From swellsj at bgsu.edu Mon Nov 1 16:41:06 2010 From: swellsj at bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells-Jensen) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 12:41:06 -0400 Subject: Chomsky In-Reply-To: <0F705506-C1CF-4618-B13A-D4260EE82C7A@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Keith, I think the subjective impression that our daughter had begun to use language had to do not so much with the vocabulary explosion directly as it did with the ability to combine words creatively which presupposes enough words to combine. If I remember correctly, Alex had enough words... enough nouns anyway.He certainly had holophrases for commonly requestable events and objects and these he had to learn on his own. I assume nobody trained him to request nuts or to ask to go back to his cage. He had 'wanna' (or something like it) and 'nut' and 'go back'. He didn't learn words as quickly as a child does though so although one could say he had enough words, he might not have had a vocabulary explosion where learning words suddenly became noticeably easier. Is there anywhere that a person could find his whole vocabulary list? being the Alex fan that I am, you'd think I'd know if this were available. One could demonstrate parallel learning in a number of nonlinguistic domains certainly, so maybe it's the ease of learning that was the barrier to him speaking more than he did? I'm at my edge of my knowledge of the parrot studies in general, so I apologize for any misrepresentations or failure to grasp the implications of the work. Sheri -- Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Assistant Director English as a Second Language Program Associate Professor Department of English 423 East Hall Bowling Green State University (419) 372-8935 -----Original Message----- From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Keith Johnson Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 2:23 PM To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Chomsky Hi Sheri, I wonder if your feeling that your daughter had crossed a language learning threshold might have been at about 18 months, the usual time of the "vocabulary explosion"? Bob McMurray has some really interesting ideas about how to explain this feature of language acquisition. He simulated the vocabulary explosion by making only two assumptions. (1) words are being learned in parallel - a little bit of learning for many words at the same time, and (2) some words are easier to learn than others. That's all it takes to have a vocabulary explosion - no language module needed. McMurray posted a very helpful discussion of his work: http://www.psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/mcmurray/science/ If the sense that a child has crossed a linguistic threshold is related to the vocabulary explosion, and if the vocabulary explosion is related to McMurray's two factors, then what keeps Alex from crossing the threshold must be one of two things; he is learning words sequentially rather than in parallel, or he finds it much harder to learn words than children do. If the first impediment is the culprit then perhaps training methods could be adjusted, but if the second is the crucial factor then it may not be possible for a parrot to cross that language-learning threshold with English. Earlier work with Chimps has tried to address the word difficulty problem by teaching ASL rather than spoken language, but one wonders if the difficulty lies at a more conceptual level of word learning than mere input/output system unnaturalness. Still the LACUS paper that Aya pointed us to hints at an impressive use by parrots of duality of patterning (one of Hockett's 13 design features of language Hockett, C (1960) "The Origin of Speech". in Scientific American, 203, pp. 89-97). best, Keith Johnson p.s. I would like to say, regarding the range of human linguistic ability (Aya's repeated point that some humans don't have language), that it would be useful to remember that clinical speech and language pathologists have developed numerous standardized tests of human linguistic ability, and school-aged children are routinely tested to detect developmental delays. Perhaps, if one wanted to measure the level of linguistic accomplishment reached by a parrot or other animal it would be good to score the animal on some standardized tests. From sepkit at utu.fi Tue Nov 2 06:57:09 2010 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 08:57:09 +0200 Subject: Final call for papers: role complexes (Z=?iso-8859-1?Q?=FCrich=2C_?= 4.-5.4.2011) Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Final call for papers Role complexes: (new) approaches to defining semantic roles Since one of the important functions of many communicative acts is to make clear ‘who is doing what to whom’ when portraying a particular state of affairs, it is hardly surprising that semantic roles, thematic roles or thematic relations constitute the topic of countless studies in linguistics and are also always discussed, either explicitly or implicitly, in reference grammars. Numerous studies have dealt with agents and patients within and across languages since the 1970s, and there are several comparatively recent studies that address other roles as well (e.g., Stolz et al 2006 for comitatives, Næss 2007 for transitivity in general, Kittilä 2008 for recipients and goals, Zúñiga & Kittilä 2010 for benefactives among numerous others). Among the many interesting characteristics of accounts of semantic roles, it is noteworthy that semantic relationships between predicates and their arguments are treated in different ways. On the one hand, the explicit formal distinction made in natural languages between agents and patients is typically reflected in their analytical status: the volitionally acting instigator of an event (agent) and the inactive, thoroughly affected target of the event (patient) are invariably regarded as two separate roles. On the other hand, different kinds of beneficiaries (e.g., the first person in John tossed me a salad and John mowed the lawn instead of me) are usually considered instances of one and the same role despite their different meanings. Similarly, different subtypes of agents have tended to be treated as different roles while different kinds of experiencers have not. Against this background, the goal of this workshop is to explore approaches to the notion of semantic role in terms of ROLE COMPLEXES, i.e., of clusters of several related sub-roles that might be distinguished by some constructions in certain languages but are otherwise subsumed under a general umbrella notion. For example, different instances of goals differ according to the exact nature of motion (e.g., he threw the ball to the box / behind the box / on the box). The basic definition of the goal role remains unchanged: we are dealing with an endpoint of motion in all cases. Nevertheless, the potential differences between the roles are thus determined by features not typically considered in studies of semantic roles; features usually used for distinguishing between semantic roles, such as instigation, volitionality and affectedness (cf. e.g.. Næss 2007), can explain neither the semantic nor the formal differences between these three subtypes of goals, or the different codin g of goals and beneficiaries. We welcome all abstracts dealing with role complexes within and across languages. Possible topics for papers include (but, as always, are not restricted to) the following: - When should we speak of distinct roles, and when are two slightly different (potentially differently coded) roles rather manifestations of one basic role? Are, e.g., inanimate goals and animate goals manifestations of a single role or should they rather be treated separately? - What consequences does role synonymy have for our understanding of semantic roles? What are the features that any adequate theory of semantic roles should consider, what is the ‘correct’ number of semantic roles, etc.? - How should we treat partial formal mismatches between roles? - How do we deal with semantically/pragmatically determined differences in the coding of roles (e.g., marking conditioned by definiteness, referentiality, specificity, topicality, focality)? - Corpus-based studies of role synonymy: What determines the use of different (yet semantically similar) manifestations of a role in actual language use? - How do we best treat the diachronic development of multifunctional coding devices (syncretisms, polysemies, homonymies, etc.)? - Formal manifestation of semantic role synonymy: case marking, verbal marking, lexical differences, etc. - Role synonymy of core and peripheral roles: Are there any differences, is synonymy more common for one of these? Organizers of the workshop Fernando Zúñiga (Zurich) and Seppo Kittilä (Helsinki) Venue University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Dates April 4-5, 2011 Abstract submission Please send your (maximally) 500-word abstract (excluding data and references) to both fernando.zuniga at spw.uzh.ch and kittila at mappi.helsinki.fi no later than November 14, 2010. The letters of acceptance will be sent by December 12, 2010. Abstracts must be anonymous, but the body of the e-mail should include the following information: Name of the author(s) Title of the paper Affiliation(s) E-mail In case you have any questions about the workshop, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are looking forward to welcoming you all to Zurich. Fernando and Seppo From john at research.haifa.ac.il Tue Nov 2 13:17:41 2010 From: john at research.haifa.ac.il (john at research.haifa.ac.il) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:17:41 +0200 Subject: Looking for help with Arabic phonology In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear funknetters, I need some help with understanding the phonemicization of vowels in spoken Levantine (esp. Israeli/Palestinian) Arabic. If any of you can help me, or if you can refer me to someone who can help me, I would appreciate it very much. Thanks, John ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa University From wilcox at unm.edu Tue Nov 2 16:08:30 2010 From: wilcox at unm.edu (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 10:08:30 -0600 Subject: Job announcement Message-ID: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR The University of New Mexico Department of Linguistics Position Summary: The Department of Linguistics seeks applicants for an appointment as Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico (UNM). This is a probationary appointment leading to a tenure decision. The position is contingent upon final budgetary approval. Appointment will begin in August 2011. The Ph.D. must be in hand prior to appointment. Responsibilities will include teaching in the areas of specialization at the undergraduate and graduate level, graduate student mentoring, and service. Competitive salary. UNM provides a diversified package of benefits including medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. In addition, UNM offers educational benefits through the tuition remission and dependent education programs. For a more complete explanation of the benefits, please go to http://hr.unm.edu/and click on the Benefits link. The Department of Linguistics at UNM specializes in cognitive-functional approaches to the study of language, including corpus and empirically-based studies, cross-linguistic research, and typology. We have special strength in Native American linguistics and language revitalization, the study of signed languages, and Spanish linguistics. The Navajo Language Program is housed in the department, as is the Signed Language Interpreting Program. We also have close ties with the Hispanic Linguistics Program in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese. For further information on the department, please see our website . Minimum qualifications: Ph.D. by August 2011 in Linguistics or a closely-related field; primary specialization in sociolinguistics. Preferred qualifications: (a) secondary specialization in phonology/phonetics; (b) research and teaching interest in languages of the Southwest; (c) excellence in scholarship in areas of specialization; (d) orientation to empirical research; (e) excellence in teaching. Date for best consideration: December 1, 2010 Closing Date: Open until filled Enquiries about this position can be addressed to: Professor Sherman Wilcox For details on application requirements or to apply, visit the UNMJobs website: Please reference Posting Number 0808563. University of New Mexico is committed to promoting and supporting the diversity of our campuses. UNM is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. From brian.nolan at gmail.com Tue Nov 2 19:13:45 2010 From: brian.nolan at gmail.com (Brian Nolan) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 19:13:45 +0000 Subject: Call for abstracts - SLE2011: Functionally motivated computational approaches to models of language and grammar In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Would you be able to post the call below on Funknet. Many thanks, Brian _______________________________ Dr. Brian Nolan Head of Department of Informatics School of Informatics and Engineering Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Blanchardstown Road North Blanchardstown Dublin 15 Ireland email: brian.nolan at itb.ie email: brian.nolan at gmail.com _______________________________ > Functionally motivated computational approaches to models of language and grammar > Within the framework of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, to be held at the Universidad de La Rioja (Logroño, Spain), 8-11 September 2011, we would like to propose a workshop on functionally motivated work in computational approaches to models of language and grammar > Convenors: > > Brian Nolan (Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Dublin Ireland) > Carlos Periñán Pascual (Universidad Católica de San Antonio, Murcia Spain) > In this call for papers we propose to host a workshop under the SLE to examine and discuss recent and current work in the use of functional, cognitive and constructional approaches to the computational modelling of language and grammars. > While recognising that in recent times much work has concentrated on statistical models, we wish to examine in particular computational models that are linguistically motivated and that deal with problems at the interfaces between concept, semantics, lexicon, syntax and morphology. Many functionally oriented models of grammar, including Functional Grammar, Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and reference Grammar have lent them selves to work as diverse as lexically motivated machine translation from Arabic to English (Nolan and Salem 2009, Salem and Nolan 2009a and 2009b) and to the conceptual ontological work on FunGramKB (Periñán-Pascual & Arcas-Túnez 2005, 2007, 2010a, 2010b; Periñán-Pascual & Mairal Usón 2009) plus recent work undertaken within the Lexical-Constructional Model (Mairal Usón, R. & Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008 and 2009, Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008, Guest, Nolan & Mairal-Uson. 2009) and Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin 2005, Van Valin & LaPolla 1997). > Indeed, similar work has been ongoing quietly within the domain of Sign Linguistics where various initiatives based upon variations of the original Mental Spaces Model (Fauconnier 1994) have been productively used in the creation of digital intelligent avatars to translate spoken/written languages into several Sign Languages (Morrissey & Way 2006, Cassell et al 2000, Prendinger & Ishizuka 2010). Sign Languages, as visual gestural languages, pose interesting problems for functional models of grammar (Leeson & Nolan 2008, Leeson et al 2006). > The organisers of this workshop are a European group of linguists, computational linguists and computer scientists who, since the 2004 Role and Reference Grammar International Conference in Dublin have formulated computational proposals in different areas concerned with the lexicon and concept ontologies, and the computational processing of the syntax, morphology and semantics of a variety of languages. Thus far, these actual computational projects have encompassed 1) rule-based lexicalist interlingua bridge machine translation, 2) ontological engineering of concepts that enhance and enrich logical structures in a machine tractable way, 3) the implementation of a unified lexical meta-language in software, and 4) the parsing of complex sentences. The languages that have undergone a computation treatment in RRG have included English, Arabic and Spanish, and others. > A consequence of this computational work has been the enrichment of the theoretical elements of the RRG theory, especially in its semantics and lexical underpinnings where they connect with concepts, and the building of frame based applications in software that demonstrate its viability in natural language processing. Furthermore, this computational work provides compelling evidence that functional approaches to grammar have a positive and crucial role to play in natural language processing. We claim that a functional approach to grammar delivers a credible and realistic linguistic model to underpin these kinds of NLP applications. > The main topics of the workshop will include, but are not limited to, the following: > · The deployment of functional models in parse and generation > · The architecture of the lexicon > · The linking system between semantics, lexicon and morphosyntax > · Interpretation of the linguistic model into an algorithm specification > · Issues for the layered structure of the clause and word > · Complexity issues > · Concept formation > · Linguistically motivated computational approaches to gesture in language > We would like to present a forum for a functional and cognitive linguistic, computational research agenda, based around an inclusive model consisting of the various cognitive and functional approaches to grammar. In sum, the aim of this workshop is to offer a forum for discussion and critical evaluation of the full gamut of research projects concerned with a broadly functional computational linguistics and that also contributes to our understanding of languages in a functionally oriented way. > Procedure: > ---------------------- > Abstracts are invited for 20 minute presentations with 10 minute discussion. Interested researchers and linguists are invited to email brian.nolan at gmail.com with their name, affiliation and provisional abstract of 500 words by 10 November 2010. > > Important dates > ---------------------- > Submission of provisional abstract: 10 November 2010. > Notification of acceptance of workshop proposal: 15th December 2010. > If the workshop proposal is accepted then all abstracts will need to be submitted to SLE by 15th January 2011, via the SLE conference website: http://sle2011.cliap.es > Notification of acceptance: 31st March 2011 > Registration: From April 2011 onwards > Conference: 8-11 September 2011 > > Selected references > Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, S., and Churchill, E. (Eds.). 2000. Embodied > Conversational Agents. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. > Fauconnier, Gilles. (1994). Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in > Natural Language. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. > Guest, Elizabeth, Brian Nolan and Ricardo Mairal-Uson. 2009. Natural Language > processing applications in an RRG Framework. Proceedings of the 10th International Role and Reference Grammar Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > Leeson, Lorraine and Brian Nolan. 2008. Digital Deployment of the Signs of > Ireland Corpus in Elearning. Language Resources and Evaluation LREC2008 - 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora. Marrakech, Morocco. > Leeson, Lorraine, John Saeed, Deirdre Byrne-Dunne, Alison Macduff and Cormac > Leonard. 2006. Moving Heads and Moving Hands: Developing a Digital Corpus of Irish Sign Language. The ‘Signs of Ireland’ Corpus Development Project. IT&T Conference (www.ittconference.ie). IT Carlow, Ireland. http://www.tara.tcd.ie/jspui/handle/2262/1597 > Mairal Usón, R. and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008: New challenges for lexical > representation within the Lexical-Constructional Model (LCM). In Revista > Canaria de Estudios Ingleses. Universidad de La Laguna. > Mairal Usón, Ricardo and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2009: Levels of description > and explanation in meaning construction. In Ch. Butler and J. Martín Arista (eds.). Deconstructing Constructions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. > Morrissey, Sara and Andy Way. 2006. Lost in Translation: the Problems of Using > Mainstream MT Evaluation Metrics for Sign Language Translation. In Proceedings of Strategies for developing machine translation for minority languages: 5th SALTMIL Workshop on Minority Languages. Genoa, Italy. pp.91-98 > Nolan, Brian and Yasser Salem. 2009. UniArab: An RRG Arabic-to-English machine > translation software. Proceedings of the Role and Reference Grammar International Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos, and Francisco Arcas-Túnez. 2005. Microconceptual- > Knowledge Spreading in FunGramKB. Proceedings on the 9th IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing. 239-244, ACTA Press, Anaheim-Calgary-Zurich. > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas Túnez. 2007. Cognitive modules of an NLP knowledge base for language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 39, 197-204. > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas Túnez. 2010a. Ontological commitments in FunGramKB. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 44, 27-34. > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas Túnez. 2010b. The architecture of FunGramKB. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, European Language Resources Association (ELRA), 2667-2674. > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Ricardo Mairal Usón. 2009. Bringing Role and Reference Grammar to natural language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 43, 265-273. > Prendinger, Helmut and Mitsuru Ishizuka. 2010. Life-Like Characters: Tools, > Affective Functions, and Applications (Cognitive Technologies). Springer. > Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008: ‘Levels of > description and constraining factors in meaning construction: an introduction to the Lexical Constructional Model’. Folia Linguistica 42/2 (2008), 355–400. > Salem, Y., Hensman, A., and Nolan, B., 2008a. Implementing Arabic-to-English > machine translation using the Role and Reference Grammar linguistic model. In Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Conference on Information Technology and Telecommunication (IT&T 2008), Galway, Ireland. > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009a. Designing an XML lexicon architecture for Arabic > machine translation based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools (MEDAR 2009), Cairo, Egypt. > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009b. UNIARAB: An universal machine translator > system for Arabic Based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Germany (DGfS 2009). > Van Valin, R., 2005. Exploring the Syntax-Semantic Interface. Cambridge: > Cambridge University Press. > Van Valin, R. and LaPolla, R., 1997. Syntax: Structure, Meaning, and Function. > Cambridge University Press. > =================================================================== From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Nov 2 20:00:01 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 02:00:01 +0600 Subject: Does linguistics move in the correct direction? Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, the discussion on Chomsky was very fruitful. I juxtaposed my own ideas with those on the list. I learnt a lot as a result. I wonder if we could also discuss J.Greenberg in the same way? THat is with all his pluses and minuses. I used to take part in several lists of this sort, but Funknet is the champion. People express their ideas on anything. Lingtyp list owners would have kicked out Aya and some others when they discussed Arab. They kicked me from their Lingtyp list because I asked them a very simple question "What is typology?" I am sure linguists should be allowed to discuss different thing on the list. It give much to our knowledge! I guess that general questions like "Does linguistics move in the correct direction?" or "How can we improve Genetic classification of languages?" should be allowed. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. From david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Tue Nov 2 20:05:43 2010 From: david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu (David Kronenfeld) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 13:05:43 -0700 Subject: Does linguistics move in the correct direction? In-Reply-To: <12990885500844ED8EE0CC3B9ABB5F93@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: On 11/2/2010 1:00 PM, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Colleagues, the discussion on Chomsky was very fruitful. I juxtaposed my own ideas with those on the list. I learnt a lot as a result. I wonder if we could also discuss J.Greenberg in the same way? THat is with all his pluses and minuses. I used to take part in several lists of this sort, but Funknet is the champion. People express their ideas on anything. Lingtyp list owners would have kicked out Aya and some others when they discussed Arab. They kicked me from their Lingtyp list because I asked them a very simple question "What is typology?" I am sure linguists should be allowed to discuss different thing on the list. It give much to our knowledge! I guess that general questions like "Does linguistics move in the correct direction?" or "How can we improve Genetic classification of languages?" should be allowed. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. > > -- David B. Kronenfeld, Professor Emeritus Phone 951-682-5096 Department of Anthropology Message 951 827-5524 University of California Fax 951 827-5409 Riverside, CA 92521 email david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Department: http://anthropology.ucr.edu/people/faculty/kronenfeld/index.html Personal: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/david-judy/david.html From david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Tue Nov 2 20:07:27 2010 From: david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu (David Kronenfeld) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 13:07:27 -0700 Subject: Does linguistics move in the correct direction? In-Reply-To: <12990885500844ED8EE0CC3B9ABB5F93@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: sorry about the preceding empty email--I'm out of practice I guess ! I'm in favor of the Greenberg suggestion. David On 11/2/2010 1:00 PM, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Colleagues, the discussion on Chomsky was very fruitful. I juxtaposed my own ideas with those on the list. I learnt a lot as a result. I wonder if we could also discuss J.Greenberg in the same way? THat is with all his pluses and minuses. I used to take part in several lists of this sort, but Funknet is the champion. People express their ideas on anything. Lingtyp list owners would have kicked out Aya and some others when they discussed Arab. They kicked me from their Lingtyp list because I asked them a very simple question "What is typology?" I am sure linguists should be allowed to discuss different thing on the list. It give much to our knowledge! I guess that general questions like "Does linguistics move in the correct direction?" or "How can we improve Genetic classification of languages?" should be allowed. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. > > -- David B. Kronenfeld, Professor Emeritus Phone 951-682-5096 Department of Anthropology Message 951 827-5524 University of California Fax 951 827-5409 Riverside, CA 92521 email david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Department: http://anthropology.ucr.edu/people/faculty/kronenfeld/index.html Personal: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/david-judy/david.html From tgivon at uoregon.edu Tue Nov 2 21:47:51 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:47:51 -0600 Subject: forward from Brian Nolan Message-ID: Brian Nolan asked that the following be posted on FUNKNET. TG ================ > > Functionally motivated computational approaches to models of language and grammar > > Within the framework of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, to be held at the Universidad de La Rioja (Logroño, Spain), 8-11 September 2011, we would like to propose a workshop on functionally motivated work in computational approaches to models of language and grammar > > Convenors: > > > > Brian Nolan (Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Dublin Ireland) > > Carlos Periñán Pascual (Universidad Católica de San Antonio, Murcia Spain) > > In this call for papers we propose to host a workshop under the SLE to examine and discuss recent and current work in the use of functional, cognitive and constructional approaches to the computational modelling of language and grammars. > > While recognising that in recent times much work has concentrated on statistical models, we wish to examine in particular computational models that are linguistically motivated and that deal with problems at the interfaces between concept, semantics, lexicon, syntax and morphology. Many functionally oriented models of grammar, including Functional Grammar, Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and reference Grammar have lent them selves to work as diverse as lexically motivated machine translation from Arabic to English (Nolan and Salem 2009, Salem and Nolan 2009a and 2009b) and to the conceptual ontological work on FunGramKB (Periñán-Pascual & Arcas-Túnez 2005, 2007, 2010a, 2010b; Periñán-Pascual & Mairal Usón 2009) plus recent work undertaken within the Lexical-Constructional Model (Mairal Usón, R. & Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008 and 2009, Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008, Guest, Nolan & Mairal-Uson. 2009) and Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin 2005, Van Valin & LaPolla 1997). > > Indeed, similar work has been ongoing quietly within the domain of Sign Linguistics where various initiatives based upon variations of the original Mental Spaces Model (Fauconnier 1994) have been productively used in the creation of digital intelligent avatars to translate spoken/written languages into several Sign Languages (Morrissey & Way 2006, Cassell et al 2000, Prendinger & Ishizuka 2010). Sign Languages, as visual gestural languages, pose interesting problems for functional models of grammar (Leeson & Nolan 2008, Leeson et al 2006). > > The organisers of this workshop are a European group of linguists, computational linguists and computer scientists who, since the 2004 Role and Reference Grammar International Conference in Dublin have formulated computational proposals in different areas concerned with the lexicon and concept ontologies, and the computational processing of the syntax, morphology and semantics of a variety of languages. Thus far, these actual computational projects have encompassed 1) rule-based lexicalist interlingua bridge machine translation, 2) ontological engineering of concepts that enhance and enrich logical structures in a machine tractable way, 3) the implementation of a unified lexical meta-language in software, and 4) the parsing of complex sentences. The languages that have undergone a computation treatment in RRG have included English, Arabic and Spanish, and others. > > A consequence of this computational work has been the enrichment of the theoretical elements of the RRG theory, especially in its semantics and lexical underpinnings where they connect with concepts, and the building of frame based applications in software that demonstrate its viability in natural language processing. Furthermore, this computational work provides compelling evidence that functional approaches to grammar have a positive and crucial role to play in natural language processing. We claim that a functional approach to grammar delivers a credible and realistic linguistic model to underpin these kinds of NLP applications. > > The main topics of the workshop will include, but are not limited to, the following: > > · The deployment of functional models in parse and generation > > · The architecture of the lexicon > > · The linking system between semantics, lexicon and morphosyntax > > · Interpretation of the linguistic model into an algorithm specification > > · Issues for the layered structure of the clause and word > > · Complexity issues > > · Concept formation > > · Linguistically motivated computational approaches to gesture in language > > We would like to present a forum for a functional and cognitive linguistic, computational research agenda, based around an inclusive model consisting of the various cognitive and functional approaches to grammar. In sum, the aim of this workshop is to offer a forum for discussion and critical evaluation of the full gamut of research projects concerned with a broadly functional computational linguistics and that also contributes to our understanding of languages in a functionally oriented way. > > Procedure: > > ---------------------- > > Abstracts are invited for 20 minute presentations with 10 minute discussion. Interested researchers and linguists are invited to email brian.nolan at gmail.com with their name, affiliation and provisional abstract of 500 words by 10 November 2010. > > > > Important dates > > ---------------------- > > Submission of provisional abstract: 10 November 2010. > > Notification of acceptance of workshop proposal: 15th December 2010. > > If the workshop proposal is accepted then all abstracts will need to be submitted to SLE by 15th January 2011, via the SLE conference website: http://sle2011.cliap.es > > Notification of acceptance: 31st March 2011 > > Registration: From April 2011 onwards > > Conference: 8-11 September 2011 > > > > > Selected references > > Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, S., and Churchill, E. (Eds.). 