ULAB Undergraduate Essay Competition 2026
We are inviting undergraduate students to write us an essay in response to one of the three questions below. Essays should be 2500 words long (+/- 10%), and referenced using a referencing style of your choice (We recommend Harvard or APA). For each of the questions, we have provided a list of recommended reading to help you get started - if you are unable to find any of the sources online, please contact us (via social media or email) and we will help as best as we can. These references are, of course, just a starting point; you are welcome to bring in other sources!
Essays will be marked in accordance with criteria established internally to ULAB, but the best submissions will take a novel approach to a question, will think creatively to pose original challenges to existing literature, and, most importantly, will be exciting to read! We look forward to reading your entries - good luck!
Essays will be marked in accordance with criteria established internally to ULAB, but the best submissions will take a novel approach to a question, will think creatively to pose original challenges to existing literature, and, most importantly, will be exciting to read! We look forward to reading your entries - good luck!
Submission
To submit your essay, please attach it to this form (as a PDF) by 23:59 GMT on Friday 13th February 2026. Submitted files should be fully anonymised — please ensure that neither your name nor any other personal information is visible in the document. For questions or concerns, please email [email protected].
Eligibility
All undergraduate students across all disciplines and countries are welcome to submit! This includes people who will be starting an undergraduate degree in September, as well as those who have graduated from an undergraduate degree in 2025. If you are a member of a ULAB Subcommittee, please contact your Subcommittee Chair to check your eligibility.
Prize
The winner of this year’s essay competition will receive £50 in prize money, a free ticket to ULAB’s 2026 conference, and the opportunity to work with the U-Lingua team to perfect their article and publish it in a future issue. Runners up will receive a free ticket to ULAB's 2026 Conference.
Questions
Question 1: Language Attrition
Using existing data, explain why adult speakers often show differential attrition across lexical, grammatical, and phonological domains when losing proficiency in a previously dominant language.
Suggested Reading
- Cherciov, M. (2012). Investigating the impact of attitude on first language attrition and second language acquisition from a Dynamic Systems Theory perspective. International Journal of Bilingualism, 17(6), 716–733.
- Köpke, B., & Schmid, M. S. (2004). Language attrition: The next phase. In M. S. Schmid, B. Köpke, M. Keijzer, & L. Weilemar (Eds.), First language attrition: Interdisciplinary perspectives on methodological issues (pp. 1–43). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
- Schmid, M. S. (2011). Language attrition. Cambridge University Press.
- chmid, M. S., & Köpke, B. (2017). The relevance of first language attrition to theories of bilingual development. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7(6), 637–667.
- Seliger, H. W., & Vago, R. M. (1991). First language attrition. Cambridge University Press.
- Sorace, A. (2011). Pinning down the concept of “interface” in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(1), 1–33.
Question 2: Questioning Grammaticality
The concept of grammaticality is one that does not have a precise definition, and a sentence may be differentially grammatical across multiple dialects of the same language family. As new coinages come into the lexicon, more novel sentences get generated by speakers, and more languages come into contact, more data is available to be analysed for grammaticality.
Write an essay addressing any of the following issues:
- What is grammaticality and is it reducible to anything else?
- If grammaticality can be dialect-specific, why can it not be idiolect-specific, and does this make the concept itself redundant?
- Will increased language use and contact trend towards all sentences being grammatical?
Recommended Reading
- Bybee, J. (2006). From Usage to Grammar: The Mind's Response to Repetition. Language, 82(4), 711-733.
- Bybee, J. (2010). Language, use, and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (see Chapters 1 and 7 specifically)
- Devitt, D. (2006) Ignorance of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (see Chapters 2 and 7 specifically).
- Featherston, S. (2007) Data in Generative Grammar: the Stick and the Carrot. Theoretical Linguistics, 33(3), 269-318.
- Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (see Chapter 8)
- Newmeyer, F. J. (2003). Grammar is Grammar and Usage is Usage. Language, 79 (4), 682-707.
- Newmeyer, F. J. (2007) Commentary on Sam Featherston, ‘Data in Generative Grammar: The Stick and the Carrot’. Theoretical Linguistics, 33(3), 395-399.
- Schütze, C. T. (2016) The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology. Berlin: Language Science Press. (see Chapter 2 specifically).
- Zanuttini, R. (2007) Data and Grammar: Means and Individuals. Theoretical Linguistics, 33(3), 335-352.
Question 3: Internet Linguistics
How and in what ways does the internet facilitate innovation in language in ways that other modes of communication do? Please feel free to use your own definition of "the internet" and incorporate this into your answer.
Suggested Reading
- Bamman, D., Eisenstein, J. & Schnoebelen, T.. 2014. Gender identity and lexical variation in social media. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(2), pp.135-60.
- Crystal, D., 2011. Internet linguistics: A student guide. Routledge.
- Eisenstein, J., O’Connor, B., Smith, N. & Xing., E. P. 2014. Diffusion of lexical change in social media. PLoS ONE 9(11).
- Giltrow, J. and Stein, D., 2009. Innovation, evolution, and genre theory. Genres in the Internet. Issues in the theory of genre, pp.1-26.
- Gopal, D., Blaxter, T., Willis, D. and Leemann, A., 2021. Testing models of diffusion of morphosyntactic innovations in Twitter data. Urban Matters: Current approaches in variationist sociolinguistics, 27, p.253.
- Merchant, G., 2001. Teenagers in cyberspace: an investigation of language use and language change in internet chatrooms. Journal of research in reading, 24(3), pp.293-306.