science

International Congress of Linguists

International Congress of Linguists is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand International Congress of Linguists rather than just read about it. In short: The International Congress of Linguists (ICL) takes place every five years, under the governance of the Permanent International Committee of Linguists (PICL) / Comité International Permanent des Linguistes (CIPL). The 19th ICL was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2013.

Key takeaways

International Congress of Linguists belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect International Congress of Linguists to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of International Congress of Linguists from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The International Congress of Linguists (ICL) takes place every five years, under the governance of the Permanent International Committee of Linguists (PICL) / Comité International Permanent des Linguistes (CIPL). The 19th ICL was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2013. The 20th ICL was held in Cape Town, South Africa from 2–6 July 2018 on the topic of "The Diversity of Language". The next (21st) ICL was originally planned to take place in Kazan (Tatarstan), Russia) from 25 June to 2 July 2023. However, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the venue was changed and the Congress moved by one year. It took place in Poznań, Poland at the Adam Mickiewicz University, 8–14 September 2024. The next, 22nd Congress will be held on 23–29 July 2028 in Leiden, Netherlands as a centenary of CIPL. The proposed title is World of Languages.

History and successive venues The ICL was started in April 1928 in The Hague, where it organized its first edition, and subsequent editions have been held in cities such as Geneva in 1931, Rome in 1933 and Copenhagen in 1936. The first congress has been read as marking an intellectual split of the emergent discipline of linguistics from traditional philology, though in 1952, the seventh congress was held in London, hosted by the Philological Society. A more recent congress took place in Paris in 1997. The 18th International Congress of Linguists took place in 2008 in the city of Seoul, South Korea. The Swiss Linguistics Society (SSG) proposed that the 19th congress would be organized in Ferdinand de Saussure’s city Geneva, one century after he died, to commemorate his important contributions to the field of linguistics. The events took place from July 21 to July 27, 2013. The 19th ICL was about the language-cognition interface, a topic of cognitive linguistics based on the foundational work of Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist who is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics. During the Congress, several sessions were held about major aspects of linguistics, including the origin of language, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics.

List

See also List of linguistics conferences

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with International Congress of Linguists

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what International Congress of Linguists claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to International Congress of Linguists before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about International Congress of Linguists ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of International Congress of Linguists

In research: International Congress of Linguists appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses International Congress of Linguists in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: International Congress of Linguists is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1928 establishments in the Netherlands, Linguistics conferences, Recurring events established in 1928, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for International Congress of Linguists outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study International Congress of Linguists in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what International Congress of Linguists means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain International Congress of Linguists out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is International Congress of Linguists in simple terms?

Why does International Congress of Linguists matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study International Congress of Linguists?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on International Congress of Linguists.