2000. Embodied > > Conversational Agents. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. > > Fauconnier, Gilles. (1994). Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in > > Natural Language. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. > > Guest, Elizabeth, Brian Nolan and Ricardo Mairal-Uson. 2009. Natural Language > > processing applications in an RRG Framework. Proceedings of the 10th International Role and Reference Grammar Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > > Leeson, Lorraine and Brian Nolan. 2008. Digital Deployment of the Signs of > > Ireland Corpus in Elearning. Language Resources and Evaluation LREC2008 - 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora. Marrakech, Morocco. > > Leeson, Lorraine, John Saeed, Deirdre Byrne-Dunne, Alison Macduff and Cormac > > Leonard. 2006. Moving Heads and Moving Hands: Developing a Digital Corpus of Irish Sign Language. The ‘Signs of Ireland’ Corpus Development Project. IT&T Conference (www.ittconference.ie). IT Carlow, Ireland. http://www.tara.tcd.ie/jspui/handle/2262/1597 > > Mairal Usón, R. and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008: New challenges for lexical > > representation within the Lexical-Constructional Model (LCM). In Revista > > Canaria de Estudios Ingleses. Universidad de La Laguna. > > Mairal Usón, Ricardo and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2009: Levels of description > > and explanation in meaning construction. In Ch. Butler and J. Martín Arista (eds.). Deconstructing Constructions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. > > Morrissey, Sara and Andy Way. 2006. Lost in Translation: the Problems of Using > > Mainstream MT Evaluation Metrics for Sign Language Translation. In Proceedings of Strategies for developing machine translation for minority languages: 5th SALTMIL Workshop on Minority Languages. Genoa, Italy. pp.91-98 > > Nolan, Brian and Yasser Salem. 2009. UniArab: An RRG Arabic-to-English machine > > translation software. Proceedings of the Role and Reference Grammar International Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos, and Francisco Arcas-Túnez. 2005. Microconceptual- > > Knowledge Spreading in FunGramKB. Proceedings on the 9th IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing. 239-244, ACTA Press, Anaheim-Calgary-Zurich. > > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas Túnez. 2007. Cognitive modules of an NLP knowledge base for language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 39, 197-204. > > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas Túnez. 2010a. Ontological commitments in FunGramKB. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 44, 27-34. > > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas Túnez. 2010b. The architecture of FunGramKB. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, European Language Resources Association (ELRA), 2667-2674. > > Periñán-Pascual, Carlos and Ricardo Mairal Usón. 2009. Bringing Role and Reference Grammar to natural language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 43, 265-273. > > Prendinger, Helmut and Mitsuru Ishizuka. 2010. Life-Like Characters: Tools, > > Affective Functions, and Applications (Cognitive Technologies). Springer. > > Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008: ‘Levels of > > description and constraining factors in meaning construction: an introduction to the Lexical Constructional Model’. Folia Linguistica 42/2 (2008), 355–400. > > Salem, Y., Hensman, A., and Nolan, B., 2008a. Implementing Arabic-to-English > > machine translation using the Role and Reference Grammar linguistic model. In Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Conference on Information Technology and Telecommunication (IT&T 2008), Galway, Ireland. > > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009a. Designing an XML lexicon architecture for Arabic > > machine translation based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools (MEDAR 2009), Cairo, Egypt. > > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009b. UNIARAB: An universal machine translator > > system for Arabic Based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Germany (DGfS 2009). > > Van Valin, R., 2005. Exploring the Syntax-Semantic Interface. Cambridge: > > Cambridge University Press. > > Van Valin, R. and LaPolla, R., 1997. Syntax: Structure, Meaning, and Function > _______________________________ Dr. Brian Nolan Head of Department of Informatics School of Informatics and Engineering Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Blanchardstown Road North Blanchardstown Dublin 15 Ireland email: brian.nolan at itb.ie email: brian.nolan at gmail.com _______________________________ > > Cambridge University Press. > > =================================================================== > From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Tue Nov 2 22:34:24 2010 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 18:34:24 -0400 Subject: Golden Ratio in linguistics? Message-ID: Some of you may remember my postings regarding putative parallelisms between language and genome/proteome. If fact such parallelism seems to extend down to the level of the periodic table and possibly lower still. Now, Golden Ratio patternings have been found at all sorts of levels of material reality, from relative counts of different atoms in coordination compounds and metallic alloys (including the famous quasicrystals which have a relation to Penrose tiling) all the way through many growth regimes and resulting distributions of component parts in plants and animals, up through the orbital resonances of celestial bodies and the distributions of arms in spiral galaxies. I've found myself robust direct mappings of Fibonacci, Lucas, and other phi-convergent number series to the periodic table, when these numbers are taken as atomic numbers. In addition there are also strong connections to the Pascal Triangle diagonals, which motivate the Fib numbers (which are simply sums of samplings across Pascal diagonals). Recently I discovered online research by others which show similar Golden Ratio links to genomic structure, on the one hand, and also possibly to linguistic structure, on the other (currently a graduate student at Arizona is pursuing this). All this seems to feed back onto the increasingly large numbers of parallelisms in structure and function mentioned at the top. So, I'm starting to wonder whether all complex combinatorial systems make use of such organizational motifs. Bottom-up we would have a quantum-like set of discrete numerals drawn from the phi-convergent series, whose ratios approximate the Golden Ratio. At the other extreme would be a top-down, more continuous system, akin to what we find with relativity, whose effects on electrons distorts atomic structure and behavior from what one would expect based solely on the solutions to the quantum equations. Parallels here would be the rhythmic, prosodic structure of language, which dominates syntax, and similar structures within genomes having to do with repetitions, spacings, timings, and so on. These latter systems would utilize the actual Golden Ratio rather than approximations. In between we would have a vast landscape of negotiations balancing the opposing extremes, constantly shifting (perhaps in synchronized, multiple cycles at different scales), leading to what we would call 'typology'. There would be constant tension between the extremes, with imposition, selection, etc. going on. Anyway- I don't expect much commentary here. I know most of you find me good for the occasional belly laugh, and a candidate for the Rodney Dangerfield Prize. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From jyyoon at unt.edu Wed Nov 3 02:23:06 2010 From: jyyoon at unt.edu (Yoon, Jiyoung) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 21:23:06 -0500 Subject: Call for papers (SLE): Construction Grammar beyond English Message-ID: Call for Papers Construction Grammar beyond English: observational and experimental approaches Workshop at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (Logroño, Spain), 8-11 September 2011 Organizers: Jiyoung Yoon (University of North Texas) Stefan Th. Gries (University of California, Santa Barbara) Deadline: 12 November 2010 (for provisional abstracts) Conference site: Overview The notion of constructions, understood as learned form-meaning parings of non-predictable as well as highly frequent predictable linguistic expressions, has introduced a new perspective on language: grammatical knowledge is not viewed as modular, but rather as knowledge of a highly structured and interconnected network of symbolic units, which in turn is viewed as a lexico-semantic continuum, the so-called constructicon (Langacker 1987; Goldberg 1995, 2006). While an increasing number of constructional studies have been adopting the usage-based model of constructions in which it is assumed that grammar is shaped by usage (Goldberg 2006) and children learn a language in a bottom-up fashion (Tomasello 2003), the range of existing studies is narrower than it would ideally be. On the one hand, there is the usual predominance of work on English: with the exception of Fried & Östman (2004) and Croft’s typological work on Radical Construction Grammar (e.g., Croft 2001), there is as yet unsatisfactorily little construction-grammar work on different languages. On the other hand, even though Construction Grammarians have been embracing different methodologies and sources of data, there is still a need for more methodologically diverse and comprehensive studies, especially since while all types of data can provide linguistic evidence to a certain degree, there is no single linguistic method that can cover and answer all types of research questions (cf. Arppe et al. 2010). Objectives This workshop is intended to bring together empirically-oriented Construction Grammar approaches with the specific aims to (i) advance promote interaction and cross-fertilization between researchers interested in constructional approaches on languages other than English and (ii) further the growing trend towards multi-methodological research and converging evidence from corpora, experimentation, and simulation. Proposals are invited on observational and/or experimental studies on any aspect of constructions. Studies focusing on non-English data as well as cross-linguistic analyses between other languages and English are welcome. Procedure Proposals should be in English, and each presentation should be adjusted to a 30-minute slot (20 min. + 10 min. for discussion). Interested colleagues are invited to send an e-mail to Jiyoung Yoon () and Stefan Th. Gries (), with their name, affiliation and a provisional abstract (max. 100 words) before 12 November 2010. Important dates ‒ Deadline for submission of provisional abstract (max. 100 words): 12 November 2010 [Please submit in .txt, .rtf, or .doc (not .pdf.)] ‒ Notification of acceptance for workshop proposals: 20 December 2010 ‒ Submission of final full abstract (max. 500 words): 12 January 2011 [Please submit in .txt, .rtf, or .doc. (not .pdf.)]. References Arppe, A., Gilquin, G., Glynn, D., Hilpert, M., & Zeschel, A. 2010. Cognitive Corpus Linguistics: five points of debate on current theory and methodology. Corpora 5(1). 1-27. Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fried, Mirjam & Jan-Ola Östman (eds.). 2004. Construction Grammar in a Cross-Language Perspective. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Goldberg, A.E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Goldberg, A.E. 2006. Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gonzálvez-García, F. & Butler, C. 2006. Mapping functional-cognitive space. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 4. 39-96. Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. From sepkit at utu.fi Wed Nov 3 09:18:23 2010 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 11:18:23 +0200 Subject: Cfp: Variation and Typology: New trends in Syntactic Research (Helsinki, August 2011) Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Variation and Typology: New trends in Syntactic Research Helsinki, August 25–27, 2011 In recent years, theoretical discussion around syntactic issues has been characterized by a growing interest towards variation, both dialectal and cross-linguistic. Typological considerations have proven to be essential even for research on individual languages. On the other hand, detailed studies of variation within languages (e.g. studies of dialectical variation) and variation across closely related languages have attracted more interest among typologists. One consequence of this has been that the focus in dialect research has shifted from phonological and morphological towards syntactic questions. Whether this will turn out to be a mere adjustment in attention or a major paradigm shift, a broadened perspective is welcome and also necessary. In order for new approaches to emerge, old ones need to be combined in novel ways. This symposium offers a forum for scholars interested in syntactic questions within typology and variation (and combinations thereof) and willing to contribute to this collective shift of focus. The goal of the symposium is to approach the concept of variation from a broader perspective for gaining new insights into what variation (in its different forms) can reveal about language. Basically, variation can be seen both language-internal (e.g. dialects, sociolects etc.) and cross-linguistic (typological variation).There are numerous studies of both of these, but only quite recently has there been real effort to combine these two aspects of variation (e.g. Kortmann 2004, Nevalainen et al. 2006, Barbiers et al. 2008). Special attention will be given to the oft-neglected areas which fall between the foci of linguistic typology and variation studies within syntax when these are seen as separate fields of study. The question we would like to be addressed is briefly: what do we gai n by studying variation both within and across languages. Put another way, what are the implications of variation studies and language typology to one another? We heartily welcome papers related to the overall enterprise. Possible topics for talks include, but, as usual, are not restricted to, the following: – dialect syntax vs. syntactic typology: what is the relation between cross-linguistic variation and dialectal variation? – accounting for variation in syntactic theory: rigid rules, fuzzy templates, or something else? – implications of language variation to typological data selection & research: what is the ‘best variant’ of a language to be presented in reference grammars? What are the consequences of relying on standard language data in cross-linguistic research? And what is the significance of having vs. not having variation data available to the grammarian? – how to take into account variation in typological research in syntax? - case studies of variation within and across languages (e.g. clause combining, use of reflexive pronouns, possessive constructions, argument marking, word order variations, etc. etc. within and across languages) - methodological contributions to variation: to what extent do we need different machinery for dealing with different types of variation, and to what extent are we dealing with “just variation”? - variation and marginal constructions: do we need a distinction between core and periphery in grammar? Does this involve a distinction between common and dialectal variants? Are certain constructions marginal both in dialects and across languages? - borderline between dialectal and typological variation: e.g. issues of dealing with closely related languages, distinguishing between dialects vs. languages, spontaneous vs. contact-induced variation, etc. - qualitative methods in typology and dialect studies For more information please visit the webpage of the symposium at: http://www.linguistics.fi/variation Invited speakers: Balthasar Bickel (University of Leipzig) Joan Bresnan (Stanford University) Marja-Liisa Helasvuo (University of Turku) Scientific committee Sjef Barbiers (University of Amsterdam) Hans Boas (University of Texas, Austin) Hannele Forsberg (University of Eastern Finland) Bernd Kortmann (University of Freiburg) Ekkehard König (Freie Universität Berlin) Michel Launey (University of Paris 7) Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia) Jan-Ola Östman (University of Helsinki) Cecilia Poletto (University of Padova) Stéphane Robert (CNRS) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Jussi Ylikoski (University of Helsinki) Organizing committee Seppo Kittilä (University of Helsinki) Aki Kyröläinen (University of Turku) Meri Larjavaara (Åbo Akademi University) Jaakko Leino (Research Institute for the Languages of Finland) Alexandre Nikolaev (University of Eastern Finland) Maria Vilkuna (Research Institute for the Languages of Finland) Abstract submission Please send your abstract to typ-variation /at/ helsinki.fi no later than March 1, 2011. The length of abstracts should not exceed 500 words (excluding data and references). Abstracts will be evaluated by the members of the scientific committee and also by the organizing committee. Letters of acceptance will be sent by March 31, 2011. The abstracts themselves must be anonymous, but the body of the message should include the following information: Name of the participant Title of presentation Affiliation E-mail address Whether the paper is meant as a section paper, a poster, or a workshop Workshops The symposium will include a workshop on Finnish and Finnic dialect syntax. Proposals for all workshops should be submitted no later than February 11, 2011. Notification of acceptance will be given by March 7, 2011. These one-day workshops will run in parallel sessions with the main conference program. Alternatively, the first day of the symposium may be dedicated to workshops. The symposium organizers will provide the lecture rooms and other facilities, but the workshop organizers will be responsible for the organization of their workshops (choosing the speakers etc.). Key dates: – Deadline for abstract submission: March 1, 2011 – Notification of acceptance: March 31, 2011 – Proposals for workshops: February 11, 2011 – Notification of acceptance of workshops: March 7, 2011 Activities: – Presentations by the invited speakers – Presentations by other participants – Posters – Workshops References Barbiers, Sjef & Olaf Koeneman & Marika Lekakou & Margreet van der Ham (eds.) 2008. Microvariation in syntactic doubling. Syntax and Semantics, volume 36. Bingley: Emerald. Kortmann, Berndt (ed.) 2004. Dialectology meets typology: dialect grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Nevalainen, Terttu & Juhani Klemola & Mikko Laitinen (eds.) 2006. Types of variation: diachronic, dialectical and typological interfaces. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. From fcortes at ull.es Wed Nov 3 11:43:54 2010 From: fcortes at ull.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Francisco_J._Cort=E9s_Rodr=EDguez?=) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 11:43:54 -0000 Subject: CALL FOR ABSTRACTS. sle2011: Meaning construction at the crossroads of grammar, cognition and communication Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS Meaning construction at the crossroads of grammar, cognition and communication Workshop proposal To be held within the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) (University of La Rioja at Logroño –Spain, 8-11 September 2011) http://sle2011.cilap.es/ Convenor: Francisco J. Cortés-Rodríguez (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain) This workshop is intended to be a forum for the discussion of the different factors that play a role in the construction of the meaning of linguistic expressions. Providing an account of meaning is still one of the most controversial topics both within and outside the realm of Linguistics, given the disparate as well as wide range of factors at play in meaning construction, which may go beyond language and involve the interaction of neuroscience, psychology and other disciplines. Even if we confine ourselves to the purely linguistic domain, the construction and interpretation of semantic structures encompasses many problematic issues, among which the following should be mentioned: the (non-)compositionality of meaning (construction); the interaction of lexis and syntax; the (lack of) boundaries between different areas of grammar, semantics and pragmatics; the role of constructions vis-à-vis the lexicon; the contribution of metaphor and metonymy to non-lexical levels of linguistic description; semantic and grammatical coercion; the role of implicature and illocution as descriptive levels, etc. With this scenario in mind, this workshop seeks to host recent work on such problematic topics; it also has the purpose of promoting the collaboration of researchers from different theoretical standpoints, including functional, cognitivist and/or constructionist approaches to language. Some of the topics that this workshop includes are listed below. The presentations should place emphasis on the value of addressing these topics from a perspective that integrates different approaches and/or dimensions of analysis: - The architecture of the lexicon: proposals for lexical organization (lexematics, lexical classes and domains, frames, scripts, etc). - Meaning construction below and above word level: the role of constructions in Morphology in general, with special focus on word formation processes, the interaction of constructions and affixes, the relation between word internal and word external syntax, etc. Meaning construction above the word level: from phrasal syntax to texts. - The nature of semantic representations: Cognitive modeling, primes, logical and/or event structures, qualia, etc. - The interaction between lexical units and constructions: the (non-) existence and nature of a lexicon-grammar continuum, lexical-constructional fusion, semantic and grammatical coercion, etc. - Layers of meaning and layers of grammar: layering proposals in functional models vs. form-meaning pairings. - Whether linguistic processes attested in one domain of linguistic inquiry are active –and, if so, to what extent– in other domains (cf. the equipollence hypothesis in the Lexical Constructional Model). - The explanatory value of postulating semantic and/or pragmatic dimensions of meaning, with special emphasis on the communicative function(s) of lexical items and the constructions with which they fuse. - Principles and constraints in meaning construction and interpretation: e.g. conceptual compatibility between lexical and constructional structure, metaphor and metonymy as possible constraining factors on grammar. · All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. · Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact Francisco J. Cortés-Rodríguez ( fcortes at ull.es) with their name, affiliation and a provisional abstract (max. 200 words) by 11 November 2010. · If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE’ conference website (http: //sle2011.cilap.es/) by 15 January 2011. (apologies for multiple postings) Francisco J. Cortés Rodríguez Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana Facultad de Filología. Campus de Guajara s/n Universidad de La Laguna 38071 La Laguna-Tenerife (+34)922316502 ext. 7653 fcortes at ull.es From djh514 at york.ac.uk Wed Nov 3 18:07:02 2010 From: djh514 at york.ac.uk (Damien Hall) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 18:07:02 +0000 Subject: Cambridge Conference on Endangered Languages (reminder) Message-ID: Forwarded on behalf of Mari Jones. Apologies for cross-postings! Damien Hall From: "Dr. M.C. Jones" Subject: Cambridge Conference on Endangered Languages To: ucam-celc at lists.cam.ac.uk Message-ID: <59D68158-68EC-4843-9BD0-685F2B2BCD2E at cam.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Dear All, This is a reminder that the call for papers for the First Cambridge Conference on Language Endangerment will close on November 26th. We are also attaching a poster - please feel free to distribute it to your colleagues, students, or further afield. Best wishes, Mari Jones and Sarah Ogilvie *** Language Endangerment: Documentation, Pedagogy, and Revitalization Friday, 25 March 2011 Location: University of Cambridge http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1332/ Call for Papers Deadline: abstracts due 26 November, 2010. On-line Registration opens 1 January 2011. Conveners Dr Mari Jones (Department of French/Peterhouse, University of Cambridge) Dr Sarah Ogilvie (Department of Linguistics/Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge) Summary The First Cambridge International Conference on Language Endangerment will focus on language documentation, pedagogy, and revitalization. The following speakers have agreed to give plenary sessions at the conference: Professor Peter Austin (SOAS, University of London, UK) Language Revitalization and Pedagogy: a case from eastern Australia Professor David K. Harrison (Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, Oregon, USA) Language Extinction: Local and Global Perspectives Professor Dr Nikolaus Himmelmann (University of M?nster, Germany) On Language Documentation Call for Papers This conference will bring together academics, students, and members of indigenous communities from around the world to discuss current theories, methodologies, and practices of language documentation, pedagogy, revitalization. Most of the world's languages have diminishing numbers of speakers and are on the brink of falling silent. Currently around the globe, scholars are collaborating with members of indigenous communities to document and describe these endangered languages and cultures. Mindful that their work will be used by future speech communities to learn, teach, and revitalize their languages, scholars face new challenges in the way they gather materials and in the way they present their findings. This conference will discuss current efforts to record, collect, and archive endangered languages in writing, sound, and video that will support future language learners and speakers. Documentation is of critical and immediate importance, and is often considered one of the main tasks of the field linguist. Future revitalization efforts may succeed or fail on the basis of the quality and range of material gathered, and yet the process may be rapid and dependent on conscious decisions by linguists and language workers who may be analyzing the form of a language for the first time, and codifying it in dictionaries and grammars. Written documentation of course not only aids the process of standardization but also serves important needs and functions within a community in support of language maintenance such as providing the basis for pedagogical materials in schools and helping to create a community's sense of identity. However, indigenous communities and scholars of endangered languages are beginning to realise that the rapid and often artificial nature of this process can have negative effects - politically, linguistically, and culturally - which feed into issues relating to education and, ultimately, language revitalization. In addition to the opportunity of sharing experiences with a network of linguists, it is hoped that participants will leave the conference with a new understanding of the topic, innovative ideas for documentation and pedagogy within their own linguistic contexts, and a renewed vigour to implement what they have learnt in their own language situations. Submission Guidelines We welcome abstracts (200 words maximum) for papers (20 minute paper + 10 minute discussion) that include, among other topics, discussion of interdisciplinary approaches and innovative techniques for collecting raw material, presenting metadata, and archiving language materials; teaching endangered languages to both children and adults; and revitalizing language use in homes, schools, and communities. Abstracts are due by 26 November 2010, and should be sent to: Dr Mari Jones (mcj11 at cam.ac.uk) and Dr Sarah Ogilvie (svo21 at cam.ac.uk). Sponsor The conveners are grateful for the support of The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge. From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Wed Nov 3 20:08:33 2010 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:08:33 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings Message-ID: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From language at sprynet.com Wed Nov 3 20:34:57 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:34:57 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings Message-ID: > I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan > you all turn my stomach. Thanks, Jess, I feel much the same wayS about everyone here. This finding has been around for a long time & used to be considered basic in our field. Ervin-Tripp, 1964: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/pdf/An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Interaction%20of%20Language,%20Topic%20and%20Listener.pdf Can anyone guess why it has receded from us? All the best! alex ----- Original Message ----- From: "jess tauber" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:08 PM Subject: [FUNKNET] Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey,Thoughts and Feelings > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm > > I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan > you all turn my stomach. > > Jess Tauber > phonosemantics at earthlink.net > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Nov 3 21:01:38 2010 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 17:01:38 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings In-Reply-To: <8889C0B77FBF4002A6737B54D51F8A3A@aa82807a474cf4> Message-ID: Jess and Alex, I have used this example from Susan's study of the Nisei women informants in my classes in both Psycholinguistic and Crosscultural Psychology for the last 33 years. Of course Susan was my advisor. But note that her findings, as displayed most poignantly on page 96 are about identity or self-image, not about attitudes towards out-group members. Of course, I would expect similar results for that area, as the sciencedaily report suggests. Also, Lambert and others in Montréal did a lot of related work about personality perception as based on L2 accent. I really don't see any evidence that any of these ideas have vanished. How could they, given how obvious they are, at least in some