendix may be included after the references in the same PDF. Accepted papers will be presented (posters or oral, determined by the program committee) and published in the proceedings. These undergo double-blind peer review and must be fully anonymized.
- Non-archival extended abstracts: Up to 2 pages + references, reporting work in progress or cross-submissions already published (or scheduled for publication) elsewhere. These are non-archival and will not appear in the proceedings. They are not subject to double-blind review and need not be anonymized.
🔄 Dual Submissions and Preprints
Dual submissions are allowed for the archival track, but authors must comply with the dual submission policies of the other venue. Papers posted to preprint servers (e.g., arXiv) can be submitted without restrictions on posting date.
📸 Camera-Ready Information
Authors of accepted archival papers must upload the final version by the camera-ready deadline. Authors may use one extra page to address reviewer comments (9 pages for long papers, 5 pages for short papers, plus references). Broader Impacts/Ethics and Limitations sections are optional and can be included on an additional 10th page for long papers or 6th page for short papers.
🗓 Important Dates
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| 🟢 First Call for Papers | June 8th, 2026 |
| 🟡 Second Call for Papers | June 15th, 2026 |
| 🔴 Third Call for Papers | July 15th, 2026 |
| 📄 Paper Submission Deadline | August 20th, 2026 |
| 📬 Notification of Acceptance | August 30th, 2026 |
| 📸 Camera-Ready Papers Due | September 10th, 2026 |
| 📅 Proceeding Due Date | September 25th, 2026 |
| 📅 Workshop Date | October 29, 2026 |
🧠 Shared Tasks
The workshop hosts shared tasks on:
- Indian Sign Language to English Translation
- Isolated Sign (Gloss) Recognition
- Word Presence Prediction in SL Videos
Further details: https://exploration-lab.github.io/WSLP-2026/task/
🌍 Diversity and Inclusion
We are committed to diversity in research topics, datasets, languages, and participants. We strongly encourage submissions from researchers working on underrepresented sign languages and communities.
📧 Contact
For inquiries, contact:
- Sanjeet Singh: sanjeet@cse.iitk.ac.in
- Abhinav Joshi: ajoshi@cse.iitk.ac.in
- Sabyasachi Kamila: sabyasachi.kamila@gmail.com
- Keren Artiaga: keren.artiaga@mycit.ie
🚨 Anti-Harassment Policy
WSLP 2026 adheres to the ACL Anti-Harassment Policy.