Mayfest 2026: Production

The path from thoughts to gestures in language production.

Each year the graduate students of the Linguistics Department of the University of Maryland organize a two-day workshop, Mayfest, focusing on a different aspect of language and linguistic theory. This year, May 29 and 30, Mayfest 2026 is on the theme of Production. We welcome nine scholars from diverse fields – listed below – to share their views on the data structures and cognitive processes that support language production, or on the origins of our production abilities in development, neurobiology, and evolution. Here is the full program, with abstracts of the talks.

Matt Goldrick / Professor, Linguistics, Northwestern University
Arella Gussow / Visiting Assistant Professor, Psychology, University of Richmond
Jonah Katz / Associate Professor, Linguistics, UCLA  
William Matchin / Associate Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina
Scott Nelson / Assistant Professor, Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Bonnie Nozari / Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University
Virginia Valian / Distinguished Professor, Psychology, Hunter College
Agustin Vicente / Professor, Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country (EHU)