regards? --Brian MacWhinney On Nov 3, 2010, at 4:34 PM, alex gross wrote: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/pdf/An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Interaction%20of%20Language,%20Topic%20and%20Listener.pdf > >> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. > > Thanks, Jess, I feel much the same wayS about everyone here. > > This finding has been around for a long time & used to be considered basic in our field. > > Ervin-Tripp, 1964: > > > Can anyone guess why it has receded from us? > > All the best! > > alex > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "jess tauber" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:08 PM > Subject: [FUNKNET] Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey,Thoughts and Feelings > > >> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm >> >> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. >> >> Jess Tauber >> phonosemantics at earthlink.net > > From MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es Thu Nov 4 18:40:30 2010 From: MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es (MARIA DEL ROSARIO CABALLERO RODRIGUEZ) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 19:40:30 +0100 Subject: CALL FOR ABSTRACTS. sle2011: Metaphor in socialinteraction: Culture, genre and discourse communities Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS Metaphor in social interaction: Culture, genre and discourse communities Workshop proposal To be held within the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) (University of La Rioja at Logroño -Spain, 8-11 September 2011) http://sle2011.cilap.es/ Convenor: Rosario Caballero Rodríguez (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain) Claiming that human reasoning is largely metaphorical and imaginative not only involves attempting to determine the role of metaphor in cognition, but also how we use metaphor to communicate with each other. Metaphor is both a conceptual and a socialization tool, and one that is partly acquired and effectively put to work through discourse interaction. Hence, there is a need to incorporate the cognitive, linguistic, and cultural aspects of figurative phenomena in metaphor research aimed at explaining why and how people communicate through metaphor. This makes it necessary to combine both a cognitive and a discourse perspective on metaphor if reliable insights are to be gained. In this context, this workshop is intended to be a forum where scholars working within various fields (Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics or Pragmatics) can discuss both theoretical and applied issues related to the occurrence and function of metaphor in social interaction. The main goal, then, is to provide a collaborative environment where the Cognitive Linguistics bottom-up approach to metaphor and other related phenomena can be combined with the top-down procedures of Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics etc., in an attempt to yield a richer view of metaphor, with special emphasis on how metaphor contributes to the shared cultural and cognitive schemas of discourse communities. Some of the topics that this workshop includes are listed below. The presentations should place emphasis on the value of addressing these topics from a perspective that integrates different approaches and/or dimensions of analysis: - Procedures, approaches, and tools to explore metaphor, metonymy, etc., in discourse contexts, particularly genres. - Function of metaphor, metonymy and the like above the level of lexis (e.g. in texts, genres etc.). - Discussions of metaphor as both an individual and collective tool for cognition and communication. Issue: how metaphor is used, expanded, and interpreted in both macro-cultures and their local sub-cultures (e.g. professional communities). - Metaphorical patterns in discourse contexts: types and functions. - Metaphor variation across communities, genres etc. Issues for metaphor identification and/or interpretation. - Genres as acculturation tools in metaphor use. The role of discourse interaction and language in the expansion and 'health' of metaphor. · All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. · Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact Rosario Caballero (MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es ) with their name, affiliation and a provisional abstract (max. 200 words) by 12 November 2010. · If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE' conference website (http: //sle2011.cilap.es/ ) by 15 January 2011. Rosario Caballero Departamento de Filologia Moderna Facultad de Letras Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha Avenida Camilo Jose Cela s/n 13071 CIUDAD REAL Phone number: + 34 926 295300 ext. 3128 Fax number: + 34 926 295312 From MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es Thu Nov 4 18:46:58 2010 From: MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es (MARIA DEL ROSARIO CABALLERO RODRIGUEZ) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 19:46:58 +0100 Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS: RaAM Specialized Seminar: Metaphor across Time and Genre Message-ID: RaAM Specialized Seminar: Metaphor across Time and Genre We are pleased to announce a specialized seminar of the international Association for Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM), which will be held at Palacio de Valdeparaíso (Almagro, Spain) 5-7 May 2011. As an association, RaAM strives to advance the study of metaphor, metonymy and other aspects of figurative thought and expression, with a commitment to the application of metaphor research to 'real world' issues. In the present seminar, the theme will be “Metaphor across Time and Genre”. We intend to highlight the socio-cultural and the discursive quality of metaphor, as well as the fact that it extends over various timescales and is manifested in different kinds of situated social practices (i.e. genres) conventionally used by discourse communities. The seminar will be organized in a vertical manner, in that there will only be one session held at a time. Our main aim is to get people to attend everything, as well as chat, make contacts, renew old ones, and have fun, plus have time to discuss their own research with everybody. The event will feature three plenary lectures: · Dirk Geraeerts (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) · Elena Semino (University of Lancaster) · Eve Sweetser (University of California, Berkeley) We will also have keynote talks by: · Kathryn Allan (University College London) · Antonio Barcelona (University of Cordoba) · Enrique Bernardez (Complutense University, Madrid) · Jonathan Charteris-Black (University of the West of England) · Iraide Ibarretxe (University of Zaragoza) · Veronica Koller (University of Lancaster) · Gitte Kristiansen (Complutense University, Madrid) · Farzad Sharifian (Monash University, Australia) · Javier Valenzuela (University of Murcia) · Awaiting confirmation from tenth speaker We are soliciting abstracts for 20-minute papers and for poster presentations. Given the vertical format of the seminar, spots for oral presentations will likely be quite competitive. In other words, reviewers will be asked to identify the submissions that seem most likely to generate broad interest due to originality of ideas or significance to the field. For this reason, posters are highly encouraged, and one hour will be reserved in the programme so that poster authors can introduce their work orally. The poster session will be permanently on display throughout the seminar. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words (excluding references) and must specify whether they belong to oral presentations or to posters. Abstracts for both papers and posters must be sent to raam.seminar at mobilearn.es . Authors are encouraged to use the template for abstracts available at http://www.uclm.es/actividades/2011/raam/abstracttemplate.rtf . For any queries, send a mail to the chairs of the seminar: Rosario Caballero (MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es) and Javier Diaz-Vera (JavierEnrique.Diaz at uclm.es). The deadline for abstracts is 15 December 2010. Notification of acceptance decisions will be sent by 1 February 2011. The registration fee is €90 and covers the book of abstracts, social programme, coffee breaks and two wine receptions. Finally, we hope to be able to provide transportation from Madrid or from Ciudad Real to Almagro. Further details on this will be posted on the seminar’s webpage (http://www.uclm.es/actividades/2011/raam/). We will also provide travel and accommodation information in due time. The 2011 seminar scientific committee: Juana Marin Arrese (Complutense University) Antonio Barcelona (University of Cоrdoba) Enrique Bernardez (Complutense University) Lynne Cameron (Open University, United Kingdom) Jonathan Charteris-Black (University of the West of England, United Kingdom) Alan Cienki (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Alice Deignan (University of Leeds, United Kingdom) Charles Forceville (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands) Dirk Geraeerts (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) Iraide Ibarretxe (University of Zaragoza) Veronika Koller (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Gitte Kristiansen (Complutense University) Jeannette Littlemore (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) Graham Low (York University, United Kingdom) Fiona MacArthur (University of Extremadura) Carita Paradis (Lund University, Sweden) Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza (University of La Rioja) Julio Santiago de Torres (University of Granada) Elena Semino (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Cristina Soriano (Université de Genève, Switzerland) Richard Trim (University of Aix-en Provence, France) Javier Valenzuela (University of Murcia) The local organizing committee: Rosario Caballero (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Javier Diaz-Vera (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Francisco Jose Ruiz de Mendoza (University of La Rioja) Mª Jesus Pinar Sanz (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Rafael Cruz, Jose Miguel Alcolado, Marta Gomez, Carmen Calzado (assistants, University of Castilla-La Mancha) For information on becoming a member of RaAM, see http://www.raam.org.uk/Joining.html Rosario Caballero Departamento de Filologia Moderna Facultad de Letras Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha Avenida Camilo Jose Cela s/n 13071 CIUDAD REAL Phone number: + 34 926 295300 ext. 3128 Fax number: + 34 926 295312 From elc9j at virginia.edu Thu Nov 4 19:06:14 2010 From: elc9j at virginia.edu (Ellen Contini-Morava) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 15:06:14 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This reminds me of a study (in the 1970's?) of Israeli Arab men who were bilingual in Hebrew and Arabic, exposed to arguments against smoking and drinking, that manipulated the variables of language and whether the basis of the argument was religion or health/science. Respondents found the religion-based arguments more effective when delivered in Arabic, and the health/science based arguments when delivered in Hebrew. I unfortunately don't remember the source. Ellen On 11/3/2010 5:01 PM, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Jess and Alex, > > I have used this example from Susan's study of the Nisei women informants in my classes in both Psycholinguistic and Crosscultural Psychology for the last 33 years. Of course Susan was my advisor. But note that her findings, as displayed most poignantly on page 96 are about identity or self-image, not about attitudes towards out-group members. Of course, I would expect similar results for that area, as the sciencedaily report suggests. Also, Lambert and others in Montréal did a lot of related work about personality perception as based on L2 accent. I really don't see any evidence that any of these ideas have vanished. How could they, given how obvious they are, at least in some regards? > > --Brian MacWhinney > > On Nov 3, 2010, at 4:34 PM, alex gross wrote: > > http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/pdf/An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Interaction%20of%20Language,%20Topic%20and%20Listener.pdf > >>> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. >> Thanks, Jess, I feel much the same wayS about everyone here. >> >> This finding has been around for a long time& used to be considered basic in our field. >> >> Ervin-Tripp, 1964: >> >> >> Can anyone guess why it has receded from us? >> >> All the best! >> >> alex >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "jess tauber" >> To: >> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:08 PM >> Subject: [FUNKNET] Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey,Thoughts and Feelings >> >> >>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm >>> >>> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. >>> >>> Jess Tauber >>> phonosemantics at earthlink.net >> From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Thu Nov 4 20:18:39 2010 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 16:18:39 -0400 Subject: Stone Age Humans Needed More Brain Power to Make Big Leap in Tool Design Message-ID: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103171451.htm So cutting-edge technology really was cutting edge technology? Anyone here care to comment about possible links to language? It is well known that flint knapping requires the capacity to associate the brightness or dullness of sounds produced during test-tapping, at different positions, of the knapping material with likelihood of conchoidal fracture and material texture- hit the stone the wrong way, at the wrong position, or with the wrong tool and you're out of business. Something perhaps akin to sound symbolism? Or 'bipartite constructions' with instrument/bodypart and pathway/position affixes and similarly organized longer ideophones? Other developed technologies probably also require the same sorts of knowledge, though with softer, wetter materials (that don't leave fossils). Jess Tauber From language at sprynet.com Thu Nov 4 20:46:43 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 16:46:43 -0400 Subject: An Epilogue to our Discussion... Message-ID: You'll find a fitting epilogue to our discussion about the value of linguistics in this month's Atlantic, an article entitled "Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science." It's on-line at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269 This piece represents the latest advance on "evidence-based medicine." a field I referenced as the basis for my 2005 LACUS presentation "Is Evidence-Based Linguistics the Solution? Is Voodoo Linguistics the Problem?" Here's a few brief excerpts: "At every step in the process, there is room to distort results, a way to make a stronger claim or to select what is going to be concluded," says Ioannidis. "There is an intellectual conflict of interest that pressures researchers to find whatever it is that is most likely to get them funded." Simply put, if you're attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you're motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you'll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right. "Even when the evidence shows that a particular research idea is wrong, if you have thousands of scientists who have invested their careers in it, they'll continue to publish papers on it," he says. "Its like an epidemic, in the sense that they're infected with these wrong ideas, and they're spreading it to other researchers through journals." --------------- These findings have repercussions for all studies not grounded in measurable observed results. The equivalent article about our field might be entitled "Lies, Damned Lies, and Mainstream Linguistics." I can anticipate that some of you might prefer to get off the hook by rationalizing "if medical professionals can't get the basis of their study straight, then why should we feel guilty if we can't either...?" But this won't cut it. Medicine has almost unlimited practical effects on all of us, and regardless of its theoretical or research problems, the motto of med students remains "Common Things Are Common." There are countless reliable cures, tonics, and physical therapies that work perfectly well most of the time for countless well-known health problems. And conscientious doctors have at least an even chance of treating more serious maladies. But linguistics today in its mainstream aberration has virtually no practical effects at all on any segment of society. This was certainly not the vision nor the intention of Whorf, Sapir, Hayakawa, Ogden, or Richards, who foresaw a linguistics that could reach deeply into the lives of individuals, societies, and cultures. If the entire medical profession can admit both tacitly and publicly that their theoretical and research fundamentals are not in order, would it really be too much to ask for the sages of TGG to do the same? I guess it would... Perhaps we'll have to await the advent of a new generation of Young Turks who stumble on these old ideas and/or reinvent them as new. Assuming they'll be able to find the funding... All the best to everyone! alex PS--i am grateful to my colleague Paul F. Wood (himself a long-time critic of mainstream errors in "The Linguist" out of London) for calling this article to my attention. ************************************************************** The principal purpose of language is not communication but to persuade ourselves that we know what we are talking about, when quite often we do not. ************************************************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frederick J Newmeyer" To: "Funknet" Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 1:12 PM Subject: [FUNKNET] Outsiders' views of the value of linguistics > Hello, > > For a survey article that I'm writing, I plan to assemble quotes from > people outside the field of linguistics on what they see as the value, or > lack of value, of work done in linguistics. So I would like to cite > published quotes from psychologists, anthropologists, literary > specialists, etc. on their views about the value/relevance of linguistics > for their particular concerns and its value/relevance in general. Can > anybody help me out by pointing me to relevant quotes? > > Let me give one example of the sort of thing that I am looking for. The > late computational linguist Fred Jelinek reportedly wrote: 'Whenever I fire > a linguist our system performance improves'. > > Thanks. I'll summarize. > > Best wishes, > > --fritz > > fjn at u.washington.edu > > > > Frederick J. Newmeyer > Professor Emeritus, University of Washington > Adjunct Professor, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser > University > [for my postal address, please contact me by e-mail] > > From mark at polymathix.com Thu Nov 4 22:16:19 2010 From: mark at polymathix.com (Mark P. Line) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 17:16:19 -0500 Subject: Stone Age Humans Needed More Brain Power to Make Big Leap in Tool Design In-Reply-To: <5034382.1288901920081.JavaMail.root@wamui-hunyo.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I doubt that anything interesting can be said about narrowly language-related cognitive abilities being somehow related (in some speakers, at some times) to particular non-linguistic cognitive abilities such as those underlying flintknapping. It would be very much more interesting to find this or that cognitive ability that can be shown to be utterly and necessarily divorced from language. Just as an aside: My suspicion of evolutionary "leaps" is directly and exponentially proportional to the length of time since that leap is supposed to have occurred. -- Mark Mark P. Line Bartlesville, OK jess tauber wrote: > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103171451.htm > > So cutting-edge technology really was cutting edge technology? Anyone here > care to comment about possible links to language? It is well known that > flint knapping requires the capacity to associate the brightness or > dullness of sounds produced during test-tapping, at different positions, > of the knapping material with likelihood of conchoidal fracture and > material texture- hit the stone the wrong way, at the wrong position, or > with the wrong tool and you're out of business. Something perhaps akin to > sound symbolism? Or 'bipartite constructions' with instrument/bodypart and > pathway/position affixes and similarly organized longer ideophones? Other > developed technologies probably also require the same sorts of knowledge, > though with softer, wetter materials (that don't leave fossils). > > Jess Tauber > > -- Mark Mark P. Line Bartlesville, OK From twood at uwc.ac.za Fri Nov 5 07:39:55 2010 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 09:39:55 +0200 Subject: An Epilogue to our Discussion... In-Reply-To: <1B1BA5163C634044B390D18FD1332FF6@aa82807a474cf4> Message-ID: >>> "alex gross" 11/4/2010 10:46 pm >>> If the entire medical profession can admit both tacitly and publicly that their theoretical and research fundamentals are not in order, would it really be too much to ask for the sages of TGG to do the same? I guess it would... Well, Chomsky did say that he thought that linguistics might have nothing to offer to the teaching of a language, which is an extraordinary enough thing to say. Alas, he was right (at least in his own case). Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal From francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es Fri Nov 5 08:35:17 2010 From: francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es (Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 09:35:17 +0100 Subject: Fwd: SLE Workshop: Sociolinguistics & the Media In-Reply-To: <20101105001944.8408B53634@xenon11.um.es> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: J.M. Hernandez-Campoy Date: 2010/11/5 Subject: SLE Workshop: Sociolinguistics & the Media To: CALL FOR PAPERS *Sociolinguistics and the Media: The Use of Mass Media as Linguistic Data Corpora for the Study of Sociolinguistic Variation and Change * *Workshop Proposal * To be held within the *44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea** (SLE) * (University of La Rioja at Logroño –Spain, 8-11 September 2011) http://sle2011.cilap.es/ Convenor: J.M. Hernández-Campoy (Universidad de Murcia, Spain) As we know, *Sociolinguistics* is that area of Linguistics which deals with the relationships between language and society. It specifically focuses on how human beings actually use language in social interaction in their everyday lives, and its studies are made of languages in their social context entirely. To simplify somewhat, its concerns are to learn more about language by investigating topics such as the mechanisms of linguistic change, the nature of linguistic variability, and the structure of linguistic systems. Through the correlation of extralinguistic factors, such as socio-demographic and/or context variables, with linguistic variables, Sociolinguistics is being able to detect, locate, describe and explain the symmetry existing between social variation and linguistic variation in terms of *sociolinguistic variation*. Significance is understood as the causality relationship of linguistic and extralinguistic data. The samples used from mass media communication have been demonstrated to be very useful sources for the study of styling and the analysis of linguistic variation and change. On the one hand, style enjoys a pivotal position in sociolinguistic variation, with *stylistic* (or intra-speaker) variation constituting a principal component together with * linguistic* variation and *social* (or inter-speaker) variation. On the other, language variation and change are one of the two sides of the sociolinguistic coin (together with linguistic diversity), constituting one of the great unsolved mysteries of linguistic science, and consequently a challenge to generations of scholars so far. In many ways, they reflect the multifaceted shaping of human relationships for the transmission of social meaning. The aim of this workshop is to show results and conclusions from different empirical studies carried out in different and distant languages, focussing on variationist phenomena of language use and choice, and emphasizing theoretical as well as methodological aspects. *Bibliography: *Bell, Allan. (1982). Radio: The style of news language. *Journal of Communication* 32: 150-164. Bell, Allan. (1982). This isn’t the BBC: Colonialism in New Zealand English. * Applied Linguistics* 3: 246-258. Bell, Allan. (1984). Language Style as Audience Design. *Language in Society * 13: 145-204. Bell, Allan. (1991). *The Language of News Media*. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Coupland, Nikolas. (1985). Hark, Hark the Lark: Social Motivations for Phonological Style-Shifting.* Language and Communication* 5 (3): 153-172. Coupland, Nikolas. (2001). Dialect Stylization in Radio Talk.* Language in Society *30 (3): 345-75. Coupland, Nikolas. (2001). Language, Situation, and the Relational Self: Theorizing Dialect-Style in Sociolinguistics. In Penelope Eckert & John R. Rickford (eds.), *Style and Sociolinguistic Variation*. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell, 185-210. Coupland, Nikolas. (2007). *Style: Language Variation, and Identity. *Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cutillas-Espinosa, J.A. & Hernández-Campoy, J.M. (2006). Nonresponsive Performance in Radio Broadcasting: A Case Study. *Language Variation & Change* 18(3): 317-330. Cutillas-Espinosa, J.A. & Hernández-Campoy, J.M. (2007). Script Design in the Media: Radio Talk Norms behind a Professional Voice. *Language & Communication* 27(2): 127-152. Cutillas-Espinosa, J.A. & Hernández-Campoy, J.M. & Schilling-Estes, N. (2010). Hyper-vernacularisation in a Speaker Design Context: A Case Study. *Folia Linguistica* 44(1): 31-52. Gordon, E., Campbell, L., Hay, J., Maclagan, M., Sudbury, A., & Trudgill, P. (2004). *New Zealand English: Its Origins and Evolution*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hernández-Campoy, J.M. & Jiménez-Cano, J.M. (2003). Broadcasting Standardisation: An Analysis of the Linguistic Normalisation Process in Murcia. *Journal of Sociolinguistics* 7(3): 321-347. Hernández-Campoy, J.M. & J.A. Cutillas-Espinosa. (2010). Speaker Design Practices in Political Discourse: a Case Study. *Language and Communication*30: 297-309. Johnstone, Barbara. (1996). *The Linguistic Individual: Self-expression in Language and Linguistics*. New York: O.U.P. Johnstone, Barbara. (2009). Stance, Style and Linguistic Individual. In: A. Jaffe (ed.), *Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Stance*. New York: O.U.P., 29-52. Trudgill, P. (2004). *New-Dialect Formation. The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes*. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van de Velde, Hans, Merinel Gerritsen, and Roeland Van Hout. (1996). The Devoicing of Fricatives in Standard Dutch: A Real-Time Study Based on Radio Recordings. *Language Variation and Change* 8: 149-175. Van de Velde, Hans, Roeland Van Hout, and Marinel Gerritsen. (1997). Watching Dutch change: A real time study of variation and change in standard Dutch pronunciation. *Journal of Sociolinguistics* 1 (3): 361-391. *Details of Call for Papers: *-All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. -Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact J.M. Hernández-Campoy (jmcampoy at um.es) with their name, affiliation and a provisional title by *12 November 2010*. -If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE’ conference website (http: //sle2011.cilap.es/) by 15 January 2011. *Important Dates (Summary): *-Submission of provisional title: 12 November 2010. -Notification of acceptance of workshop proposal: 15th December 2010. -If the workshop proposal is accepted then all abstracts will need to be submitted to SLE by 15th January 2011, via the SLE conference website: http://sle2011.cliap.es -Notification of acceptance: 31st March 2011 -Registration: From April 2011 onwards -Conference: 8-11 September 2011 (apologies for multiple postings) ================================================== Prof. Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy (Dr.) Departamento de Filología Inglesa Facultad de Letras Campus de La Merced Universidad de Murcia 30071 Murcia (Spain) Tel.: +34-868-88.31.81 Tel. Móvil: 629-552424 Fax.: +34-868-88.31.85 E-Mail: jmcampoy at um.es http://webs.um.es/jmcampoy ================================================== _______________________________________________ Si tiene cualquier pregunta sobre el funcionamiento de la lista o desea darse de baja envíe un correo a aesla.webmaster at uji.es. Por favor no envíe correos a la lista pidiendo información. Infoaesla mailing list Infoaesla at llistes.uji.es http://llistes.uji.es/mailman/listinfo/infoaesla -- From francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es Fri Nov 5 08:35:54 2010 From: francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es (Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 09:35:54 +0100 Subject: Fwd: SLE Workshop: English as a Global Language In-Reply-To: <20101105082748.979B253B20@xenon11.um.es> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: J.M. Hernandez-Campoy Date: Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:27 AM Subject: SLE Workshop: English as a Global Language To: *CALL FOR PAPERS English as a Global Language: A Sociolinguistic Approach to the Influence of English on the Lexicon of Other Languages Workshop Proposal * To be held within the *44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea* (SLE) (University of La Rioja at Logroño - Spain, 8-11 September 2011) *http://sle2011.cilap.es/ * Convenor: Eduardo Saldaña Navedo (Universidad de Murcia, Spain) Nowadays, English enjoys a privileged position in language use and choice. In fact, it has some kind of special status (as a first, second or foreign language) in over 70 countries, and it is the most commonly used lingua franca in international contexts of communication. Its influence is so important that many intellectuals and scholars are afraid that several historical languages (such as French, Spanish, German and numerous minority varieties) might change drastically because of English, and even end up disappearing. For fear of it, many national governs have tried to avoid or - at least - control the use of foreign words and/or loanwords come from other languages, specially English. On the other hand, it is well-known that lexical transfers is not a new phenomenon. It has always been quite common in history having very influential cultures and languages which have exported several of their features to other nations and linguistic systems. Moreover, lexical transfers must not necessarily be seen as a negative aspect derived from globalization. They may provide languages with unique opportunities to enrich their lexicon with new voices and previously nonexistent shades of meaning, so that they can define all the innovations and new realities that are coming up faster and faster. This workshop is intended to be a forum for the discussion of the different factors that play a role in the transference of words from English to many other languages all over the world. With this scenario in mind, the presentations for this workshop should place emphasis on some of the following topics: -The effects of globalization on the acquisition of words coming from English. -The influence of mass media on the diffusion of lexical transfers from English. -Technical discourses written in English as a gate to Anglicisms. -The importance of bilingual speakers (including translators) in the spreading of Anglicisms. -The relevant role that teaching English as a foreign language may be playing in the increasing amount of lexical transfers from that linguistic system. -The relationship of different socio-demographical factors (age, gender, social class, etc.) with the rates of knowledge, use and acceptance of lexical transfers from English. -The influence attitudes towards English language and/or British and North American culture may have in speakers’ acceptance of foreign words and loanwords from English. All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact Eduardo Saldaña Navedo (esn18615 at um.es) with their name, affiliation and a provisional title by *12 November 2010*. If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE conference website (http://sle2011.cilap.es/) by 15 January 2011. Selected references: -Crystal, David. (2001) *English as a global language*. Cambridge: Cambridge Universty Press. -Jenkins, Jennifer. (2007) *English as a lingua franca: attitude and identity*. