Tutorial-Workshop: Neurocognitive Linguistics

[Timothy J. Pulju]

        TUTORIAL WORKSHOP ON THE NEUROCOGNITIVE BASIS OF LANGUAGE

Instructors: Sydney Lamb, Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Rice University
             Michel Paradis, Linguistics, McGill University
             Peter Reich, Linguistics and Psychology, University of Toronto

                    July 28-29 (Mon and Tues), 1997
            Immediately preceding the Annual Meeting of the
           Linguistic Society of Canada and the United States
                    York University, Toronto, Canada


        "If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
         we would be too simple-minded to understand it."
                                                           Anonymous

   This workshop is intended for linguists who have little or no previous
knowledge of neuroscience.

   There will be four sessions, lasting a total of eight hours, as follows:
I -- Monday afternoon, 2:30 to 5:00; II -- Monday evening, 7:00 to 9:30;
III -- Tuesday morning, 8:30 to 10:00; IV -- Tuesday morning, 10:30 to 12:00

Topics will include the following:

     1. Analytical vs. Neurocognitive Approaches to Language.
     2. Introduction to Brain Anatomy and Neuron Structure.
     3. The Linguistic System as a Network of Relationships: Speaking
        and Understanding as Distributed Parallel Processing.
     4. Dynamic Distributed Representation of Information: Expanded
        Relational Networks and Neural Networks.
     5. Evidence from Brain Damage and from Brain Imaging.
     6. Linguistically Important Cognitive Systems and their
        Hypothesized Cortical Locations and Interconnections.
     7. Evidence from Unintentional Puns.
     8. Evidence from Slips of the Tongue.
     9. Evidence from Bilingualism.
    10. Dynamics of the Neurocognitive System: Some Hypotheses on
        Learning, Lexicalization, Categorization, and Thinking.


Scholars who would like to contribute papers relating to any of these
topics are invited to submit abstracts for the meeting of LACUS which
will immediately follow this workshop.  It is anticipated that a special
session of the LACUS meeting will be devoted to the topic of "The
Neurocognitive Basis of Language".  (See separate Call for Papers.)

Food and lodging for workshop participants will be available at York
University.  For further information, send message to:  lamb at rice.edu .
For further information on the annual meeting of LACUS:  rbrend at umich.edu .