In February 2026, Marta Herget, Josiah Nii Ashie Neequaye and Vanessa Wing Yan Tsang presented their joint experimental study on how ideophonic language background affects the perception of foreign ideophones, using data from Ga, German, and Cantonese speakers. Josiah presented his joint work with Kim Kaul Josephine, Markus Steinbach and Cornelia Ebert, on the conventionalization of ideophone-accompanying gestures, based on data from Ga and German. Vanessa also gave a presentation about the (in)flexibility of classifiers, comparing findings from German and Hong Kong Sign Language (DGS & HKSL). The conference, ICOLL2026, was the first joint conference of ICOsem (Iconicity Seminar) and ILL (Iconicity and Literature).
It was successfully held at the University of Nagoya, Japan. With over 50 participants, the conference featured inspiring invited talks by Noburo Saji, Mutsumi Imai, Neil Cohn, and Pamela Perniss. It was a very engaging conference, with valuable discussions on iconicity across modalities. We also had a lot of exciting discussions about iconicity and multimodality with scholars from across the globe. And we look forward to having more exchange.