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - Rosenhouse, Judith & Rotem Kowner (eds.). (2008) *Globally speaking: Motives for adopting English vocabulary in other languages*. Bristol: Multingual Matters. -Thomason, Sarah G. (2001) *Language contact*. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. -Thomason, Sarah G. & Terrence Kaufman. (1992) *Language contact, creolization and genetics linguistics*. Berkeley: University of California Press. -Trudgill, Peter. (2000) *Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society*. London: Penguin. -Weinreich, Uriel. (1953) *Languages in contact: Findings and problems*. The Hague: Mouton. (apologies for multiple postings) ================================================== Prof. Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy (Dr.) Departamento de Filología Inglesa Facultad de Letras Campus de La Merced Universidad de Murcia 30071 Murcia (Spain) Tel.: +34-868-88.31.81 Tel. Móvil: 629-552424 Fax.: +34-868-88.31.85 E-Mail: jmcampoy at um.es http://webs.um.es/jmcampoy ================================================== From dmdonvan at ix.netcom.com Sun Nov 7 14:29:42 2010 From: dmdonvan at ix.netcom.com (Denis Donovan) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 09:29:42 -0500 Subject: Chomsky - different perspective Message-ID: Anyone still interested in the discussion of whether language is a uniquely capacity and whether other species possess might want to read a paper in press by Gergely Csibra and György Gergely. The paper seems quite relevant to the current Hauser controversy as well. I would be most interested in reactions to Csibra and Gergely's thesis since it would appear to made the species divide even wider. Similarities across species are fascinating but they don't always have the same implications--which is why there is no need to deny similarities across species in order to appreciate the differences. After all, nearly thirty years ago Patricia Kuhl and J. D. Miller demonstrated that chinchillas perceive artificial stimuli along the da-ta continuum just as categorically as do humans. In fact, Kuhl and Miller found that when they plotted a graph of chinchilla da-ta discrimination the results were nearly identical to those of an English speaker. Here's a taste of what the Csibra and Gergely paper offers. Csibra, G. and G. r. Gergely (in press). "Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: . http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk/people/scientificstaff/gergo/pub/index.html/pedagogy_adaptation.pdf (110610). Abstract: We propose that the cognitive mechanisms that enable the transmission of cultural knowledge by communication between individuals constitute a system of 'natural pedagogy' in humans, and represent an evolutionary adaptation along the hominin lineage. We discuss three kinds of arguments that support this hypothesis. First, natural pedagogy is likely to be human-specific: while social learning and communication are both widespread in non-human animals, we know of no example of social learning by communication in any other species apart from humans. Second, natural pedagogy is universal: despite the huge variability in child-rearing practices, all human cultures rely on communication to transmit to novices a variety of different types of cultural knowledge, including information about artefact kinds, conventional behaviours, arbitrary referential symbols, cognitively opaque skills, and know-how embedded in means-end actions. Third, the data available on early hominin technological culture are more compatible with the assumption that natural pedagogy was an independently selected adaptive cognitive system than considering it as a by-product of some other human-specific adaptation, such as language. By providing a qualitatively new type of social learning mechanism, natural pedagogy is not only the product but also one of the sources of the rich cultural heritage of our species. From the text: During recent years, we have documented that human infants and children possess specialized cognitive mechanisms that allow them to be at the receptive side of such cultural transmission. By being sensitive to ostensive signals (such as direct eye-contact, infant-directed speech, or contingent reactivity), infants are prepared to identify and interpret others' actions as communicative acts that are specifically addressed to them [2,3]. They also display interpretive biases that suggest that they expect to learn generic and shared knowledge from such communicative acts. For example, infants expect that ostensive signals will be followed by referential signals [4], pay preferential attention to generalizable kind-relevant features of objects that are referentially identified by demonstrative communicative acts addressed to them [5,6], learn causally opaque means actions from communicative demonstrations [7], and assume that communicated valence information about objects (i.e., whether they are evaluated positively or negatively) is shared by others [8]. These and other findings suggest that preverbal human infants are prepared to receive culturally relevant knowledge from benevolent adults who are, in turn, spontaneously inclined to provide it. This paper advances the hypothesis that the cognitive systems that make natural pedagogy possible reflect an evolutionary adaptation in the hominin lineage. This account can be contrasted with other explanations, according to which this type of social learning is not human-specific, or is the result of cultural rather than cognitive (hence biological) evolution and therefore not universal across human cultures, or is a by-product of some other basic adaptation. We think that empirical and theoretical arguments can be advanced against these proposals. (pp. 4-5) -- ===================================================== Denis M. Donovan, M.D., M.Ed., F.A.P.S. Director, EOCT Institute Medical Director, 1983 - 2006 The Children's Center for Developmental Psychiatry St. Petersburg, Florida P.O Box 47576 St. Petersburg, FL 33743-7576 727-641-8905 DenisDonovan at EOCT-Institute.org ===================================================== From grvsmth at panix.com Sun Nov 7 14:52:12 2010 From: grvsmth at panix.com (Angus B. Grieve-Smith) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 09:52:12 -0500 Subject: Chomsky - different perspective In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/7/2010 9:29 AM, Denis Donovan wrote: > I would be most interested in reactions to Csibra and Gergely's thesis > since it would appear to made the species divide even wider. > Similarities across species are fascinating but they don't always have > the same implications--which is why there is no need to deny > similarities across species in order to appreciate the differences. > After all, nearly thirty years ago Patricia Kuhl and J. D. Miller > demonstrated that chinchillas perceive artificial stimuli along the > da-ta continuum just as categorically as do humans. In fact, Kuhl and > Miller found that when they plotted a graph of chinchilla da-ta > discrimination the results were nearly identical to those of an > English speaker. I don't understand. It seems that the chinchilla data contradict Csibra and Gergely's thesis. It's not like you can just say "da" on a mountainside in Peru and the chinchillas will jump; they had to be trained to respond to this distinction. Although this training was presumably not "natural pedagogy," it's pretty clear that chinchillas are receptive to similar kinds of activities. One thing that gets me about all this research is the circular nature of it: We have activities that are uniquely human, and those activities are what separates us from the animals. Okay, then I want a grant to figure out the color of George Washington's white horse. The other thing that gets me is why so many people care so much about separating themselves from other animals, and why they assume that everyone else cares. No offense, but to me that's one of the least interesting research questions I can think of. Anyone who wants to research it can go ahead, but they don't have to belittle my reasons for studying language because they're not the same as theirs. -- -Angus B. Grieve-Smith grvsmth at panix.com From v.evans at bangor.ac.uk Mon Nov 8 04:31:56 2010 From: v.evans at bangor.ac.uk (Vyv Evans) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 04:31:56 +0000 Subject: Language and Cognition Vol. 2, No. 2, October 2010 is now available Message-ID: **************JUST PUBLISHED************** Language and Cognition *Volume*: 2, *Number*: 2 (October 2010) Journal website: www.languageandcognition.net Publisher website: http://www.reference-global.com/loi/langcog Table of contents below. Don't forget to ask your library to subscribe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Adaptive cognition without massive modularity* Raymond W. Gibbs and Guy C. Van Orden Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 149-176. Abstract | PDF (470 KB) | PDF with Links (471 KB) *Do classifiers predict differences in cognitive processing? A study of nominal classification in Mandarin Chinese* Mahesh Srinivasan Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 177-190. Abstract | PDF (528 KB) | PDF with Links (532 KB) *The conceptual structure of deontic meaning: A model based on geometrical principles* Paul Chilton Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 191-220. Abstract | PDF (792 KB) | PDF with Links (795 KB) *Talking about quantities in space: Vague quantifiers, context and similarity* Kenny R. Coventry , Angelo Cangelosi , Stephen N. Newstead , and Davi Bugmann Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 221-241. Abstract | PDF (816 KB) | PDF with Links (818 KB) *Abstract motion is no longer abstract* Teenie Matlock Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 243-260. Abstract | PDF (446 KB) | PDF with Links (450 KB) *Mutual bootstrapping between language and analogical processing* Dedre Gentner and Stella Christie Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 261-283. Abstract | PDF (425 KB) | PDF with Links (430 KB) *Reviews* Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 285-300. Abstract | PDF (417 KB) | PDF with Links (420 KB) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Prof. Vyv Evans Professor of Linguistics www.vyvevans.net Head of School School of Linguistics & English Language Bangor University www.bangor.ac.uk/linguistics General Editor of 'Language & Cognition' A Mouton de Gruyter journal www.languageandcognition.net -- Gall y neges e-bost hon, ac unrhyw atodiadau a anfonwyd gyda hi, gynnwys deunydd cyfrinachol ac wedi eu bwriadu i'w defnyddio'n unig gan y sawl y cawsant eu cyfeirio ato (atynt). Os ydych wedi derbyn y neges e-bost hon trwy gamgymeriad, rhowch wybod i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a dil�wch y neges. Os na fwriadwyd anfon y neges atoch chi, rhaid i chi beidio � defnyddio, cadw neu ddatgelu unrhyw wybodaeth a gynhwysir ynddi. Mae unrhyw farn neu safbwynt yn eiddo i'r sawl a'i hanfonodd yn unig ac nid yw o anghenraid yn cynrychioli barn Prifysgol Bangor. Nid yw Prifysgol Bangor yn gwarantu bod y neges e-bost hon neu unrhyw atodiadau yn rhydd rhag firysau neu 100% yn ddiogel. Oni bai fod hyn wedi ei ddatgan yn uniongyrchol yn nhestun yr e-bost, nid bwriad y neges e-bost hon yw ffurfio contract rhwymol - mae rhestr o lofnodwyr awdurdodedig ar gael o Swyddfa Cyllid Prifysgol Bangor. www.bangor.ac.uk This email and any attachments may contain confidential material and is solely for the use of the intended recipient(s). If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email. If you are not the intended recipient(s), you must not use, retain or disclose any information contained in this email. Any views or opinions are solely those of the sender and do not necessarily represent those of the Bangor University. Bangor University does not guarantee that this email or any attachments are free from viruses or 100% secure. Unless expressly stated in the body of the text of the email, this email is not intended to form a binding contract - a list of authorised signatories is available from the Bangor University Finance Office. www.bangor.ac.uk From language at sprynet.com Mon Nov 8 10:55:12 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 05:55:12 -0500 Subject: An Epilogue to our Discussion... Message-ID: > Well, Chomsky did say that he thought that linguistics might > have nothing to offer to the teaching of a language, which is > an extraordinary enough thing to say. Alas, he was right (at > least in his own case). > Tahir Yes, and he also made an attempt to cover his derriere on MT as follows: `as for machine translation and related enterprises, they seemed to me pointless as well as probably quite hopeless.'* But the whole history and development of the mainstream movement under its various names favored the opposite direction. Thanks, Tahir, for being the only one to reply to my message after almost four days...could it just be because it was pretty unansweable...? All the best to everyone, including Fritz! alex *Chomsky, Noam (1975) The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, p. 40, University of Chicago Press. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tahir Wood" To: "Funknet" ; "alex gross" ; "Frederick J Newmeyer" Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 2:39 AM Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] An Epilogue to our Discussion... >>> "alex gross" 11/4/2010 10:46 pm >>> If the entire medical profession can admit both tacitly and publicly that their theoretical and research fundamentals are not in order, would it really be too much to ask for the sages of TGG to do the same? I guess it would... Well, Chomsky did say that he thought that linguistics might have nothing to offer to the teaching of a language, which is an extraordinary enough thing to say. Alas, he was right (at least in his own case). Tahir -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer > http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal > > From FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk Wed Nov 10 20:00:59 2010 From: FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk (Lise Fontaine) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:00:59 +0000 Subject: Cardiff University: Postgraduate Funding Opportunities Message-ID: Hello everyone, I'd like to let people know about various funding opportunities for post-graduate study and research in Language and Communication at Cardiff University. Please see below. with best wishes Lise Cardiff University Centre for Language and Communication Research School of English, Communication and Philosophy Postgraduate Funding Opportunities in Language and Communication Research ESRC Studentships in Language and Communication at Cardiff The Centre for Language and Communication Research (CLCR) is able to support applications to the ESRC Open Studentship Competition for PhD studentships, covering tuition fees for British and EU students plus a generous stipend. You must apply for your Cardiff University degree programme by Monday 7th February 2011. Further information is available at http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/opportunities/postgraduate/Guidance.aspx#0 In order to be considered for a studentship, in the first instance you need to apply for postgraduate study at Cardiff University. Please contact Dr Justine Coupland (PhD Admissions, CouplandJ at cf.ac.uk), or Professor Peter Garrett, (Director of Postgraduate Research, GarrettP at cf.ac.uk) or Mrs Dawn Harrington (CLCR Postgraduate Administrator, clcr-pg at cf.ac.uk) for further details. Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentships (AHRC) Under the Block Grant Partnership between the AHRC and the Centre for Language and Communication Research can also support applications for studentship awards, available in 2011/12, in the subject areas of Linguistics and in English Language and Literature. We invite applications for: 1 Research Preparation Masters in Linguistics. 1 doctoral award in Linguistics 3 doctoral studentship awards in English Language and Literature You must apply for your Cardiff University degree programme by Monday 7th February 2011. For further details, application forms and guidance notes please visit: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/pg/funding/ahrcawards/index.html Cardiff University President’s Research Scholarships The University is making available 72 “flagship” postgraduate research awards which carry the prestige of association with the University’s new President, the Nobel Prize for Medicine (2007) winner, Professor Sir Martin Evans. A number of these awards are available for postgraduates seeking to research in the area of 'Re-constructing Multiculturalism'. Deadline: The 2011/12 application process is beginning in Autumn 2010. For more information, see: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/presidents/multiculturalism/index.html School Research Bursaries and 'Cardiff 125' Scholarships Please see the following webpage for more information. http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/degreeprogrammes/postgraduateresearch/schoolfunding/ Please visit the Centre for Language and Communication website to find details of our primary research areas: http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/degreeprogrammes/postgraduateresearch/langcommunicationmphil/index.html For more information about these and other funding opportunities please contact: Sarah Robertson, Academic Support Officer (encap-ac at cf.ac.uk). http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/pg/funding/index.html From rchen at csusb.edu Sat Nov 13 15:32:52 2010 From: rchen at csusb.edu (Rong Chen) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:32:52 +0800 Subject: FW: ICLC 11, Xian--last reminder Message-ID: Dear Colleagues- Please be reminded that the abstract submission deadline for ICLC 11, to be held July 11 to 17, 2011 in the historic city of Xi'an, China, is *Nov.15th, 2010* (your local time). All information about the conference, including abstract requirements, tentative schedule, registration fees, and conference dinner and sightseeing, are found at www.iclc11.org. Besides the conference dinner that will be provided with the compliments of the Conference host--Xi'an International Studies University--the OC is actively seeking ways to cover the planned half-day sightseeing for conference participants. Rong Chen, Academic Affairs Coordinator Dafu Yang, Executive Co-Chair From michikok at humnet.ucla.edu Sat Nov 13 18:06:58 2010 From: michikok at humnet.ucla.edu (Kaneyasu, Michiko) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:06:58 -0800 Subject: Call for abstracts: Workshop on East Asian Languages Message-ID: The Asian Linguistics Graduate Student Association at the University of California, Los Angeles announces its 17th Workshop on East Asian Languages (WEAL). WEAL 2011 will take place March 18th-19th (Friday-Saturday) at the Royce Hall Conference Room, 314 Royce Hall, UCLA. Keynote speakers for the workshop will be: • Patricia M. Clancy (University of California, Santa Barbara) • Hyo Sang Lee (Indiana University) • Yoshiko Matsumoto (Stanford University) • Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu (San Diego State University) Abstracts are invited for talks on any topic in East Asian linguistics. WEAL is intended to be a data-based and informal workshop for presenting and discussing issues on East Asian languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Therefore, we would especially welcome presentations on initial results and other issues arising from ongoing projects as well as finished papers. Talks will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Anonymous abstracts should be 350 words or less (excluding examples and/or references), and must be submitted electronically. Please indicate your source(s) and type(s) of data in the abstract (e.g. audio/visual recordings, texts, conversational, elicited, narrative, etc.). For co-authored papers, please indicate who plans to present the paper as well as who will be in attendance. Please limit your abstracts to the following formats: PDF or Microsoft Word document; and use the author’s name as the filename. Send electronic submissions to: 2011weal at gmail.com, with the subject line “WEAL 2011: Last name, First name.” In the body of the email to which the abstract is attached, please provide the following information: (1) Category (formal or functional) and subfield (e.g., discourse, pragmatics, language acquisition, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, phonology, syntax, semantics, etc.) (2) Full title of your paper (3) Names of authors (4) Affiliations (5) E-mail address for each author (6) Designation of e-mail address for official communication in the case of joint authorship (7) Phone number for each author DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: December 31, 2010 (5:00 PM, PST) Late submissions will not be accepted. Notification of acceptance will be sent via email by January 31, 2011. Further details regarding the workshop and registration are available at http://ucla.orgsync.com/org/algsaucla If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact the workshop organizers via e-mail at 2011weal at gmail.com. From language at sprynet.com Sat Nov 13 22:18:40 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:18:40 -0500 Subject: Chomsky - different perspective Message-ID: > The other thing that gets me is why so many people care so much about > separating themselves from other animals, and why they assume that > everyone else cares. No offense, but to me that's one of the least > interesting research questions I can think of. Anyone who wants to > research it can go ahead, but they don't have to belittle my reasons for > studying language because they're not the same as theirs. I agree completely, Angus, I wonder if these people may not be closet creationists without realizing it. The glory of Darwin's discoveries was in fact rooted in proving how connected we are to animals, after all we share so very much with them, including ingesting, digesting & excreting our food, sexual reproduction, same-sex sexual couplings, tribal and/or species self-protection, merely listing the obvious... Oddly enough, I believe our links with animals also include language--as I have painstakingly maintained ever since 1993 language can be readily interpreted as a development out of spray-markings, from the chemical spray of simple single-cell creatures to the scent markings of higher animals to the sound markings we call language. At each stage the number & variety of messages becomes greater but at the cost of creating species- or clan-specific systems of sound markings not understood by other species or clans, as the Tower of Babel falls & languages become "foreign" to one another. I developed this outlook at least a decade before the Evolang crew started their boondoggle, encouraging academics from any field, often those with slight or shallow backgrounds in language, to hurl a dart at the board by advancing their own theories about how language began. Clearly many of these savants felt the need of some "higher" theory of language, something the Discovery Channel could bill as "the crucial step that separated man from all other creatures." I have provided what I consider irrefutable proof that language evolved from spray & scent markings at conferences of linguists and translators. I have simply asked the members of these audiences to hold up their hands to their mouths and whisper into their palms for 20 seconds while I went on speaking. Invariably they found that their palms were covered by a film of spray. People desperately want to believe that somehow our existence on this planet is high & dry & abstract & sterile & if not eternal at least relatively permanent, unlike the existence of animals around us. But face it, everything about our lives is moist, liquid, clammy, messy & impermanent--our weather, our lakes, our oceans, our meat, our fruit and vegetables, our sex drives, our entire bodies. So why wouldn't the origins of language be moist and clammy too? Offensive? Sure, for some people. But there are people who find offensive almost everything that isn't high-sounding & abstact. Perhaps they even find life itself offensive, which couldn't be more fluid. As the cliche has it, life is a sexually transmitted disease that is invariably fatal. All the best to you & everyone! alex PS: Two of my pieces advancing this theory of language origin: http://language.home.sprynet.com/lingdex/ariadne.htm#totop http://languag2.home.sprynet.com/f/evidence.htm#top ************************************************************** The principal purpose of language is not communication but to persuade ourselves that we know what we are talking about, when quite often we do not. ************************************************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: "Angus B. Grieve-Smith" To: Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 9:52 AM Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Chomsky - different perspective > On 11/7/2010 9:29 AM, Denis Donovan wrote: >> I would be most interested in reactions to Csibra and Gergely's thesis >> since it would appear to made the species divide even wider. Similarities >> across species are fascinating but they don't always have the same >> implications--which is why there is no need to deny similarities across >> species in order to appreciate the differences. After all, nearly thirty >> years ago Patricia Kuhl and J. D. Miller demonstrated that chinchillas >> perceive artificial stimuli along the da-ta continuum just as >> categorically as do humans. In fact, Kuhl and Miller found that when they >> plotted a graph of chinchilla da-ta discrimination the results were >> nearly identical to those of an English speaker. > I don't understand. It seems that the chinchilla data contradict > Csibra and Gergely's thesis. It's not like you can just say "da" on a > mountainside in Peru and the chinchillas will jump; they had to be trained > to respond to this distinction. Although this training was presumably not > "natural pedagogy," it's pretty clear that chinchillas are receptive to > similar kinds of activities. > > One thing that gets me about all this research is the circular nature > of it: We have activities that are uniquely human, and those activities > are what separates us from the animals. Okay, then I want a grant to > figure out the color of George Washington's white horse. > > The other thing that gets me is why so many people care so much about > separating themselves from other animals, and why they assume that > everyone else cares. No offense, but to me that's one of the least > interesting research questions I can think of. Anyone who wants to > research it can go ahead, but they don't have to belittle my reasons for > studying language because they're not the same as theirs. > > -- > -Angus B. Grieve-Smith > grvsmth at panix.com > > From caterina.mauri at unipv.it Mon Nov 15 21:33:25 2010 From: caterina.mauri at unipv.it (Caterina Mauri) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:33:25 +0100 Subject: International Spring School - "Europe beyond Europe: new horizons on pidgins and creoles" Message-ID: ** WE APOLOGIZE FOR CROSS-POSTING ** ------------------------- INTERNATIONAL SPRING SCHOOL 2011 "Europe beyond Europe: new horizons on pidgins and creoles" LETiSS - Center for Postgraduate Education and Research Pavia, 18-22 April 2011 DEADLINE EXTENDED !!! ------------------------- Dear list members, the Center for Postgraduate Education and Research on “Languages of Europe: Typology, History and Sociolinguistics” (LETiSS) ANNOUNCES its 2nd International Spring School on "Europe beyond Europe: new horizons on pidgins and creoles", to be held in Pavia (Italy), 18-22 April 2011. The LETISS Center has been the first center in Italy (and in Europe) specifically dedicated to the linguistic situation of Europe, approached from a variety of perspectives. More information on the aims, the research topics and the activities of the Center can be found on the website (link provided below). When and Where The Spring School will last one week, from Monday, 18 until Friday, 22 April 2011, at the IUSS Institute in Pavia (viale Lungo Ticino Sforza 56, 27100 Pavia, Italy – www.iusspavia.it). Who and What - Teachers and courses The everyday schedule, from Monday to Friday, will be as follows: 9-10.45: 1st course 11.15-13.00: 2nd course 15-16.45: 3rd course 17.15-19.15: 4th course 1st course– Margot van den Berg (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen): "Creoles at birth? The role of nativization" 2nd course– Barbara Turchetta (Università della Tuscia): "The contribution of Pidgin and Creole studies to the general theory of language change" 3rd course– Susanne Michaelis (University of Gießen/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig): "Grammatical structures in creole language. First results from APiCS" 4th course – Bettina Migge (University College Dublin): "The Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics of Creole languages" The students 20 advanced students in linguistics and related fields will be selected by the Scientific Committee of the School. The main criterion will be the degree of relatedness/pertinence of their research interests with the topics of the School. A certificate of participation will be given to all participants. Applications *applicants must have achieved at least the B.A. + M.A. level (= a five years cycle); therefore students may be Ph.D. students, Post- docs, and young researchers; *in the CV applicants should indicate any research activities and publications that may be relevant for the admission; *applicants should also attach a short description of their past, ongoing and future research projects (up to three pages). No tuition fee is required!! LETiSS will even cover attendants’ accommodation expenses! Important dates - 10th December: application deadline. At this stage, the CV + short description of the research projects must be attached (please write an e-mail to: letiss at iusspavia.it or emanuele.miola at unipv.it). - 15th December: applicants who have been accepted will receive a communication with all relevant information Contacts Organizers: Caterina Mauri, Emanuele Miola, Paolo Ramat, Andrea Sansò. Please send your application and any questions to: letiss at iusspavia.it or emanuele.miola at unipv.it LETiSS website: www.iusspavia.it/eng/LETiSS LETiSS Spring School 2011 website: http://www.iusspavia.it/eng/LETiSS.springschool From mg246 at cornell.edu Mon Nov 15 22:52:53 2010 From: mg246 at cornell.edu (monica gonzalez-marquez) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:52:53 +0100 Subject: 2nd Call - EMCL 5.1 - Freiburg Message-ID: Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics 5.1 -- Freiburg **** March 6 -- 11, 2011 https://sites.google.com/site/emcl5freiburg/ --------------------Application deadline: December 15, 2010---------------------- We invite applications for the, 5th Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics workshop, to be held in, Freiburg, Germany, March 6 -- 11, 2011 The goal of EMCL is to facilitate dialogue among language researchers with different methodological backgrounds, i.e. theorists, experimentalists, corpus linguists, etc. We do this by creating an environment where specialists learn from each other by developing a research project together where their various skills are combined. Intended audience: Language researchers with an embodiment, situated cognition and/or cognitive linguistics background. No prior experimental or corpus training is required though an understanding of the theoretical issues is necessary. Participants can be at different early stages in their careers, i.e. graduate students, post-grads, post-docs, junior faculty, etc. Format: During the course of a week, participants will join one of 5 hands-on mini-labs. Each mini-lab will be responsible for completing a joint research project. A select group of students (max. 8 per group for a total of 40***) will be invited to participate. Each group will work with two researchers who will guide the group in selecting an idea for the group to investigate, structuring and organizing a research project, and carrying it out. The session will end with the presentation of findings and a general discussion. Topics to be covered include, - Deciding on a research topic - Transforming the research topic into a research question - Developing experimental hypotheses and designing an experiment - Data collection - Statistical analysis and interpretation - Presentation of findings to an audience Workshop Faculty Group 1: Rolf Zwaan University of Rotterdam Interests: The relationship between cognition and systems of perception, action, and emotion, Language comprehension, Embodied cognition http://www.brain-cognition.eu/index.html?personal.php?id=Zwaan Alan Cienki, Vrije Universiteit Interests: cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, spoken language, gesture, political discourse, contrastive linguistics http://www.let.vu.nl/en/about-the-faculty/academic-staff/staff-listed-alphabetically/staff-a-d/dr-a-cienki/index.asp Group 2: Kenny Coventry, Northumbria University Interests: language and perception, spatial language, embodiment, decision making http://kenny.coventry.googlepages.com/home Katharina Rohlfing, Bielefeld University Interests: emergentist semantics, early literacy, human-machine interaction, rhetoric and communication https://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~rohlfing/website/data/index.html http://www.cit-ec.de/es Group 3: Lars Konieczny, University of Freiburg Interests: Theoretical, Empirical, and Computational Psycholinguistics, Eye-movements research, Reading, Spoken language comprehension in the Visual-World-paradigm, Spatial reasoning and wayfinding, Cognitive modeling (ACT-R, Connectionist Modeling), Embodied Cognition http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/cognition/Members/konieczny Michele Feist, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Interests: lexical semantics, spatial language, psycholinguistics, acquisition of semantics, language and cognition http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~mif8232/ Group 4: Seana Coulson, University of California, San Diego Interests: Conceptual Blending, Joke Comprehension, Metaphor, Analogical Reasoning, Concept Combination, Sentence Processing http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~coulson/ Panos Athanasopoulos, Bangor University Interests: Bilingualism and Cognition, Language and Thought, Emotion, Language Acquisition, conceptual development http://www.bangor.ac.uk/linguistics/about/panos.php.en Group 5: TBA Anatol Stefanowitsch, University of Hamburg Interests: Encoding of motion events, Second language research, Construction Grammar, Quantitative Corpus Linguistics, Metaphor, Negative evidence http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/stefanowitsch/ Accommodation: Accommodation at walking distance to the university will be arranged for all student participants. Cost will be EUR20 per night. (We "may" receive funds to cover student accommodation, in which case all applicants will be notified.) Participation Fee: EUR125 **, payable by bank transfer or upon arrival by prior arrangement. (This fee helps cover the costs of organization and faculty travel.) Application: To apply, please send the following by December 15, 2010. All materials must be submitted electronically to emcl5.freiburg (at) googlemail.com PLEASE WRITE 'APPLICATION' IN THE SUBJECT LINE. 1. A maximum of two (2) pages, (1000 words), describing, - your background, - your reasons for wanting to participate, - the research group you would like to work in and why. Please include in this section a brief description of your research interests. All topics listed above must be addressed. