Lexicom 2025: a personal reflection. Tetiana Maslova, Kyiv, Ukraine
This year, the meeting point for those who are interested in lexicography and lexical computing was Bari, a beautiful city on the Adriatic Sea and the capital of southern Italy’s Puglia region. That was a perfect location and timing to get together at the Lexicom Workshop 15–19 September 2025, and learn through practical experience, vivid discussions, and enhanced multicultural collaboration.
The workshop participants indeed came from different corners of the world – Croatia, Spain, Slovenia, Ukraine, Japan, the USA, and Mexico – and from diverse professional backgrounds – educators, lexicographers, researchers, PhD students, entrepreneurs, data scientists, and computational linguists. This offered a unique environment for networking, sharing perspectives, and learning from each other.
The lecturers from the Sketch Engine team – Michael Rundell, Miloš Jakubíček, Vojtěch Kovář, and Ondřej Matuška – all incredibly knowledgeable and competent, made the daily workshops so inspiring and interactive that it was easy to hit the books, especially dictionaries 😊.
In fact, the five days of training covered plenty of theoretical and practical aspects of lexicography, including natural language processing, corpus building, corpus query language, term extraction, crowdsourcing, large language models, and many more. It was an intense programme, but Sketch Engine team members were so friendly, enthusiastic, and open to questions that everyone stayed focused and engaged throughout the whole week.
Still, the highlight of the week was certainly Wednesday, with guest speaker Julie Moore, an ELT writer and lexicographer, whose talk entitled “Ten-minute lexicography” revealed the decision-making process behind a lexicography project. Her personal and professional reflections were extremely valuable and deeply moving.
The same day, in the afternoon, there was a boat trip, and the meeting point for both lecturers and workshop participants was next to Teatro Margherita, one of the many stunning historic buildings in Bari. During the trip, one could enjoy the architecture along the city coastline and the beauty of the tranquil sea waters. Served snacks, drinks, and an adventurous swim at the end of the trip made this special time at sea unforgettable.
The opportunities for networking as well as getting to know the local culture and traditions are worth praising. Meetingroom Bari business centre generously hosted Lexicom 2025 in quiet, cosy, and well-equipped rooms, used as spaces for coworking and most enjoyable lunch breaks. Everyone felt welcome and could taste the flavours of Italy: among other treats, there was orecchiette (small ear-shaped pasta), the traditional dish of the Apulia region in Southern Italy, aranciata, an iconic Italian drink, and of course, delicious Italian coffee.
The final two days of training also provided much food for thought, as workshop participants worked with their own data in Sketch Engine and Lexonomy, developing ideas and materials for their research projects, training courses, and specialized dictionaries. The lectures and practical tasks on the principles involved in writing definitions and extracting “GDEX” (good dictionary examples) were eye-opening and contributed to a better understanding of the art of lexicography.
All of us who participated in Lexicom would like to express our sincere gratitude and admiration for the Sketch Engine team for their commitment and outstanding work in the field of lexical computing. A special BIG thank you goes to the Sketch Engine team for the scholarships for Ukrainian participants and for the continued support of Ukraine in response to aggression.
Lexicom 2025 workshop participants said goodbye to the sunny Italian countryside, but they carry precious memories, new skills (and helpful handouts) to look forward to in further research and cooperation, wondering where their next meeting point will be.
