Facilitating Legal and Administrative Communication in Multilingual Settings

2nd Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Easy and Plain Language in Institutional Contexts

9 October 2026, University of Geneva

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation

The demand for accessible communication has grown significantly in recent years, driven by legal mandates, such as Directives (EU) 2019/882 and 2016/2102 in the context of the European Union, and by a broader commitment to inclusivity across public and private sectors worldwide. This has generated, among other needs, an increased demand for texts in Plain Language and Easy Language to serve diverse lay audiences and those with special communication needs. Recent advances in generative artificial intelligence offer promising opportunities to scale up the production of accessible institutional content but also introduce risks — both of which are currently the subject of an increasingly sustained debate.

Building on the “1st Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Easy and Plain Language in Institutional Contexts” (2025), co-located with the 20th Machine Translation Summit held in Geneva, this Symposium aims to continue and deepen this debate, placing a stronger focus on legal and institutional communication. The programme will cover a range of topics related to AI-assisted Plain Language and Easy Language text production, including tool evaluation, prompting strategies, text assessments, implications for the tasks and workflows of drafters and translators, evolving professional competences, and empirical studies on reader reception across diverse cohorts.

This one-day hybrid event brings together research- and practice-based contributions, with the aim of fostering exchange of experience and best practices. It is open to all interested participants, including scholars, practitioners, and students in Translation Studies, Linguistics, Communication and Law.

Local organising committee:
Paolo Canavese, Fernando Prieto Ramos, Annarita Felici

Advisory committee:
Patrick Cadwell, Silvia Hansen-Schirra, Martin Kappus, Chris Maaß, Anna Matamala, Will Noonan, María Isabel Rivas Ginel

For more information, please visit the Transius website.