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. 2. A copy of your curriculum vitae. The application deadline is December 15, 2010 Accepted applicants will be notified on or before January 15, 2011 This workshop is supported by: the FRIAS at Freiburg University http://www.frias.uni-freiburg.de/ the Research training group (GRK DFG 1624/1) Frequency effects in language http://frequenz.uni-freiburg.de/abstract&language=de and the DFG (pending). www.dfg.de ** 2 (two) tuition scholarships will be awarded by lottery to students traveling from Eastern Europe and 3rd world countries. Please state in your application whether you would like to be included in the lottery. *** Please note: Attendance is strictly limited to invited participants. No exceptions will be made so as to preserve pedagogical integrity. **** EMCL 5.2 will be held in Chicago, USA, June 2011 with a different set of faculty. That notice will follow in January, 2011. --- EMCL 5 Organizing Committee: Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Chair, Cornell University Martin Hilpert, University of Freiburg Raymond Becker, Bielefeld University Lars Konieczny, University of Freiburg From eep at hum.ku.dk Tue Nov 16 12:53:03 2010 From: eep at hum.ku.dk (Elisabeth Engberg - Pedersen) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:53:03 +0100 Subject: Final call SALCIII Message-ID: [file://localhost/Users/eep/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_image002.png] FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS for The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition (SALC III) will take place at the University of Copenhagen, June 14-16th (3 days) 2011. Keynote speakers: * Lawrence Barsalou, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia * Per Durst-Andersen, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark * Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel * Marianne Gullberg, Lund University, Lund, Sweden * Hannes Rakoczy, University of Göttingen, Germany The conference includes, but is not limited to the following themes: * Cognitive impairment and language use * Language acquisition and cognition * Language and cognitive development and evolution * Language and consciousness * Language and gesture * Language change and cognition * Language structure and cognition * Language use and cognition * Linguistic relativity * Linguistic typology and cognition * Psycholinguistic approaches to language and cognition * Specific language impairment We now invite the submission of abstracts for paper or poster presentations. The deadline is December 1st 2010. Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to SALC3 at hum.ku.dk by December 1 2010 (subject: SALC III abstract). The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by February 1st 2011. Three theme sessions will take place: · Language as social coordination · A Russian view of linguistic interpretation · Within and across spaces: Towards a multi-dimensional model of gesture space For further information, please see the conference website. And please indicate the title of the theme session on your abstract if you wish your paper to be considered for one of the theme sessions. Conference website: http://salc3.ku.dk/ For details of SALC, see: http://www.salc-sssk.org/ From crm5 at rice.edu Tue Nov 16 15:43:54 2010 From: crm5 at rice.edu (crm5 at rice.edu) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:43:54 -0600 Subject: FINAL CALL: Rice Working Papers in Linguistics Vol 3. **New deadline: Nov. 30, 2010** Message-ID: Rice Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 3 EXTENDED DEADLINE: **November 30th, 2010** The Rice Linguistics Society (RLS) solicits submissions from all subfields of linguistics (with the exception of ESL/TESOL and related areas of applied linguistics) for publication in the Rice Working Papers in Linguistics. Students and post-docs are strongly encouraged to submit. We especially welcome submissions in line with our department's focus on functional, usage-based approaches to language study using empirical data, including but not limited to the following: -cognitive/functional linguistics -typology and language universals -field studies in less commonly researched languages -sociolinguistics, including sociophonetics -phonetics and speech processing -laboratory phonology -forensic linguistics -corpus linguistics -discourse -neurolinguistics -psycholinguistics and language processing -language change and grammaticalization Submitted papers must meet the following minimum style requirements: -recommended length 15-25 pages (normally 5000-8000 words); significantly longer or shorter papers will be considered on a case-by-base basis (contact the editorial board) -For comprehensive details on format (such as font, margins, examples, references, etc.) please refer to the RWPL template available on the Style sheet link at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~rls/files/Style_Sheet.dot -submit an abstract (maximum 500 words), including 3-5 keywords, as a separate Word file -submit two copies (in addition to your abstract): (1) one copy in Word (2003 or 2007) (2) in addition to the Word submission, you must send a PDF version to ensure fonts are preserved RLS accepts only electronic submissions for the working papers. These must be sent to rwpl at rice.edu, and the body of the e-mail should include: -title of paper -name of author(s) -affiliation -address -phone number -contact e-mail address The EXTENDED DEADLINE for receipt of submissions is **November 30th, 2010**. Questions regarding the submissions process or style requirements may be addressed to the editorial board at rwpl at rice.edu. Carlos Molina-Vital RWPL-EIC From d.trenkic.96 at cantab.net Wed Nov 17 16:01:56 2010 From: d.trenkic.96 at cantab.net (Danijela Trenkic) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:01:56 -0000 Subject: Chair in Language Education, University of York, UK Message-ID: Chair in Education University of York - Department of Educational Studies, Centre for Language Learning Research Ref: UoY01044 The Department of Educational Studies is seeking to appoint a Chair in Education to lead the Department's Centre for Language Learning Research. The Department is looking for an outstanding researcher who has a successful track record of securing research funding for education-focused research in the area of language, and who is committed to excellence in research, teaching and supervision. The post is to commence on 1 April 2011 or as soon as possible thereafter. Salary will be on the professorial scale (current minimum £53,918 per annum). Informal enquiries to the Head of Department, Professor Judith Bennett tel: +44 (0)1904 323471, email: judith.bennett at york.ac.uk. Please also see the department web pages at www.york.ac.uk/depts/educ Closing date for applications: Wednesday 5 January 2011 For further information and to apply on-line, please visit our website: http://www.york.ac.uk/jobs/ Alternatively contact HR Services on 01904 324835 quoting reference number UoY01044. From sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu Wed Nov 17 20:52:21 2010 From: sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Sandra A. Thompson) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:52:21 -0800 Subject: Call for Papers - LISO Conference Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS */Please give widest distribution/* *THE 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON * *LANGUAGE, INTERACTION, AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION* *University of California, Santa Barbara* *May 12-14, 2011* Presented by: The Language, Interaction, and Social Organization (LISO) Graduate Student Organization at UCSB ~ & ~ The Center for Language, Interaction and Culture (CLIC) Graduate Student Association at UCLA *_PLENARY SPEAKERS_* *Virginia Teas Gill* Illinois State University// /Sociology/ *Julia Menard-Warwick* University of California, Davis /Linguistics/ *Jennifer Roth-Gordon* University of Arizona /Anthropology/ Fourth Plenary Speaker TBA ** *THE 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON * *LANGUAGE, INTERACTION, AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION* The LISO conference promotes interdisciplinary research and discussion in the analysis of naturally occurring human interaction. Papers will be presented by national and international scholars on a variety of topics in the study of language, interaction, and culture. The papers primarily employ analysis of naturally occurring data drawing from methodologies that include conversation analysis, discourse analysis, ethnographic methods, ethnomethodology, interactional linguistics, and interactional sociolinguistics. We welcome abstracts from graduate students and faculty working in the areas of Anthropology, Applied Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Communication, Education, Linguistics, Psychology, and Sociology. Presenters will have either*: (a) 20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion (b) 25 minutes for a data session (small group presentation/discussion of research and data). * to be determined by the abstract review committee */SUBMISSION GUIDELINES/* Abstracts must be submitted via the online abstract submissions system http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/liso2011 Abstracts must be submitted in .doc, .pdf, .txt, or .odt format. Abstracts must be no more than 500 words long and should not include the author's name or any other identifying information. The abstract should include the following: (1) a clear statement of the main point or argument of the paper; (2) a brief discussion of the problem or research question with reference to previous research and the work's relevance to the area of study; (3) a short piece of data to support the main point or argument; (4) conclusions and/or implications of the research, however tentative. In the case of an abstract longer than 500 words, only the first 500 words will be read. Papers will be selected based on evaluation of the anonymous abstract. *Deadline for electronic submission and receipt of abstracts is**January 15, 2011.* Late submissions will not be accepted. Notification of acceptance or non-acceptance will be sent via email by March 31, 2011. For additional information, please visit: http://www.ucsblisoconference.org/ Questions can be sent to: LISOconference at gmail.com Additionally, immediately following the conference will be the Annual LISO Faculty Symposium: *Scales of Space* *University of California, Santa Barbara* *May 15, 2011* ** For additional information, please contact symposium organizers: Mary Bucholtz: bucholtz at linguistics.ucsb.edu Melissa Curtin: mlcurtin at linguistics.ucsb.edu -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: Attached Message Part URL: From Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be Sat Nov 20 23:10:33 2010 From: Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be (Lot Brems) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:10:33 +0100 Subject: Open call for papers and special issue proposals: English Text Construction Message-ID: English Text Construction English Text Construction (ETC) is an international journal devoted to English studies and published biannually by John Benjamins, presently in its third volume, with its current issue (3.2) a special issue devoted to “Textual choices and discourse genres: creating meaning through form” (guest-edited by Barbara Dancygier and José Sanders, with contributions by Mike Borkent, Barbara Dancygier, Vera Tobin, Lieven Vandelanotte, José Sanders, Elena Semino, Elżbieta Górska, and Carol Lynn Moder). ETC publishes peer-reviewed papers in the different areas of English studies – literary studies, linguistics and applied linguistics/ELT – and aims to promote crossfertilization and synergy between these domains in the study of subject and text. Because of this focus, approaches within functional, cognitive and constructional approaches to language naturally fall within the purview of ETC. Authors interested in submitting a paper to ETC can send their submission to the managing editor at keith.carlon at uclouvain.be. Expressions of interest to guest-edit a special issue are welcome at the same address; potential guest editors should bear in mind that an ETC special issue should explicitly address at least two out of its three broad areas of interest, viz. literary studies, linguistics, and applied linguistics/ELT. The full text of ETC’s aims and scope and tables of contents of the first three volumes are available from the Benjamins website at http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=ETC. Editorial information is included below. Editors (as of vol. 4, 2011) Gaëtanelle Gilquin, University of Louvain (applied linguistics/ELT editor) David Pascoe, Utrecht University (literary studies editor) Lieven Vandelanotte, University of Namur (linguistics editor) Managing Editor Keith Carlon, University of Louvain Editorial Board Karin Aijmer, University of Göteborg Johan van der Auwera, University of Antwerp Claire Connolly, University of Cardiff Amy Cook, Indiana University Barbara Dancygier, University of British Columbia Kristin Davidse, University of Leuven Catherine Emmott, University of Glasgow Roberta Facchinetti, University of Verona Lynne Flowerdew, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Robert Fulton, University of Texas, Austin David Glover, University of Southampton David Hayman, University of Wisconsin Ton Hoenselaars, University of Utrecht Ken Hyland, University of Hong Kong Lesley Jeffries, University of Huddersfield Hilary Nesi, Coventry University Caryl Phillips, Yale University Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania Ute Römer, University of Michigan Sam Slote, Trinity College Dublin Tony Veale, University College Dublin From Florence.Chenu at univ-lyon2.fr Mon Nov 22 20:57:59 2010 From: Florence.Chenu at univ-lyon2.fr (Florence Chenu (FC)) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:57:59 +0100 Subject: [conference] 4th International conference of the French Cognitive Linguistics Association (AFLiCo IV; 24-27 May 2011; Lyon, France) SECOND CALL Message-ID: =============== AFLiCo IV SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS =============== (French version follows) AFLiCo IV Fourth International Conference of the French Cognitive Linguistics Association, Lyon, France, 24th-27th May 2011 INVITED SPEAKERS * Danièle DUBOIS (University of Paris 6, France) * Nick EVANS (ANU College of Asia-Pacific, Australia) * Harriet JISA (University of Lyon 2, France) * Maarten LEMMENS (University of Lille 3, France) * Laura MICHAELIS (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA) * Ulrike ZESHAN (University of Central Lancashire, UK) CONFERENCE WEBSITE http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ SUBMISSION DEADLINES Deadline for general session papers: 22nd December 2010 Deadline for workshops/thematic sessions: 18th December 2010 CONFERENCE THEME of AFLiCo IV 'Cognitive Linguistics and Typology: Language diversity, variation and change '. This conference aims to bring together linguists engaged in cognitively-oriented research with those working in a functional-typological framework on cross-linguistic variation and on language description. The emphasis will be on (1) language diversity of both spoken and signed languages; (2) inter- and intra-linguistic variation; (3) language change. The conference will bring together linguists working with various methodological approaches and using various kinds of spontaneous and elicited data, including spoken and written corpora, fieldwork data, and experimental data. Proposals are invited for workshops/thematic sessions, for general session papers, and for posters, on topics related to the theme, and on topics in Cognitive Linguistics generally. Papers that report empirically-grounded research on less-studied languages and on typologically, genetically and areally diverse languages will be particularly welcome. Topics include, but are not limited to: - methods and data in cognitive linguistics and in language typology and description - convergence and divergence between cognitive linguistics and functional-typological linguistics - studies from a cognitive and/or typological perspective in phonetics, phonology, morphosyntax, semantics and pragmatics - language variation within and across languages, both spoken and signed - language change from a cognitive and/or typological perspective - language acquisition - studies and advances in construction grammar - language and gesture in cross-linguistic perspective LANGUAGES OF THE CONFERENCE The languages of the conference are French and English. ORAL PRESENTATIONS AND POSTERS Proposals are invited for 30-minute slots (20-minute presentation plus question time) in the general sessions and for posters (A1 size). WORKSHOPS, INCLUDING THEMATIC SESSIONS Proposals are invited for half-day or full-day workshops/thematic sessions. Each workshop proposal should contain the following information: - the names and contact details of two workshop organizers - the title of the proposed workshop - an overview of the topic and aims of the workshop (up to 2 pages) - an indication of the desired schedule (number of slots: 4, 6 or 10; half day or full day; number and nature of presentations, discussions, round tables, etc. that the workshop will comprise). Note that, within a workshop, each presentation, discussion or round table will occupy one 30-minute slot in parallel with one general session slot. - an abstract (consistent with the indications below under 'Submission procedure') for each proposed 30-minute presentation Workshop proposals will be refereed in the same way as general session and poster proposals. SUBMISSION PROCEDURE Proposals should be submitted online following the instructions to be found at the following address: http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ Author information (name, affiliation, email address) will be required on the submission website. An author may submit a maximum of two abstracts, of which at least one must be co-authored. In the case of co-authored abstracts, the first-named author will be the contact person. Abstracts will be anonymously reviewed and notification of acceptance will be sent out from 25th February 2011. The anonymous abstracts must be in 12 point Times or Times New Roman font, formatted for A4 or US Letter size paper with margins of 2.5 cm or 1 inch. The maximum length for the text of the abstract is one page; a second page may be used only for figures, glossed examples and bibliographical references. ========================= 2ème APPEL À COMMUNICATION AFLiCo IV ========================= AFLiCo IV Quatrième Colloque International de l’Association Française de Linguistique Cognitive Lyon, France, 24-27 Mai 2011 CONFÉRENCIERS INVITÉS * Danièle DUBOIS (Université Paris 6, France) * Nick EVANS (ANU College of Asia-Pacific, Australie) * Harriet JISA (Université Lyon 2, France) * Maarten LEMMENS (Université Lille 3, France) * Laura MICHAELIS (University of Colorado, Boulder, États-Unis) * Ulrike ZESHAN (University of Central Lancashire, Royaume-Uni) SITE WEB DU COLLOQUE http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ DATES LIMITES POUR LES PROPOSITIONS DE COMMUNICATION : Date limite pour les sessions générales : 22 décembre 2010 Date limite pour les sessions thématiques : 18 décembre 2010 THÈME DU COLLOQUE AFLiCo IV ‘Linguistique cognitive et typologie : diversité des langues, variation et changement’. L’objectif de ce colloque est de réunir des linguistes travaillant dans le domaine de la linguistique cognitive et/ou dans le domaine de la linguistique fonctionnelle-typologique sur la variation inter-linguistique et la description des langues. L’accent du colloque sera mis sur (1) la diversité des systèmes linguistiques aussi bien oraux que signés, (2) la variation qui s’opère sur les plans inter- et intra- linguistiques et (3) les changements des systèmes linguistiques. Dans cette perspective, le colloque rassemblera des chercheurs qui travaillent sur des terrains linguistiques variés, qui abordent leur objet d’étude dans une perspective synchronique et/ou diachronique et qui utilisent différentes méthodes et différents types de données telles que des données spontanées ou élicitées, y compris orales ou écrites, des données de terrain ou encore des données expérimentales. Nous attendons des propositions de sessions thématiques, des propositions de présentations orales de sessions générales et de posters sur des problématiques en lien avec le thème du colloque et dans le domaine de la linguistique cognitive en général. Les propositions portant sur des langues moins bien décrites et des langues qui varient du point de vue typologique, génétique et aréal seront particulièrement appréciées. Les thématiques incluent, mais ne se limitent pas aux suivantes : - méthodes et données en linguistique cognitive, typologie et description des langues ; - convergence et divergence entre linguistique cognitive et linguistique fonctionnelle-typologique ; - études menées dans une perspective cognitive et/ou typologique dans les domaines de la phonétique, phonologie, morphosyntaxe, sémantique et pragmatique ; - variation inter- et intra-linguistique dans les langues parlées et les langues signées ; - changements linguistiques dans une perspective cognitive et/ou typologique ; - acquisition du langage ; - recherches et avancées dans le domaine de la grammaire des constructions ; - langue et geste dans une perspective inter-linguistique. LANGUES OFFICIELLES DU COLLOQUE Les deux langues du colloque sont le français et l’anglais. COMMUNICATIONS ET POSTERS Nous invitons des propositions de communication aux sessions générales de 30 minutes (20 minutes de présentation et 10 minutes de questions) et des propositions de posters (format A1). ATELIERS ET SESSIONS THÉMATIQUES Nous accueillons des propositions d’une demi-journée ou d’une journée entière pour des ateliers et/ou sessions thématiques. Ces ateliers/sessions thématiques doivent être proposés par deux organisateurs. Chaque proposition doit inclure les informations suivantes : - les noms et les coordonnées des deux organisateurs - le titre de la session - une présentation du thème et des objectifs de la session (2 pages maximum) - une précision concernant le temps souhaité (nombre de créneaux horaires : 4, 6 ou 10 ; une journée ou une journée entière ; nombre et nature des présentations, discussions, tables rondes, etc.). - un résumé d’une page pour chaque présentation (une deuxième page peut être utilisée pour des figures, exemples glosés et références bibliographiques) Les propositions d’ateliers et/ou de sessions thématiques seront soumises à la même procédure d’évaluation que les propositions pour les sessions générales et les posters. La notification d’acceptation sera envoyée aux deux organisateurs à partir du 25 février 2011. SOUMISSION DES PROPOSITIONS Les propositions seront soumises en ligne suivant les instructions indiquées à l’adresse suivante : http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ Un auteur ne peut soumettre que deux propositions de communication dont une au moins devrait être en co-auteur. Les informations concernant l’auteur (nom, affiliation, adresse email) seront requises lors de la soumission en ligne mais les propositions seront évaluées de façon anonyme. Dans le cas des propositions en co-auteur le premier auteur sera la personne référente/contact. Les propositions seront examinées de façon anonyme par 2 membres experts du comité scientifique. La notification d’acceptation sera envoyée aux auteurs à partir du 25 février 2011. Les propositions ne devront pas dépasser une page. Une deuxième page peut être utilisée pour des figures, exemples glosés et références bibliographiques. Format des propositions : papier A4, marges 2,5 cm, police Times ou Times New Roman. From Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be Tue Nov 23 13:38:17 2010 From: Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be (Freek Van de Velde) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:38:17 +0100 Subject: Call for papers: workshop on exaptation (ICHL 20 Japan) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, This is a call for papers for a workshop on the topic of 'exaptation' (in short, the process of recycling morphology, see Lass, R. 1990. How to do things with junk: exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics 26: 79-102), hosted by Muriel Norde (University of Groningen) and Freek Van de Velde (University of Leuven) at the ICHL-20 conference in Osaka. A detailed description of the workshop can be found here: http://www.ichl2011.com/pdf/Workshop_A0020.pdf. We have quite a number of participants already, but we want to give people interested a chance to join the workshop. Abstracts should be sent via the ICHL website before January 15. If we can't accommodate your abstract in the workshop itself, it may still be accepted for the general session at the conference. Looking forward to seeing you in Osaka. Freek Van de Velde Postdoctoral research fellow Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), University of Leuven Fac. of Arts, Dept. of Linguistics Blijde Inkomststraat 21, P.O. Box 3308 BE-3000 Leuven Tel. 0032 16 32 47 81 Fax 0032 16 32 47 67 Dutch website: http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/nedling/fvandevelde/ English webiste: http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/nedling_e/fvandevelde/ From liesbeth.degand at uclouvain.be Fri Nov 26 08:36:51 2010 From: liesbeth.degand at uclouvain.be (Liesbeth Degand) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:36:51 +0100 Subject: Call for papers: LPTS2011: Across the line of speech and writing variation Message-ID: (texte en français ci-dessous) * FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS * Across the line of Speech and Writing Variation 2nd International Conference on Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring (LPTS 2011) 16th-18th November 2011, University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) After a first edition in Paris in September 2009, the second edition of Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring (LPTS 2011) will be organized next fall at the University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium). The aim of the conference is to consider text and discourse structure from the perspective of language variation, with a special focus on the distinction between language modes (spoken vs. written) (Biber 1988) and the degree of formality involved (Chafe & Danielewicz 1987). The medium we use to communicate (oral, written or even gestural) plays an important role in the choice we make, consciously or not, when structuring our discourse. However, a more nuanced view, which overrules the traditional dichotomy between speech and writing, consists in situating discourse on a stylistic continuum between a formal and an informal pole (‘communicative distance and proximity’) (Koch & Österreicher 2001). When organizing our discourse we can draw on linguistic structuring markers, such as connectives, discourse markers or frame markers (Hansen 1998, Schourup 1999), or on (marked) information structure constructions (e.g. clefting) (Lambrecht 1994, Grobet 2002). What is the impact of the nature of the medium (spoken vs. written) and of the style of the discourse at hand (formal vs. informal) on the choice of one linguistic expression or the other? While medium seems to play a role in the discrimination between text types (e.g. casual coffee conversation between colleagues, business meeting, e-novel), what about the potential impact of extra-linguistic parameters, such as emotional weight or spatio-temporal distance between the interlocutors, on the structuring of those texts? These questions bring us face to face with the limits of the traditional dichotomic representation opposing speech and writing on the sole basis of the medium at hand. Therefore, we propose to consider discourse structure not only from the perspective of variation between the written and the spoken mode, but also from the perspective of variation on a continuum from formal to informal ways of communicating. In linguistics and psycholinguistics, these issues raise a number of questions: - Which role do speech and writing play in the rise of structuring markers in diachrony? How can we trace the evolution of typical “spoken” markers in the history of a language that is primarily written? - What is the added value of contrastive (cross-linguistic) studies of discourse structuring markers? - The constant evolution of new information technologies has led to the diversification of the means of communication. Does this imply that on-line press, texting language, chat, or videoconferencing have modified our linguistic behaviors? What is the impact of these new information technologies on discourse structuring? - Is discourse processing different in speech and writing contexts, and what is the specific role of discourse structuring markers in production or comprehension? - How does a native or non-native speaker learn to structure their discourse as a function of text type? What is the role of discourse structuring markers on comprehension? How can these specific markers be accounted for in the learning process? Conference themes We particularly encourage papers that address the links between written/spoken discourse structuring and one of the following research areas: - Discourse and pragmatic markers - Linguistic change and grammaticalization - Segmentation and linearization of discourse - Information structure (saliency, accessibility, topic/comment, etc.) - Phraseology, collocation and formulaic language - Sociolinguistic variation - New media and computer-mediated communication - Cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics - Contrastive and cross-linguistic studies - Language acquisition and teaching - Multidimensional/multimodal approaches (syntactic, semantic, prosodic, gesture, etc.) - Methodological issues (corpus, experimental, etc.) Proposal types There will be two different categories of presentation: - Full paper (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion) - Poster The posters are intended to present research still at a preliminary stage and on which researchers would like to get feedback. Keynote speakers Maria Josep Cuenca (University of València) Mark Torrance (Nottingham Trent University) Dorit Ravid (Tel Aviv University) Diana Lewis (University of Lyon 2) Organizing committee Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Important dates Submission deadline: 1 March 2011 Notification of acceptance/rejection: 2 May 2011 Early-bird registration deadline: 15 September 2011 Conference: 16-17-18 November 2011 Languages of the conference English, French Abstracts Abstract should be anonymous and between 500 and 700 words (not including references) and must specify how the paper will contribute to the theme of the conference. It should also provide a clear outline of the aim of the paper including clearly articulated research question(s), some details about research approach and methods and (preliminary) results. Abstracts should be sent by e-mail to lpts2011 at uclouvain.be, before 1 March 2011. Under subject, please write “lpts2011 abstract”. Please name the attachment as follows: “lpts2011_yourlastname_yourfirstname.doc”. Make sure to include in the mail: author’s name, affiliation, and postal address; title of the contribution; 3 to 5 keywords; type of presentation (talk or poster). For purposes of easy editing, please make use of the MS Word template (Times 12 in one line spacing) made available on the website of the conference for submitting your abstract. Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by two members of the scientific committee. You will be notified of the outcome of the review process by 2 May 2011. Conference Website: http://www.uclouvain.be/valibel Contact: lpts2011 at uclouvain.be Registration: Details about the registration procedure will be posted on the conference website shortly For sponsoring options, please contact Catherine.Bolly at uclouvain.be or Liesbeth.Degand at uclouvain.be Local organizing committee Stéphanie Audrit (University of Louvain) Mathieu Avanzi (University of Neuchâtel) Alice Bardiaux (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Federica Ciabarri (University of Louvain) Lydia-Mai Ho-Dac (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Anne Küppers (University of Louvain) Vincent Mariscal (University of Louvain) Deniz Uygur (University of Louvain) Scientific committee Karin Aijmer (Göteborg University) Nicholas Asher (University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse) Inge Bartning (Stockholm University) Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (Tel Aviv University) Kate Beeching (University of the West of England) Alain Berrendonner (University of Fribourg) Christophe Benzitoun (University of Nancy 2) Marie-José Béguelin (University of Neuchâtel) Bergljot Behrens (University of Oslo) Yves Bestgen (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Andrée Borillo (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Shirley Carter-Thomas (Institut Télécom & Lattice) Michel Charolles (University of Paris 3 & Lattice) Gilles Corminbœuf (University of Neuchâtel) Jeanne-Marie Debaisieux (University of Paris 3) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) José Deulofeu (University of Provence) Holger Diessel (University Friedrich-Schiller of Jena) Gabriele Diewald (Leibniz Universität Hannover) Gaétane Dostie (University of Sherbrooke) Britt Erman (University of Stockholm) Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul (Utrecht University) Benjamin Fagard (CNRS & Lattice) Fanny Forsberg (University of Stockholm) Michel Francard (University of Louvain) Françoise Gadet (University of Paris 10 – Nanterre) Gaétanelle Gilquin (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Isabel Gómez Diez (University of Louvain) Sylviane Granger (University of Louvain) Victorine Hancock (University of Stockholm) Agata Jackiewicz (University of Paris 4 - La Sorbonne) Béatrice Lamiroy (University of Leuven) Frédéric Landragin (CNRS & Lattice) Anne Le Draoulec (CNRS & University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Christiane Marchello-Nizia (ENS Lyon) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Jacques Moeschler (University of Geneva) Mary-Annick Morel (University of Paris 3) Jean-Luc Nespoulous (University of Toulouse) Henning Nølke (University of Aarhus) Jon Oberlander (University of Edinburgh) Magali Paquot (University of Louvain) Marie-Paule Péry-Woodley (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Paola Pietrandrea (University of Roma tre) Sophie Prévost (CNRS & ENS, Lattice) Laurent Rasier (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Frédéric Sabio (University of Provence) Ted Sanders (University of Utrecht) Laure Sarda (CNRS & Lattice) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Catherine Schnedecker (University of Strasbourg 2) Anne Catherine Simon (University of Louvain) Wilbert Spooren (VU University of Amsterdam) Manfred Stede (University of Potsdam) Agnès Tutin (University Stendhal of Grenoble 3) Luuk Van Waes (University of Antwerpen) Denis Vigier (University of Lyon 2) Diane Vincent (Laval University) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Sandrine Zufferey (University of Geneva) ********************************************************************************** (English above) * APPEL A COMMUNICATIONS * Variation(s) sur la structure de l’oral et l’écrit 2e Colloque International sur les Approches Linguistiques et Psycholinguistiques de la Structuration des Textes (LPTS 2011) 16-18 novembre 2011, Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique) Après une première édition parisienne en septembre 2009, la seconde édition du colloque international Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring (LPTS 2011) se tiendra à l’automne prochain sur le site de l’Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique). Ce colloque a pour objet d’interroger la structuration du texte sous l’angle de la variation entre productions langagières, avec une attention particulière portée à la distinction entre medium langagiers (oral vs. écrit) (Biber 1988) et au caractère plus ou moins informel ou formel des textes (Chafe & Danielewicz 1987). Le type de support (phonique ou graphique, voire gestuel) dont nous disposons pour communiquer joue en effet un rôle important dans le choix que nous faisons, consciemment ou non, pour structurer notre langage. Dépassant la vision dichotomique qui oppose traditionnellement l’oral et l’écrit en donnant la primauté au critère du support communicationnel, une vision plus nuancée du texte propose de situer celui-ci sur un continuum stylistique entre deux pôles langagiers, informel et formel (‘proximité’ et ‘distance communicative’) (Koch & Österreicher 2001). Pour organiser notre discours, nous pouvons recourir à des marques linguistiques structurantes, entre autres aux marqueurs cadratifs, connecteurs et marqueurs de discours (Hansen 1998, Schourup 1999) (par ex. donc, voilà quoi, prenons l’exemple, premièrement, néanmoins) ou aux constructions marquées au niveau informationnel (par ex. il y a, c’est que) (Lambrecht 1994, Grobet 2002). Dans cette optique, quel serait l’impact de la nature du support (phonique vs. graphique) et du niveau stylistique des textes (informel ou formel) sur le choix de telle ou telle marque structurante ? Si le support semble à première vue jouer un rôle discriminant entre types de textes (par ex. entre une conversation entre collègues dans la cafétéria du bureau, deux copains qui chattent et le dernier roman électronique d’un auteur à la mode), qu’en est-il de l’impact potentiel de paramètres extralinguistiques, tels que la charge émotive ou la distance spatio-temporelle entre les interactants, sur la structuration de ces mêmes textes? Ces questions nous mettent face aux limites d’une représentation dichotomique qui oppose traditionnellement l’oral et l’écrit sur la base du seul type de support en cause. C’est pourquoi nous proposons d’envisager dans ce colloque la structure du discours, non seulement du point de vue de la variation entre medium langagiers, mais aussi du point de vue de la variation des textes sur un axe entre les pôles informel et formel de la communication langagière. Cette problématique trouve de nombreux échos en linguistique : - Quel rapport l’oral et l’écrit entretiennent-ils dans les phénomènes d’émergence des marques de structuration en diachronie? Comment peut-on retracer l’évolution de marques ‘orales’ dans une histoire de la langue exclusivement ‘écrite’ ? - Que peuvent nous apprendre des approches contrastives interlangagières sur le fonctionnement des marques de structuration du discours ? - Avec la constante évolution des nouvelles technologies, les moyens de communication et leurs supports se sont diversifiés. Peut-on pour autant dire que la presse en ligne, le langage sms, le chat, ou les vidéoconférences, ont modifié nos comportements langagiers ? Quel serait l’impact de ces nouveaux supports sur la manière de structurer notre langage ? - D’un point de vue psycholinguistique, les processus en jeu sont-ils comparables, en situation de production et de réception, pour les marques de structuration de textes plus informels ou plus formels, ayant un support phonique ou graphique ? - Comment un locuteur natif ou non natif apprend-il à structurer son discours en fonction du type de textes (en production) ? Quel est le rôle de ces marqueurs dans la compréhension langagière (en réception) ? Comment intégrer les spécificités de ces marques dans un curriculum d’apprentissage ? Thèmes du colloque Nous encourageons les auteurs à soumettre une contribution pouvant apporter un nouvel éclairage sur la structuration textuelle de l’oral et/ou de l’écrit, en lien avec l’une des thématiques suivantes (de manière non exhaustive): - Marqueurs de discours, marqueurs pragmatiques - Changement linguistique et grammaticalisation - Segmentation et linéarisation textuelle - Structure informationnelle (saillance, anaphore, deixis, thème/ rhème, etc.) - Phraséologie, collocation et figement - Variation sociolinguistique - Nouveaux media et communication médiatisée - Linguistique cognitive et psycholinguistique - Analyses contrastives et interlangagières - Acquisition et enseignement des langues - Approches multidimensionnelles/ multimodales (syntaxe, sémantique, prosodie, gestualité, etc.) - Méthodes de recherche (corpus, expérimental, etc.) Types de présentation Les contributions peuvent être de deux types : - Communication orale (20 minutes + 10 minutes de discussion) - Poster Les posters feront état de recherches en cours et seront l’occasion pour les participants d’avoir un retour sur l’état de leur travail. Conférenciers invités Maria Josep Cuenca (University of València) Mark Torrance (Nottingham Trent University) Dorit Ravid (Tel Aviv University) Diana Lewis (University of Lyon 2) Comité d’organisation Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Dates importantes Date limite de soumission: 1er mars 2011 Notification d’acceptation: 2 mai 2011 Inscription précoce: 15 septembre 2011 Colloque: 16-17-18 novembre 2011 Langues officielles Français, Anglais Modalités de soumission Les propositions seront anonymes et rédigées en français ou en anglais. Elles ne devront pas dépasser 500 à 700 mots (sans les références). Pour faciliter l’édition des pré-actes, les auteurs sont priés de rédiger leur proposition au format Word, en Times 12 avec interligne simple, en utilisant la feuille de style disponible sur le site Internet du colloque. Chaque proposition de communication sera expertisée de façon anonyme par deux membres du comité scientifique. La proposition sera évaluée en regard de sa pertinence par rapport à la thématique du colloque et de sa qualité scientifique. Les questions de recherches, la méthode adoptée et les résultats (préliminaires) devront ainsi y être formulés clairement. Les propositions de communication devront être envoyées par courriel à lpts2011 at uclouvain.be, pour le 1er mars 2011. Comme objet du courriel, veuillez spécifiez « lpts2011 abstract ». Le nom du document en pièce jointe sera appelé « lpts2011_nom_prénom.doc ». Dans le corps du message, précisez : le nom de l’auteur/ des auteurs ; le titre de la communication ; l’affiliation et l’adresse de l’auteur/ des auteurs ; votre préférence pour une communication orale ou pour un poster ; 3 à 5 mots clés. Site du colloque: http://www.uclouvain.be/valibel Contact: lpts2011 at uclouvain.be Inscription: Des renseignements spécifiques concernant la procédure d’inscription seront affichés prochainement sur le site du colloque Pour toute question ou suggestion relative aux sponsors, veuillez contacter Catherine.Bolly at uclouvain.be ou Liesbeth.Degand at uclouvain.be Comité d’organisation local Stéphanie Audrit (University of Louvain) Mathieu Avanzi (University of Neuchâtel) Alice Bardiaux (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Federica Ciabarri (University of Louvain) Lydia-Mai Ho-Dac (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Anne Küppers (University of Louvain) Vincent Mariscal (University of Louvain) Deniz Uygur (University of Louvain) Comité scientifique Karin Aijmer (Göteborg University) Nicholas Asher (University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse) Inge Bartning (Stockholm University) Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (Tel Aviv University) Kate Beeching (University of the West of England) Alain Berrendonner (University of Fribourg) Christophe Benzitoun (University of Nancy 2) Marie-José Béguelin (University of Neuchâtel) Bergljot Behrens (University of Oslo) Yves Bestgen (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Andrée Borillo (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Shirley Carter-Thomas (Institut Télécom & Lattice) Michel Charolles (University of Paris 3 & Lattice) Gilles Corminbœuf (University of Neuchâtel) Jeanne-Marie Debaisieux (University of Paris 3) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) José Deulofeu (University of Provence) Holger Diessel (University Friedrich-Schiller of Jena) Gabriele Diewald (Leibniz Universität Hannover) Gaétane Dostie (University of Sherbrooke) Britt Erman (University of Stockholm) Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul (Utrecht University) Benjamin Fagard (CNRS & Lattice) Fanny Forsberg (University of Stockholm) Michel Francard (University of Louvain) Françoise Gadet (University of Paris 10 – Nanterre) Gaétanelle Gilquin (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Isabel Gómez Diez (University of Louvain) Sylviane Granger (University of Louvain) Victorine Hancock (University of Stockholm) Agata Jackiewicz (University of Paris 4 - La Sorbonne) Béatrice Lamiroy (University of Leuven) Frédéric Landragin (CNRS & Lattice) Anne Le Draoulec (CNRS & University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Christiane Marchello-Nizia (ENS Lyon) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Jacques Moeschler (University of Geneva) Mary-Annick Morel (University of Paris 3) Jean-Luc Nespoulous (University of Toulouse) Henning Nølke (University of Aarhus) Jon Oberlander (University of Edinburgh) Magali Paquot (University of Louvain) Marie-Paule Péry-Woodley (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Paola Pietrandrea (University of Roma tre) Sophie Prévost (CNRS & ENS, Lattice) Laurent Rasier (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Frédéric Sabio (University of Provence) Ted Sanders (University of Utrecht) Laure Sarda (CNRS & Lattice) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Catherine Schnedecker (University of Strasbourg 2) Anne Catherine Simon (University of Louvain) Wilbert Spooren (VU University of Amsterdam) Manfred Stede (University of Potsdam) Agnès Tutin (University Stendhal of Grenoble 3) Luuk Van Waes (University of Antwerpen) Denis Vigier (University of Lyon 2) Diane Vincent (Laval University) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Sandrine Zufferey (University of Geneva) From Elise.Karkkainen at oulu.fi Mon Nov 29 12:08:59 2010 From: Elise.Karkkainen at oulu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Elise_K=E4rkk=E4inen?=) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:08:59 +0200 Subject: Call for papers: Social Action Formats, Oulu, Finland 17-19 May 2011 Message-ID: (apologies for cross-postings) CALL FOR PAPERS International workshop "Social Action Formats: Conversational Patterns in Embodied Face-to-Face Interaction" University of Oulu, Finland, 17-19 May 2011 Website: Email: SAF2011 (at) oulu.fi Recently, conversation analysis and other related areas of research have begun to pay serious attention to interaction as fully material and embodied (cf. ICCA10 conference theme "Multimodal Interaction"). We welcome presentations to this international workshop that examine language and body behavior together as complementary aspects of talk-in-interaction, examining how speakers deploy the grammatical, lexico-semantic, prosodic, and embodied practices (gestures, head shakes, gaze and the body) in the moment-by-moment construction of situated social actions (cf. M. Goodwin 1980, C. Goodwin 2000). On this view, language is not an autonomous (grammatical) system, but a set of practices and resources within the sequential organization of social interaction. The workshop specifically aims to explore the notion of 'social action formats', or conversational patterns for routinely enacting particular activities and actions in interaction (Fox 2000, 2007, Ford et al. 2003, Couper-Kuhlen and Thompson 2005, 2008, Curl 2006). Social action formats can be broadly understood as recurrent conversational patterns or turn-constructional formats which originate in the interactional needs of participants in talk-in-interaction, and in which language and embodiment may be variously present. We invite presentations that explore social action formats within and across languages and cultures, by focusing on the complex relations among grammatical form, sequential organization and embodiment. Presenters will have either: 30 minutes for a presentation and 10 minutes for discussion or 40 minutes for a data session: presentation/discussion of research and data The workshop format allows for in-depth exploration of data by the invited speakers, the presenters, and the audience. The workshop has two invited speakers: Professor Cecilia Ford (University of Wisconsin, Madison) Professor Barbara Fox (University of Colorado) Their extensive research on language and social interaction provide a foundation for much current work on positionally sensitive linguistic and embodied practices. The theoretical starting points to naturally occurring interaction in different settings may include conversation analysis, interactional linguistics, multimodal interaction analysis, and related fields of study that use video recordings of social interactions as their data. Possible topics for papers include (but are not limited to) the following: - What are conversational patterns or 'social action formats'? How can we identify and define them? - Do we begin with language (and traditional linguistic and grammatical categories) or with social action when searching for conversational patterns in interaction? - What are the limits of social action formats and their relationship to units such as intonation units, clauses, or constructions with varying degrees of open and fixed slots? - How do the different modalities and the material world figure in the construction of social action formats at the level of single and extended turns at talk? - Are there formats which are constructed only through embodied action? - Does embodiment extend over sequences of social actions and how? If it does, what are the implications for the participants and the organization of interaction? Participation Proposals for papers or data sessions should be submitted as abstracts of about 500 words, including bibliographic references, diagrams and tables. The proposals should be sent as email attachments to by 31 January 2011. Please include the name and affiliation of author(s) and the title of the paper in the abstract. Authors will be notified about acceptance by mid-February 2011. Important deadlines 31 January 2011 - Deadline for the submission of proposals mid-February 2011 - Information about the decisions of the review process 17-19 May 2011 - International workshop Venue Conference center Lasaretti Registration fees There will be no registration fee for the workshop. Organizing committee Project "Social Action Formats" Elise Kärkkäinen Tiina Keisanen Marika Sutinen For further questions please contact the organizers at SAF2011 (at) oulu.fi References Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Sandra Thompson 2005. A linguistic practice for retracting overstatements: 'Concessive repair'. In Hakulinen, Auli and Margret Selting (eds.), Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk-in-interaction. 257-288. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Sandra Thompson 2008. On assessing situations and events in conversation: 'Extraposition' and its relatives. Discourse Studies 10(4): 443-467. Curl Traci 2006. Offers of assistance: Constraints on syntactic design. Journal of Pragmatics 38(8), 1257-1280. Ford, Cecilia, Barbara Fox and Sandra Thompson 2003. Social interaction and grammar. In Tomasello, M. (ed.). The new psychology of language. Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure, 119-144. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fox, Barbara 2000. Micro-syntax in conversation. Paper presented at the Interactional Linguistics Conference, Spa. Fox, Barbara 2007. Principles shaping grammatical practices: an exploration. Discourse Studies 9(3): 299-318. Goodwin, Charles 2000. Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 1489-1522. Goodwin, Marjorie Harness 1980. Processes of mutual monitoring implicated in the production of description sequences. Sociological Inquiry, 50, 303-317. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Elise Kärkkäinen PhD, University Lecturer, Docent English Philology, Faculty of Humanities Box 1000 FIN-90014 University of Oulu FINLAND http://cc.oulu.fi/~elise/ tel. +358-8-553 3283, fax +358-8-553 3275 mobile +358-44-5547 592 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* From vanvalin at buffalo.edu Mon Nov 29 12:52:51 2010 From: vanvalin at buffalo.edu (Robert Van Valin) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:52:51 +0100 Subject: 2011 Role and Reference Grammar Conference: First call Message-ID: Role and Reference Grammar International Course & Conference 2011 - General information and first call for abstracts The biannual International Course and Conference on Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) "Functional Linguistics: Grammar, Communication & Cognition" will be hosted by the Facultad de Letras, at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago de Chile, August 11th – 13th, 2011. The international Conference will be preceded by two-day workshops: an introductory course and a workshop in Computational Linguistics based on the FunGramKB framework. The Conference will stage papers and plenary sessions. Our keynote speakers will be Robert D. Van Vain, Jr. (Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf), Francisco Cortés Rodríguez (Universidad de La Laguna) and Rolf Kailuweit (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg). The 2011 Conference will deal with issues in Functional Linguistics in all its pertinent topics. Papers dealing with further elaboration of RRG in areas like morphology, syntax, semantics, information structure, as well as language processing are encouraged. Abstracts must be received electronically by March 15th, 2011 at 2011RRG at gmail.com. Abstracts should be no longer than two pages, including data and references, and must be submitted as Word documents (a PDF version is also required if special characters are included). The abstracts should be anonymous. The email message must include the following information: author’s name, affiliation, email address, and title of the abstract. The selection of papers for presentation will be communicated by May 1st, 2011. The talks will last twenty minutes, followed by another ten minutes for discussion. For further information, please check our website: http://rrg2011.weebly.com *********** Prof. Dr. Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. University Professor Department of General Linguistics Institute for Language and Information Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf Universitätsstr. 1 40225 Düsseldorf Germany Tel: +49 (0)211 81 10717 Fax: +49 (0)211 81 11325 vanvalin at ling.uni-duesseldorf.de From eep at hum.ku.dk Tue Nov 30 13:38:46 2010 From: eep at hum.ku.dk (Elisabeth Engberg - Pedersen) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:38:46 +0100 Subject: SALCIII EXTENSION of deadline for abstracts Message-ID: EXTENSION OF DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS – Dec. 12 2010 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS for The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition (SALC III) will take place at the University of Copenhagen, June 14-16th (3 days) 2011. Keynote speakers: * Lawrence Barsalou, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia * Per Durst-Andersen, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark * Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel * Marianne Gullberg, Lund University, Lund, Sweden * Hannes Rakoczy, University of Göttingen, Germany The conference includes, but is not limited to the following themes: * Cognitive impairment and language use * Language acquisition and cognition * Language and cognitive development and evolution * Language and consciousness * Language and gesture * Language change and cognition * Language structure and cognition * Language use and cognition * Linguistic relativity * Linguistic typology and cognition * Psycholinguistic approaches to language and cognition * Specific language impairment We now invite the submission of abstracts for paper or poster presentations. The deadline is December 1st 2010. Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to SALC3 at hum.ku.dk by December 12 2010 (subject: SALC III abstract). The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by February 1st 2011. Three theme sessions will take place: · Language as social coordination · A Russian view of linguistic interpretation · Within and across spaces: Towards a multi-dimensional model of gesture space For further information, please see the conference website. And please indicate the title of the theme session on your abstract if you wish your paper to be considered for one of the theme sessions. Conference website: http://salc3.ku.dk/ For details of SALC, see: http://www.salc-sssk.org/ From ksikorski at li.hodes.com Tue Nov 30 17:11:49 2010 From: ksikorski at li.hodes.com (Karen Sikorski) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:11:49 -0500 Subject: Faculty positions at New York University... Message-ID: PART-TIME FACULTY Online Master of Science in Translation SCHOOL OF CONTINUING AND PROFESSIONAL STUDIES New York University We are seeking linguists to teach in a new online Master of Science program in Translation which begins fall 2011. As globalization continues to impact business and international relations, translation plays an increasingly important role in cultural and economic exchanges. This NYU curriculum has been designed to meet the need for translators for global business transactions and law. Areas of specialization include legal and/or financial translation. The program focuses on translation from French or Spanish into English. Part-time faculty members are needed to teach courses in theory of translation, pragmatics and discourse analysis. The M.S. in Translation curriculum emphasizes advanced linguistic competence, a solid theoretical foundation, a thorough comprehension of legal and financial subject matter, as well as excellent writing skills, speed, and accuracy, and is conceived to produce graduates with a strong foundation and demonstrable professional competencies for this growing field. Qualifications for teaching in the program include a Ph.D. in the relevant field of linguistics and university level teaching experience. The New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies is one of NYU¹s fifteen constituent schools and colleges. With its own faculty and specialized undergraduate and graduate programs for both full-time and part-time students, NYU-SCPS is among the University¹s five largest Schools as measured by matriculated students, and is also a worldwide leader in continuing professional education. Please send cover letter, C.V., record of research and three letters of reference to: scps.hr at nyu.edu (please indicate Box 3-11D in the ³subject² line); or mail to NYU SCPS, Human Resources Office, 25 West Fourth Street, Room 202, Box 3-11D, New York, NY 10012-1119. Applications and nominations will be accepted until the position is filled. NYU appreciates all applications, but can only respond to qualified candidates. NYU encourages applications from women and members of minority groups. Karen Sikorski Account Director 534 Broad Hollow Road, Ste 305A Melville, NY 11747 P 631-391-0462 F 631-753-1914 E-mail: ksikorski at li.hodes.com Bernard HODES Group http://www.hodes.com TALENT MATTERS® -------------------------------------------------------- Access Manager: This email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail or the information herein by anyone other than the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify us by calling the Help Desk at (212) 999-9911 or email us at helpdesk at hodes.com. From FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk Tue Nov 30 17:15:36 2010 From: FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk (Lise Fontaine) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:15:36 +0000 Subject: CFP: KEY2011 - Keystroke Language (and Text) Production: perspectives from cognitive and functional linguistics In-Reply-To: <40741.10.0.16.53.1290009716.squirrel@webmail.cantab.net> Message-ID: Hello, Please see below a call for papers for those interesting in the study of language production and the use of keystroke logging methodologies. We hope you will consider joining us in Cardiff in May. with best wishes Lise Fontaine KEY 2011 Keystroke Language (and Text) Production: perspectives from cognitive and functional linguistics 20 May 2011 Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales Supported by the Centre for Language and Communication Research and the LinC Research Network at Cardiff University The use of keystroke logging as a methodology in language research is not a new field of study since the first Computer Keystroke Logging conference was held at Umeå University in Sweden in 2002. However to date this area of research has primarily focussed on written composition and translation studies. The KEY 2011 workshop and conference intends to broaden this perspective by extending the contributions keystroke logging can make to language production generally, including spontaneous language such as chat messaging. Its theme is to explore functional and cognitive perspectives on the use of keystroke logging in language research where the focus of interest is on the dynamic process of production rather than on the static product of language production. Keynote Speakers Professor Kristyan Spelman Miller (University of Winchester) Dr Mick O’Donnell (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Wagsoft Software) Call for papers Papers are invited on the general theme of the conference, dealing with the use of keystroke logging in linguistic and language-related research. Presentations will be 20 minutes with 10 minutes discussion time. Papers which present work in progress or that focus on software development and methodology are also welcome. Although we will consider all contributions that relate to the main theme in general, we especially encourage papers that explore: · Evidence of cognitive processing in electronic language production · Corpora and the study of electronically produced language · Language or text as dynamic process (rather than static product) · Human-Computer Interaction as related to language and keyboard competence · Linguistic competence (including translation competence) · Descriptive work that enhances our understanding of electronically produced language · Functional accounts of language production (including manual and cognitive errors) · Methodological and/or ethical issues in the use of keystroke logging software Abstracts An abstract of approximately 400 words should be submitted electronically at the following webpage: http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/KEY2011. Please state, where appropriate, research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. Abstracts will be refereed anonymously by members of the programme committee. The deadline for submissions is 16 March 2011. Notification will be sent to authors by 4 April 2011. KEY2011 website: http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/newsandevents/events/conferences/key2011/ email: linc-network at cf.ac.uk From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Nov 30 21:20:47 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 03:20:47 +0600 Subject: Frequency of occurrence of preposions Message-ID: Dear colleagues, usually it is possible to find out if two texts are different if some certain linguistic units are used there with different frequencies. Is it possible to differentiate two texts basing on the frequency of occurrence of preposions: on, in, at, under, over, etc. Has many articles been published on the use of prepositions as features? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia From swellsj at bgsu.edu Mon Nov 1 16:41:06 2010 From: swellsj at bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells-Jensen) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 12:41:06 -0400 Subject: Chomsky In-Reply-To: <0F705506-C1CF-4618-B13A-D4260EE82C7A@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Keith, I think the subjective impression that our daughter had begun to use language had to do not so much with the vocabulary explosion directly as it did with the ability to combine words creatively which presupposes enough words to combine. If I remember correctly, Alex had enough words... enough nouns anyway.He certainly had holophrases for commonly requestable events and objects and these he had to learn on his own. I assume nobody trained him to request nuts or to ask to go back to his cage. He had 'wanna' (or something like it) and 'nut' and 'go back'. He didn't learn words as quickly as a child does though so although one could say he had enough words, he might not have had a vocabulary explosion where learning words suddenly became noticeably easier. Is there anywhere that a person could find his whole vocabulary list? being the Alex fan that I am, you'd think I'd know if this were available. One could demonstrate parallel learning in a number of nonlinguistic domains certainly, so maybe it's the ease of learning that was the barrier to him speaking more than he did? I'm at my edge of my knowledge of the parrot studies in general, so I apologize for any misrepresentations or failure to grasp the implications of the work. Sheri -- Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Assistant Director English as a Second Language Program Associate Professor Department of English 423 East Hall Bowling Green State University (419) 372-8935 -----Original Message----- From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Keith Johnson Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 2:23 PM To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Chomsky Hi Sheri, I wonder if your feeling that your daughter had crossed a language learning threshold might have been at about 18 months, the usual time of the "vocabulary explosion"? Bob McMurray has some really interesting ideas about how to explain this feature of language acquisition. He simulated the vocabulary explosion by making only two assumptions. (1) words are being learned in parallel - a little bit of learning for many words at the same time, and (2) some words are easier to learn than others. That's all it takes to have a vocabulary explosion - no language module needed. McMurray posted a very helpful discussion of his work: http://www.psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/mcmurray/science/ If the sense that a child has crossed a linguistic threshold is related to the vocabulary explosion, and if the vocabulary explosion is related to McMurray's two factors, then what keeps Alex from crossing the threshold must be one of two things; he is learning words sequentially rather than in parallel, or he finds it much harder to learn words than children do. If the first impediment is the culprit then perhaps training methods could be adjusted, but if the second is the crucial factor then it may not be possible for a parrot to cross that language-learning threshold with English. Earlier work with Chimps has tried to address the word difficulty problem by teaching ASL rather than spoken language, but one wonders if the difficulty lies at a more conceptual level of word learning than mere input/output system unnaturalness. Still the LACUS paper that Aya pointed us to hints at an impressive use by parrots of duality of patterning (one of Hockett's 13 design features of language Hockett, C (1960) "The Origin of Speech". in Scientific American, 203, pp. 89-97). best, Keith Johnson p.s. I would like to say, regarding the range of human linguistic ability (Aya's repeated point that some humans don't have language), that it would be useful to remember that clinical speech and language pathologists have developed numerous standardized tests of human linguistic ability, and school-aged children are routinely tested to detect developmental delays. Perhaps, if one wanted to measure the level of linguistic accomplishment reached by a parrot or other animal it would be good to score the animal on some standardized tests. From sepkit at utu.fi Tue Nov 2 06:57:09 2010 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 08:57:09 +0200 Subject: Final call for papers: role complexes (Z=?iso-8859-1?Q?=FCrich=2C_?= 4.-5.4.2011) Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Final call for papers Role complexes: (new) approaches to defining semantic roles Since one of the important functions of many communicative acts is to make clear ?who is doing what to whom? when portraying a particular state of affairs, it is hardly surprising that semantic roles, thematic roles or thematic relations constitute the topic of countless studies in linguistics and are also always discussed, either explicitly or implicitly, in reference grammars. Numerous studies have dealt with agents and patients within and across languages since the 1970s, and there are several comparatively recent studies that address other roles as well (e.g., Stolz et al 2006 for comitatives, N?ss 2007 for transitivity in general, Kittil? 2008 for recipients and goals, Z??iga & Kittil? 2010 for benefactives among numerous others). Among the many interesting characteristics of accounts of semantic roles, it is noteworthy that semantic relationships between predicates and their arguments are treated in different ways. On the one hand, the explicit formal distinction made in natural languages between agents and patients is typically reflected in their analytical status: the volitionally acting instigator of an event (agent) and the inactive, thoroughly affected target of the event (patient) are invariably regarded as two separate roles. On the other hand, different kinds of beneficiaries (e.g., the first person in John tossed me a salad and John mowed the lawn instead of me) are usually considered instances of one and the same role despite their different meanings. Similarly, different subtypes of agents have tended to be treated as different roles while different kinds of experiencers have not. Against this background, the goal of this workshop is to explore approaches to the notion of semantic role in terms of ROLE COMPLEXES, i.e., of clusters of several related sub-roles that might be distinguished by some constructions in certain languages but are otherwise subsumed under a general umbrella notion. For example, different instances of goals differ according to the exact nature of motion (e.g., he threw the ball to the box / behind the box / on the box). The basic definition of the goal role remains unchanged: we are dealing with an endpoint of motion in all cases. Nevertheless, the potential differences between the roles are thus determined by features not typically considered in studies of semantic roles; features usually used for distinguishing between semantic roles, such as instigation, volitionality and affectedness (cf. e.g.. N?ss 2007), can explain neither the semantic nor the formal differences between these three subtypes of goals, or the different codin g of goals and beneficiaries. We welcome all abstracts dealing with role complexes within and across languages. Possible topics for papers include (but, as always, are not restricted to) the following: - When should we speak of distinct roles, and when are two slightly different (potentially differently coded) roles rather manifestations of one basic role? Are, e.g., inanimate goals and animate goals manifestations of a single role or should they rather be treated separately? - What consequences does role synonymy have for our understanding of semantic roles? What are the features that any adequate theory of semantic roles should consider, what is the ?correct? number of semantic roles, etc.? - How should we treat partial formal mismatches between roles? - How do we deal with semantically/pragmatically determined differences in the coding of roles (e.g., marking conditioned by definiteness, referentiality, specificity, topicality, focality)? - Corpus-based studies of role synonymy: What determines the use of different (yet semantically similar) manifestations of a role in actual language use? - How do we best treat the diachronic development of multifunctional coding devices (syncretisms, polysemies, homonymies, etc.)? - Formal manifestation of semantic role synonymy: case marking, verbal marking, lexical differences, etc. - Role synonymy of core and peripheral roles: Are there any differences, is synonymy more common for one of these? Organizers of the workshop Fernando Z??iga (Zurich) and Seppo Kittil? (Helsinki) Venue University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Dates April 4-5, 2011 Abstract submission Please send your (maximally) 500-word abstract (excluding data and references) to both fernando.zuniga at spw.uzh.ch and kittila at mappi.helsinki.fi no later than November 14, 2010. The letters of acceptance will be sent by December 12, 2010. Abstracts must be anonymous, but the body of the e-mail should include the following information: Name of the author(s) Title of the paper Affiliation(s) E-mail In case you have any questions about the workshop, please don?t hesitate to contact us. We are looking forward to welcoming you all to Zurich. Fernando and Seppo From john at research.haifa.ac.il Tue Nov 2 13:17:41 2010 From: john at research.haifa.ac.il (john at research.haifa.ac.il) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:17:41 +0200 Subject: Looking for help with Arabic phonology In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear funknetters, I need some help with understanding the phonemicization of vowels in spoken Levantine (esp. Israeli/Palestinian) Arabic. If any of you can help me, or if you can refer me to someone who can help me, I would appreciate it very much. Thanks, John ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa University From wilcox at unm.edu Tue Nov 2 16:08:30 2010 From: wilcox at unm.edu (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 10:08:30 -0600 Subject: Job announcement Message-ID: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR The University of New Mexico Department of Linguistics Position Summary: The Department of Linguistics seeks applicants for an appointment as Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico (UNM). This is a probationary appointment leading to a tenure decision. The position is contingent upon final budgetary approval. Appointment will begin in August 2011. The Ph.D. must be in hand prior to appointment. Responsibilities will include teaching in the areas of specialization at the undergraduate and graduate level, graduate student mentoring, and service. Competitive salary. UNM provides a diversified package of benefits including medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. In addition, UNM offers educational benefits through the tuition remission and dependent education programs. For a more complete explanation of the benefits, please go to http://hr.unm.edu/and click on the Benefits link. The Department of Linguistics at UNM specializes in cognitive-functional approaches to the study of language, including corpus and empirically-based studies, cross-linguistic research, and typology. We have special strength in Native American linguistics and language revitalization, the study of signed languages, and Spanish linguistics. The Navajo Language Program is housed in the department, as is the Signed Language Interpreting Program. We also have close ties with the Hispanic Linguistics Program in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese. For further information on the department, please see our website . Minimum qualifications: Ph.D. by August 2011 in Linguistics or a closely-related field; primary specialization in sociolinguistics. Preferred qualifications: (a) secondary specialization in phonology/phonetics; (b) research and teaching interest in languages of the Southwest; (c) excellence in scholarship in areas of specialization; (d) orientation to empirical research; (e) excellence in teaching. Date for best consideration: December 1, 2010 Closing Date: Open until filled Enquiries about this position can be addressed to: Professor Sherman Wilcox For details on application requirements or to apply, visit the UNMJobs website: Please reference Posting Number 0808563. University of New Mexico is committed to promoting and supporting the diversity of our campuses. UNM is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. From brian.nolan at gmail.com Tue Nov 2 19:13:45 2010 From: brian.nolan at gmail.com (Brian Nolan) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 19:13:45 +0000 Subject: Call for abstracts - SLE2011: Functionally motivated computational approaches to models of language and grammar In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Would you be able to post the call below on Funknet. Many thanks, Brian _______________________________ Dr. Brian Nolan Head of Department of Informatics School of Informatics and Engineering Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Blanchardstown Road North Blanchardstown Dublin 15 Ireland email: brian.nolan at itb.ie email: brian.nolan at gmail.com _______________________________ > Functionally motivated computational approaches to models of language and grammar > Within the framework of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, to be held at the Universidad de La Rioja (Logro?o, Spain), 8-11 September 2011, we would like to propose a workshop on functionally motivated work in computational approaches to models of language and grammar > Convenors: > > Brian Nolan (Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Dublin Ireland) > Carlos Peri??n Pascual (Universidad Cat?lica de San Antonio, Murcia Spain) > In this call for papers we propose to host a workshop under the SLE to examine and discuss recent and current work in the use of functional, cognitive and constructional approaches to the computational modelling of language and grammars. > While recognising that in recent times much work has concentrated on statistical models, we wish to examine in particular computational models that are linguistically motivated and that deal with problems at the interfaces between concept, semantics, lexicon, syntax and morphology. Many functionally oriented models of grammar, including Functional Grammar, Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and reference Grammar have lent them selves to work as diverse as lexically motivated machine translation from Arabic to English (Nolan and Salem 2009, Salem and Nolan 2009a and 2009b) and to the conceptual ontological work on FunGramKB (Peri??n-Pascual & Arcas-T?nez 2005, 2007, 2010a, 2010b; Peri??n-Pascual & Mairal Us?n 2009) plus recent work undertaken within the Lexical-Constructional Model (Mairal Us?n, R. & Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008 and 2009, Ruiz de Mendoza Ib??ez, Francisco Jos? and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008, Guest, Nolan & Mairal-Uson. 2009) and Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin 2005, Van Valin & LaPolla 1997). > Indeed, similar work has been ongoing quietly within the domain of Sign Linguistics where various initiatives based upon variations of the original Mental Spaces Model (Fauconnier 1994) have been productively used in the creation of digital intelligent avatars to translate spoken/written languages into several Sign Languages (Morrissey & Way 2006, Cassell et al 2000, Prendinger & Ishizuka 2010). Sign Languages, as visual gestural languages, pose interesting problems for functional models of grammar (Leeson & Nolan 2008, Leeson et al 2006). > The organisers of this workshop are a European group of linguists, computational linguists and computer scientists who, since the 2004 Role and Reference Grammar International Conference in Dublin have formulated computational proposals in different areas concerned with the lexicon and concept ontologies, and the computational processing of the syntax, morphology and semantics of a variety of languages. Thus far, these actual computational projects have encompassed 1) rule-based lexicalist interlingua bridge machine translation, 2) ontological engineering of concepts that enhance and enrich logical structures in a machine tractable way, 3) the implementation of a unified lexical meta-language in software, and 4) the parsing of complex sentences. The languages that have undergone a computation treatment in RRG have included English, Arabic and Spanish, and others. > A consequence of this computational work has been the enrichment of the theoretical elements of the RRG theory, especially in its semantics and lexical underpinnings where they connect with concepts, and the building of frame based applications in software that demonstrate its viability in natural language processing. Furthermore, this computational work provides compelling evidence that functional approaches to grammar have a positive and crucial role to play in natural language processing. We claim that a functional approach to grammar delivers a credible and realistic linguistic model to underpin these kinds of NLP applications. > The main topics of the workshop will include, but are not limited to, the following: > ? The deployment of functional models in parse and generation > ? The architecture of the lexicon > ? The linking system between semantics, lexicon and morphosyntax > ? Interpretation of the linguistic model into an algorithm specification > ? Issues for the layered structure of the clause and word > ? Complexity issues > ? Concept formation > ? Linguistically motivated computational approaches to gesture in language > We would like to present a forum for a functional and cognitive linguistic, computational research agenda, based around an inclusive model consisting of the various cognitive and functional approaches to grammar. In sum, the aim of this workshop is to offer a forum for discussion and critical evaluation of the full gamut of research projects concerned with a broadly functional computational linguistics and that also contributes to our understanding of languages in a functionally oriented way. > Procedure: > ---------------------- > Abstracts are invited for 20 minute presentations with 10 minute discussion. Interested researchers and linguists are invited to email brian.nolan at gmail.com with their name, affiliation and provisional abstract of 500 words by 10 November 2010. > > Important dates > ---------------------- > Submission of provisional abstract: 10 November 2010. > Notification of acceptance of workshop proposal: 15th December 2010. > If the workshop proposal is accepted then all abstracts will need to be submitted to SLE by 15th January 2011, via the SLE conference website: http://sle2011.cliap.es > Notification of acceptance: 31st March 2011 > Registration: From April 2011 onwards > Conference: 8-11 September 2011 > > Selected references > Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, S., and Churchill, E. (Eds.). 2000. Embodied > Conversational Agents. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. > Fauconnier, Gilles. (1994). Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in > Natural Language. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. > Guest, Elizabeth, Brian Nolan and Ricardo Mairal-Uson. 2009. Natural Language > processing applications in an RRG Framework. Proceedings of the 10th International Role and Reference Grammar Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > Leeson, Lorraine and Brian Nolan. 2008. Digital Deployment of the Signs of > Ireland Corpus in Elearning. Language Resources and Evaluation LREC2008 - 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora. Marrakech, Morocco. > Leeson, Lorraine, John Saeed, Deirdre Byrne-Dunne, Alison Macduff and Cormac > Leonard. 2006. Moving Heads and Moving Hands: Developing a Digital Corpus of Irish Sign Language. The ?Signs of Ireland? Corpus Development Project. IT&T Conference (www.ittconference.ie). IT Carlow, Ireland. http://www.tara.tcd.ie/jspui/handle/2262/1597 > Mairal Us?n, R. and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008: New challenges for lexical > representation within the Lexical-Constructional Model (LCM). In Revista > Canaria de Estudios Ingleses. Universidad de La Laguna. > Mairal Us?n, Ricardo and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2009: Levels of description > and explanation in meaning construction. In Ch. Butler and J. Mart?n Arista (eds.). Deconstructing Constructions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. > Morrissey, Sara and Andy Way. 2006. Lost in Translation: the Problems of Using > Mainstream MT Evaluation Metrics for Sign Language Translation. In Proceedings of Strategies for developing machine translation for minority languages: 5th SALTMIL Workshop on Minority Languages. Genoa, Italy. pp.91-98 > Nolan, Brian and Yasser Salem. 2009. UniArab: An RRG Arabic-to-English machine > translation software. Proceedings of the Role and Reference Grammar International Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos, and Francisco Arcas-T?nez. 2005. Microconceptual- > Knowledge Spreading in FunGramKB. Proceedings on the 9th IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing. 239-244, ACTA Press, Anaheim-Calgary-Zurich. > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas T?nez. 2007. Cognitive modules of an NLP knowledge base for language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 39, 197-204. > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas T?nez. 2010a. Ontological commitments in FunGramKB. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 44, 27-34. > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas T?nez. 2010b. The architecture of FunGramKB. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, European Language Resources Association (ELRA), 2667-2674. > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Ricardo Mairal Us?n. 2009. Bringing Role and Reference Grammar to natural language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 43, 265-273. > Prendinger, Helmut and Mitsuru Ishizuka. 2010. Life-Like Characters: Tools, > Affective Functions, and Applications (Cognitive Technologies). Springer. > Ruiz de Mendoza Ib??ez, Francisco Jos? and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008: ?Levels of > description and constraining factors in meaning construction: an introduction to the Lexical Constructional Model?. Folia Linguistica 42/2 (2008), 355?400. > Salem, Y., Hensman, A., and Nolan, B., 2008a. Implementing Arabic-to-English > machine translation using the Role and Reference Grammar linguistic model. In Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Conference on Information Technology and Telecommunication (IT&T 2008), Galway, Ireland. > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009a. Designing an XML lexicon architecture for Arabic > machine translation based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools (MEDAR 2009), Cairo, Egypt. > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009b. UNIARAB: An universal machine translator > system for Arabic Based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Germany (DGfS 2009). > Van Valin, R., 2005. Exploring the Syntax-Semantic Interface. Cambridge: > Cambridge University Press. > Van Valin, R. and LaPolla, R., 1997. Syntax: Structure, Meaning, and Function. > Cambridge University Press. > =================================================================== From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Nov 2 20:00:01 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 02:00:01 +0600 Subject: Does linguistics move in the correct direction? Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, the discussion on Chomsky was very fruitful. I juxtaposed my own ideas with those on the list. I learnt a lot as a result. I wonder if we could also discuss J.Greenberg in the same way? THat is with all his pluses and minuses. I used to take part in several lists of this sort, but Funknet is the champion. People express their ideas on anything. Lingtyp list owners would have kicked out Aya and some others when they discussed Arab. They kicked me from their Lingtyp list because I asked them a very simple question "What is typology?" I am sure linguists should be allowed to discuss different thing on the list. It give much to our knowledge! I guess that general questions like "Does linguistics move in the correct direction?" or "How can we improve Genetic classification of languages?" should be allowed. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. From david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Tue Nov 2 20:05:43 2010 From: david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu (David Kronenfeld) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 13:05:43 -0700 Subject: Does linguistics move in the correct direction? In-Reply-To: <12990885500844ED8EE0CC3B9ABB5F93@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: On 11/2/2010 1:00 PM, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Colleagues, the discussion on Chomsky was very fruitful. I juxtaposed my own ideas with those on the list. I learnt a lot as a result. I wonder if we could also discuss J.Greenberg in the same way? THat is with all his pluses and minuses. I used to take part in several lists of this sort, but Funknet is the champion. People express their ideas on anything. Lingtyp list owners would have kicked out Aya and some others when they discussed Arab. They kicked me from their Lingtyp list because I asked them a very simple question "What is typology?" I am sure linguists should be allowed to discuss different thing on the list. It give much to our knowledge! I guess that general questions like "Does linguistics move in the correct direction?" or "How can we improve Genetic classification of languages?" should be allowed. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. > > -- David B. Kronenfeld, Professor Emeritus Phone 951-682-5096 Department of Anthropology Message 951 827-5524 University of California Fax 951 827-5409 Riverside, CA 92521 email david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Department: http://anthropology.ucr.edu/people/faculty/kronenfeld/index.html Personal: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/david-judy/david.html From david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Tue Nov 2 20:07:27 2010 From: david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu (David Kronenfeld) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 13:07:27 -0700 Subject: Does linguistics move in the correct direction? In-Reply-To: <12990885500844ED8EE0CC3B9ABB5F93@ngufa28a6c2639> Message-ID: sorry about the preceding empty email--I'm out of practice I guess ! I'm in favor of the Greenberg suggestion. David On 11/2/2010 1:00 PM, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote: > Dear Colleagues, the discussion on Chomsky was very fruitful. I juxtaposed my own ideas with those on the list. I learnt a lot as a result. I wonder if we could also discuss J.Greenberg in the same way? THat is with all his pluses and minuses. I used to take part in several lists of this sort, but Funknet is the champion. People express their ideas on anything. Lingtyp list owners would have kicked out Aya and some others when they discussed Arab. They kicked me from their Lingtyp list because I asked them a very simple question "What is typology?" I am sure linguists should be allowed to discuss different thing on the list. It give much to our knowledge! I guess that general questions like "Does linguistics move in the correct direction?" or "How can we improve Genetic classification of languages?" should be allowed. Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk. > > -- David B. Kronenfeld, Professor Emeritus Phone 951-682-5096 Department of Anthropology Message 951 827-5524 University of California Fax 951 827-5409 Riverside, CA 92521 email david.kronenfeld at ucr.edu Department: http://anthropology.ucr.edu/people/faculty/kronenfeld/index.html Personal: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/david-judy/david.html From tgivon at uoregon.edu Tue Nov 2 21:47:51 2010 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:47:51 -0600 Subject: forward from Brian Nolan Message-ID: Brian Nolan asked that the following be posted on FUNKNET. TG ================ > > Functionally motivated computational approaches to models of language and grammar > > Within the framework of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, to be held at the Universidad de La Rioja (Logro?o, Spain), 8-11 September 2011, we would like to propose a workshop on functionally motivated work in computational approaches to models of language and grammar > > Convenors: > > > > Brian Nolan (Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Dublin Ireland) > > Carlos Peri??n Pascual (Universidad Cat?lica de San Antonio, Murcia Spain) > > In this call for papers we propose to host a workshop under the SLE to examine and discuss recent and current work in the use of functional, cognitive and constructional approaches to the computational modelling of language and grammars. > > While recognising that in recent times much work has concentrated on statistical models, we wish to examine in particular computational models that are linguistically motivated and that deal with problems at the interfaces between concept, semantics, lexicon, syntax and morphology. Many functionally oriented models of grammar, including Functional Grammar, Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and reference Grammar have lent them selves to work as diverse as lexically motivated machine translation from Arabic to English (Nolan and Salem 2009, Salem and Nolan 2009a and 2009b) and to the conceptual ontological work on FunGramKB (Peri??n-Pascual & Arcas-T?nez 2005, 2007, 2010a, 2010b; Peri??n-Pascual & Mairal Us?n 2009) plus recent work undertaken within the Lexical-Constructional Model (Mairal Us?n, R. & Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008 and 2009, Ruiz de Mendoza Ib??ez, Francisco Jos? and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008, Guest, Nolan & Mairal-Uson. 2009) and Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin 2005, Van Valin & LaPolla 1997). > > Indeed, similar work has been ongoing quietly within the domain of Sign Linguistics where various initiatives based upon variations of the original Mental Spaces Model (Fauconnier 1994) have been productively used in the creation of digital intelligent avatars to translate spoken/written languages into several Sign Languages (Morrissey & Way 2006, Cassell et al 2000, Prendinger & Ishizuka 2010). Sign Languages, as visual gestural languages, pose interesting problems for functional models of grammar (Leeson & Nolan 2008, Leeson et al 2006). > > The organisers of this workshop are a European group of linguists, computational linguists and computer scientists who, since the 2004 Role and Reference Grammar International Conference in Dublin have formulated computational proposals in different areas concerned with the lexicon and concept ontologies, and the computational processing of the syntax, morphology and semantics of a variety of languages. Thus far, these actual computational projects have encompassed 1) rule-based lexicalist interlingua bridge machine translation, 2) ontological engineering of concepts that enhance and enrich logical structures in a machine tractable way, 3) the implementation of a unified lexical meta-language in software, and 4) the parsing of complex sentences. The languages that have undergone a computation treatment in RRG have included English, Arabic and Spanish, and others. > > A consequence of this computational work has been the enrichment of the theoretical elements of the RRG theory, especially in its semantics and lexical underpinnings where they connect with concepts, and the building of frame based applications in software that demonstrate its viability in natural language processing. Furthermore, this computational work provides compelling evidence that functional approaches to grammar have a positive and crucial role to play in natural language processing. We claim that a functional approach to grammar delivers a credible and realistic linguistic model to underpin these kinds of NLP applications. > > The main topics of the workshop will include, but are not limited to, the following: > > ? The deployment of functional models in parse and generation > > ? The architecture of the lexicon > > ? The linking system between semantics, lexicon and morphosyntax > > ? Interpretation of the linguistic model into an algorithm specification > > ? Issues for the layered structure of the clause and word > > ? Complexity issues > > ? Concept formation > > ? Linguistically motivated computational approaches to gesture in language > > We would like to present a forum for a functional and cognitive linguistic, computational research agenda, based around an inclusive model consisting of the various cognitive and functional approaches to grammar. In sum, the aim of this workshop is to offer a forum for discussion and critical evaluation of the full gamut of research projects concerned with a broadly functional computational linguistics and that also contributes to our understanding of languages in a functionally oriented way. > > Procedure: > > ---------------------- > > Abstracts are invited for 20 minute presentations with 10 minute discussion. Interested researchers and linguists are invited to email brian.nolan at gmail.com with their name, affiliation and provisional abstract of 500 words by 10 November 2010. > > > > Important dates > > ---------------------- > > Submission of provisional abstract: 10 November 2010. > > Notification of acceptance of workshop proposal: 15th December 2010. > > If the workshop proposal is accepted then all abstracts will need to be submitted to SLE by 15th January 2011, via the SLE conference website: http://sle2011.cliap.es > > Notification of acceptance: 31st March 2011 > > Registration: From April 2011 onwards > > Conference: 8-11 September 2011 > > > > > Selected references > > Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, S., and Churchill, E. (Eds.). 2000. Embodied > > Conversational Agents. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. > > Fauconnier, Gilles. (1994). Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in > > Natural Language. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. > > Guest, Elizabeth, Brian Nolan and Ricardo Mairal-Uson. 2009. Natural Language > > processing applications in an RRG Framework. Proceedings of the 10th International Role and Reference Grammar Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > > Leeson, Lorraine and Brian Nolan. 2008. Digital Deployment of the Signs of > > Ireland Corpus in Elearning. Language Resources and Evaluation LREC2008 - 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora. Marrakech, Morocco. > > Leeson, Lorraine, John Saeed, Deirdre Byrne-Dunne, Alison Macduff and Cormac > > Leonard. 2006. Moving Heads and Moving Hands: Developing a Digital Corpus of Irish Sign Language. The ?Signs of Ireland? Corpus Development Project. IT&T Conference (www.ittconference.ie). IT Carlow, Ireland. http://www.tara.tcd.ie/jspui/handle/2262/1597 > > Mairal Us?n, R. and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2008: New challenges for lexical > > representation within the Lexical-Constructional Model (LCM). In Revista > > Canaria de Estudios Ingleses. Universidad de La Laguna. > > Mairal Us?n, Ricardo and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza. 2009: Levels of description > > and explanation in meaning construction. In Ch. Butler and J. Mart?n Arista (eds.). Deconstructing Constructions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. > > Morrissey, Sara and Andy Way. 2006. Lost in Translation: the Problems of Using > > Mainstream MT Evaluation Metrics for Sign Language Translation. In Proceedings of Strategies for developing machine translation for minority languages: 5th SALTMIL Workshop on Minority Languages. Genoa, Italy. pp.91-98 > > Nolan, Brian and Yasser Salem. 2009. UniArab: An RRG Arabic-to-English machine > > translation software. Proceedings of the Role and Reference Grammar International Conference. University of California, Berkeley USA. > > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos, and Francisco Arcas-T?nez. 2005. Microconceptual- > > Knowledge Spreading in FunGramKB. Proceedings on the 9th IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing. 239-244, ACTA Press, Anaheim-Calgary-Zurich. > > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas T?nez. 2007. Cognitive modules of an NLP knowledge base for language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 39, 197-204. > > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas T?nez. 2010a. Ontological commitments in FunGramKB. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 44, 27-34. > > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Francisco Arcas T?nez. 2010b. The architecture of FunGramKB. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, European Language Resources Association (ELRA), 2667-2674. > > Peri??n-Pascual, Carlos and Ricardo Mairal Us?n. 2009. Bringing Role and Reference Grammar to natural language understanding. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 43, 265-273. > > Prendinger, Helmut and Mitsuru Ishizuka. 2010. Life-Like Characters: Tools, > > Affective Functions, and Applications (Cognitive Technologies). Springer. > > Ruiz de Mendoza Ib??ez, Francisco Jos? and Mairal, Ricardo. 2008: ?Levels of > > description and constraining factors in meaning construction: an introduction to the Lexical Constructional Model?. Folia Linguistica 42/2 (2008), 355?400. > > Salem, Y., Hensman, A., and Nolan, B., 2008a. Implementing Arabic-to-English > > machine translation using the Role and Reference Grammar linguistic model. In Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Conference on Information Technology and Telecommunication (IT&T 2008), Galway, Ireland. > > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009a. Designing an XML lexicon architecture for Arabic > > machine translation based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools (MEDAR 2009), Cairo, Egypt. > > Salem, Y. and Nolan, B., 2009b. UNIARAB: An universal machine translator > > system for Arabic Based on Role and Reference Grammar. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Germany (DGfS 2009). > > Van Valin, R., 2005. Exploring the Syntax-Semantic Interface. Cambridge: > > Cambridge University Press. > > Van Valin, R. and LaPolla, R., 1997. Syntax: Structure, Meaning, and Function > _______________________________ Dr. Brian Nolan Head of Department of Informatics School of Informatics and Engineering Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Blanchardstown Road North Blanchardstown Dublin 15 Ireland email: brian.nolan at itb.ie email: brian.nolan at gmail.com _______________________________ > > Cambridge University Press. > > =================================================================== > From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Tue Nov 2 22:34:24 2010 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 18:34:24 -0400 Subject: Golden Ratio in linguistics? Message-ID: Some of you may remember my postings regarding putative parallelisms between language and genome/proteome. If fact such parallelism seems to extend down to the level of the periodic table and possibly lower still. Now, Golden Ratio patternings have been found at all sorts of levels of material reality, from relative counts of different atoms in coordination compounds and metallic alloys (including the famous quasicrystals which have a relation to Penrose tiling) all the way through many growth regimes and resulting distributions of component parts in plants and animals, up through the orbital resonances of celestial bodies and the distributions of arms in spiral galaxies. I've found myself robust direct mappings of Fibonacci, Lucas, and other phi-convergent number series to the periodic table, when these numbers are taken as atomic numbers. In addition there are also strong connections to the Pascal Triangle diagonals, which motivate the Fib numbers (which are simply sums of samplings across Pascal diagonals). Recently I discovered online research by others which show similar Golden Ratio links to genomic structure, on the one hand, and also possibly to linguistic structure, on the other (currently a graduate student at Arizona is pursuing this). All this seems to feed back onto the increasingly large numbers of parallelisms in structure and function mentioned at the top. So, I'm starting to wonder whether all complex combinatorial systems make use of such organizational motifs. Bottom-up we would have a quantum-like set of discrete numerals drawn from the phi-convergent series, whose ratios approximate the Golden Ratio. At the other extreme would be a top-down, more continuous system, akin to what we find with relativity, whose effects on electrons distorts atomic structure and behavior from what one would expect based solely on the solutions to the quantum equations. Parallels here would be the rhythmic, prosodic structure of language, which dominates syntax, and similar structures within genomes having to do with repetitions, spacings, timings, and so on. These latter systems would utilize the actual Golden Ratio rather than approximations. In between we would have a vast landscape of negotiations balancing the opposing extremes, constantly shifting (perhaps in synchronized, multiple cycles at different scales), leading to what we would call 'typology'. There would be constant tension between the extremes, with imposition, selection, etc. going on. Anyway- I don't expect much commentary here. I know most of you find me good for the occasional belly laugh, and a candidate for the Rodney Dangerfield Prize. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From jyyoon at unt.edu Wed Nov 3 02:23:06 2010 From: jyyoon at unt.edu (Yoon, Jiyoung) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 21:23:06 -0500 Subject: Call for papers (SLE): Construction Grammar beyond English Message-ID: Call for Papers Construction Grammar beyond English: observational and experimental approaches Workshop at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (Logro?o, Spain), 8-11 September 2011 Organizers: Jiyoung Yoon (University of North Texas) Stefan Th. Gries (University of California, Santa Barbara) Deadline: 12 November 2010 (for provisional abstracts) Conference site: Overview The notion of constructions, understood as learned form-meaning parings of non-predictable as well as highly frequent predictable linguistic expressions, has introduced a new perspective on language: grammatical knowledge is not viewed as modular, but rather as knowledge of a highly structured and interconnected network of symbolic units, which in turn is viewed as a lexico-semantic continuum, the so-called constructicon (Langacker 1987; Goldberg 1995, 2006). While an increasing number of constructional studies have been adopting the usage-based model of constructions in which it is assumed that grammar is shaped by usage (Goldberg 2006) and children learn a language in a bottom-up fashion (Tomasello 2003), the range of existing studies is narrower than it would ideally be. On the one hand, there is the usual predominance of work on English: with the exception of Fried & ?stman (2004) and Croft?s typological work on Radical Construction Grammar (e.g., Croft 2001), there is as yet unsatisfactorily little construction-grammar work on different languages. On the other hand, even though Construction Grammarians have been embracing different methodologies and sources of data, there is still a need for more methodologically diverse and comprehensive studies, especially since while all types of data can provide linguistic evidence to a certain degree, there is no single linguistic method that can cover and answer all types of research questions (cf. Arppe et al. 2010). Objectives This workshop is intended to bring together empirically-oriented Construction Grammar approaches with the specific aims to (i) advance promote interaction and cross-fertilization between researchers interested in constructional approaches on languages other than English and (ii) further the growing trend towards multi-methodological research and converging evidence from corpora, experimentation, and simulation. Proposals are invited on observational and/or experimental studies on any aspect of constructions. Studies focusing on non-English data as well as cross-linguistic analyses between other languages and English are welcome. Procedure Proposals should be in English, and each presentation should be adjusted to a 30-minute slot (20 min. + 10 min. for discussion). Interested colleagues are invited to send an e-mail to Jiyoung Yoon () and Stefan Th. Gries (), with their name, affiliation and a provisional abstract (max. 100 words) before 12 November 2010. Important dates ? Deadline for submission of provisional abstract (max. 100 words): 12 November 2010 [Please submit in .txt, .rtf, or .doc (not .pdf.)] ? Notification of acceptance for workshop proposals: 20 December 2010 ? Submission of final full abstract (max. 500 words): 12 January 2011 [Please submit in .txt, .rtf, or .doc. (not .pdf.)]. References Arppe, A., Gilquin, G., Glynn, D., Hilpert, M., & Zeschel, A. 2010. Cognitive Corpus Linguistics: five points of debate on current theory and methodology. Corpora 5(1). 1-27. Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fried, Mirjam & Jan-Ola ?stman (eds.). 2004. Construction Grammar in a Cross-Language Perspective. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Goldberg, A.E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Goldberg, A.E. 2006. Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gonz?lvez-Garc?a, F. & Butler, C. 2006. Mapping functional-cognitive space. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 4. 39-96. Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. From sepkit at utu.fi Wed Nov 3 09:18:23 2010 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 11:18:23 +0200 Subject: Cfp: Variation and Typology: New trends in Syntactic Research (Helsinki, August 2011) Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Variation and Typology: New trends in Syntactic Research Helsinki, August 25?27, 2011 In recent years, theoretical discussion around syntactic issues has been characterized by a growing interest towards variation, both dialectal and cross-linguistic. Typological considerations have proven to be essential even for research on individual languages. On the other hand, detailed studies of variation within languages (e.g. studies of dialectical variation) and variation across closely related languages have attracted more interest among typologists. One consequence of this has been that the focus in dialect research has shifted from phonological and morphological towards syntactic questions. Whether this will turn out to be a mere adjustment in attention or a major paradigm shift, a broadened perspective is welcome and also necessary. In order for new approaches to emerge, old ones need to be combined in novel ways. This symposium offers a forum for scholars interested in syntactic questions within typology and variation (and combinations thereof) and willing to contribute to this collective shift of focus. The goal of the symposium is to approach the concept of variation from a broader perspective for gaining new insights into what variation (in its different forms) can reveal about language. Basically, variation can be seen both language-internal (e.g. dialects, sociolects etc.) and cross-linguistic (typological variation).There are numerous studies of both of these, but only quite recently has there been real effort to combine these two aspects of variation (e.g. Kortmann 2004, Nevalainen et al. 2006, Barbiers et al. 2008). Special attention will be given to the oft-neglected areas which fall between the foci of linguistic typology and variation studies within syntax when these are seen as separate fields of study. The question we would like to be addressed is briefly: what do we gai n by studying variation both within and across languages. Put another way, what are the implications of variation studies and language typology to one another? We heartily welcome papers related to the overall enterprise. Possible topics for talks include, but, as usual, are not restricted to, the following: ? dialect syntax vs. syntactic typology: what is the relation between cross-linguistic variation and dialectal variation? ? accounting for variation in syntactic theory: rigid rules, fuzzy templates, or something else? ? implications of language variation to typological data selection & research: what is the ?best variant? of a language to be presented in reference grammars? What are the consequences of relying on standard language data in cross-linguistic research? And what is the significance of having vs. not having variation data available to the grammarian? ? how to take into account variation in typological research in syntax? - case studies of variation within and across languages (e.g. clause combining, use of reflexive pronouns, possessive constructions, argument marking, word order variations, etc. etc. within and across languages) - methodological contributions to variation: to what extent do we need different machinery for dealing with different types of variation, and to what extent are we dealing with ?just variation?? - variation and marginal constructions: do we need a distinction between core and periphery in grammar? Does this involve a distinction between common and dialectal variants? Are certain constructions marginal both in dialects and across languages? - borderline between dialectal and typological variation: e.g. issues of dealing with closely related languages, distinguishing between dialects vs. languages, spontaneous vs. contact-induced variation, etc. - qualitative methods in typology and dialect studies For more information please visit the webpage of the symposium at: http://www.linguistics.fi/variation Invited speakers: Balthasar Bickel (University of Leipzig) Joan Bresnan (Stanford University) Marja-Liisa Helasvuo (University of Turku) Scientific committee Sjef Barbiers (University of Amsterdam) Hans Boas (University of Texas, Austin) Hannele Forsberg (University of Eastern Finland) Bernd Kortmann (University of Freiburg) Ekkehard K?nig (Freie Universit?t Berlin) Michel Launey (University of Paris 7) Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia) Jan-Ola ?stman (University of Helsinki) Cecilia Poletto (University of Padova) St?phane Robert (CNRS) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Jussi Ylikoski (University of Helsinki) Organizing committee Seppo Kittil? (University of Helsinki) Aki Kyr?l?inen (University of Turku) Meri Larjavaara (?bo Akademi University) Jaakko Leino (Research Institute for the Languages of Finland) Alexandre Nikolaev (University of Eastern Finland) Maria Vilkuna (Research Institute for the Languages of Finland) Abstract submission Please send your abstract to typ-variation /at/ helsinki.fi no later than March 1, 2011. The length of abstracts should not exceed 500 words (excluding data and references). Abstracts will be evaluated by the members of the scientific committee and also by the organizing committee. Letters of acceptance will be sent by March 31, 2011. The abstracts themselves must be anonymous, but the body of the message should include the following information: Name of the participant Title of presentation Affiliation E-mail address Whether the paper is meant as a section paper, a poster, or a workshop Workshops The symposium will include a workshop on Finnish and Finnic dialect syntax. Proposals for all workshops should be submitted no later than February 11, 2011. Notification of acceptance will be given by March 7, 2011. These one-day workshops will run in parallel sessions with the main conference program. Alternatively, the first day of the symposium may be dedicated to workshops. The symposium organizers will provide the lecture rooms and other facilities, but the workshop organizers will be responsible for the organization of their workshops (choosing the speakers etc.). Key dates: ? Deadline for abstract submission: March 1, 2011 ? Notification of acceptance: March 31, 2011 ? Proposals for workshops: February 11, 2011 ? Notification of acceptance of workshops: March 7, 2011 Activities: ? Presentations by the invited speakers ? Presentations by other participants ? Posters ? Workshops References Barbiers, Sjef & Olaf Koeneman & Marika Lekakou & Margreet van der Ham (eds.) 2008. Microvariation in syntactic doubling. Syntax and Semantics, volume 36. Bingley: Emerald. Kortmann, Berndt (ed.) 2004. Dialectology meets typology: dialect grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Nevalainen, Terttu & Juhani Klemola & Mikko Laitinen (eds.) 2006. Types of variation: diachronic, dialectical and typological interfaces. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. From fcortes at ull.es Wed Nov 3 11:43:54 2010 From: fcortes at ull.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Francisco_J._Cort=E9s_Rodr=EDguez?=) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 11:43:54 -0000 Subject: CALL FOR ABSTRACTS. sle2011: Meaning construction at the crossroads of grammar, cognition and communication Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS Meaning construction at the crossroads of grammar, cognition and communication Workshop proposal To be held within the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) (University of La Rioja at Logro?o ?Spain, 8-11 September 2011) http://sle2011.cilap.es/ Convenor: Francisco J. Cort?s-Rodr?guez (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain) This workshop is intended to be a forum for the discussion of the different factors that play a role in the construction of the meaning of linguistic expressions. Providing an account of meaning is still one of the most controversial topics both within and outside the realm of Linguistics, given the disparate as well as wide range of factors at play in meaning construction, which may go beyond language and involve the interaction of neuroscience, psychology and other disciplines. Even if we confine ourselves to the purely linguistic domain, the construction and interpretation of semantic structures encompasses many problematic issues, among which the following should be mentioned: the (non-)compositionality of meaning (construction); the interaction of lexis and syntax; the (lack of) boundaries between different areas of grammar, semantics and pragmatics; the role of constructions vis-?-vis the lexicon; the contribution of metaphor and metonymy to non-lexical levels of linguistic description; semantic and grammatical coercion; the role of implicature and illocution as descriptive levels, etc. With this scenario in mind, this workshop seeks to host recent work on such problematic topics; it also has the purpose of promoting the collaboration of researchers from different theoretical standpoints, including functional, cognitivist and/or constructionist approaches to language. Some of the topics that this workshop includes are listed below. The presentations should place emphasis on the value of addressing these topics from a perspective that integrates different approaches and/or dimensions of analysis: - The architecture of the lexicon: proposals for lexical organization (lexematics, lexical classes and domains, frames, scripts, etc). - Meaning construction below and above word level: the role of constructions in Morphology in general, with special focus on word formation processes, the interaction of constructions and affixes, the relation between word internal and word external syntax, etc. Meaning construction above the word level: from phrasal syntax to texts. - The nature of semantic representations: Cognitive modeling, primes, logical and/or event structures, qualia, etc. - The interaction between lexical units and constructions: the (non-) existence and nature of a lexicon-grammar continuum, lexical-constructional fusion, semantic and grammatical coercion, etc. - Layers of meaning and layers of grammar: layering proposals in functional models vs. form-meaning pairings. - Whether linguistic processes attested in one domain of linguistic inquiry are active ?and, if so, to what extent? in other domains (cf. the equipollence hypothesis in the Lexical Constructional Model). - The explanatory value of postulating semantic and/or pragmatic dimensions of meaning, with special emphasis on the communicative function(s) of lexical items and the constructions with which they fuse. - Principles and constraints in meaning construction and interpretation: e.g. conceptual compatibility between lexical and constructional structure, metaphor and metonymy as possible constraining factors on grammar. ? All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. ? Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact Francisco J. Cort?s-Rodr?guez ( fcortes at ull.es) with their name, affiliation and a provisional abstract (max. 200 words) by 11 November 2010. ? If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE? conference website (http: //sle2011.cilap.es/) by 15 January 2011. (apologies for multiple postings) Francisco J. Cort?s Rodr?guez Departamento de Filolog?a Inglesa y Alemana Facultad de Filolog?a. Campus de Guajara s/n Universidad de La Laguna 38071 La Laguna-Tenerife (+34)922316502 ext. 7653 fcortes at ull.es From djh514 at york.ac.uk Wed Nov 3 18:07:02 2010 From: djh514 at york.ac.uk (Damien Hall) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 18:07:02 +0000 Subject: Cambridge Conference on Endangered Languages (reminder) Message-ID: Forwarded on behalf of Mari Jones. Apologies for cross-postings! Damien Hall From: "Dr. M.C. Jones" Subject: Cambridge Conference on Endangered Languages To: ucam-celc at lists.cam.ac.uk Message-ID: <59D68158-68EC-4843-9BD0-685F2B2BCD2E at cam.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Dear All, This is a reminder that the call for papers for the First Cambridge Conference on Language Endangerment will close on November 26th. We are also attaching a poster - please feel free to distribute it to your colleagues, students, or further afield. Best wishes, Mari Jones and Sarah Ogilvie *** Language Endangerment: Documentation, Pedagogy, and Revitalization Friday, 25 March 2011 Location: University of Cambridge http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1332/ Call for Papers Deadline: abstracts due 26 November, 2010. On-line Registration opens 1 January 2011. Conveners Dr Mari Jones (Department of French/Peterhouse, University of Cambridge) Dr Sarah Ogilvie (Department of Linguistics/Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge) Summary The First Cambridge International Conference on Language Endangerment will focus on language documentation, pedagogy, and revitalization. The following speakers have agreed to give plenary sessions at the conference: Professor Peter Austin (SOAS, University of London, UK) Language Revitalization and Pedagogy: a case from eastern Australia Professor David K. Harrison (Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, Oregon, USA) Language Extinction: Local and Global Perspectives Professor Dr Nikolaus Himmelmann (University of M?nster, Germany) On Language Documentation Call for Papers This conference will bring together academics, students, and members of indigenous communities from around the world to discuss current theories, methodologies, and practices of language documentation, pedagogy, revitalization. Most of the world's languages have diminishing numbers of speakers and are on the brink of falling silent. Currently around the globe, scholars are collaborating with members of indigenous communities to document and describe these endangered languages and cultures. Mindful that their work will be used by future speech communities to learn, teach, and revitalize their languages, scholars face new challenges in the way they gather materials and in the way they present their findings. This conference will discuss current efforts to record, collect, and archive endangered languages in writing, sound, and video that will support future language learners and speakers. Documentation is of critical and immediate importance, and is often considered one of the main tasks of the field linguist. Future revitalization efforts may succeed or fail on the basis of the quality and range of material gathered, and yet the process may be rapid and dependent on conscious decisions by linguists and language workers who may be analyzing the form of a language for the first time, and codifying it in dictionaries and grammars. Written documentation of course not only aids the process of standardization but also serves important needs and functions within a community in support of language maintenance such as providing the basis for pedagogical materials in schools and helping to create a community's sense of identity. However, indigenous communities and scholars of endangered languages are beginning to realise that the rapid and often artificial nature of this process can have negative effects - politically, linguistically, and culturally - which feed into issues relating to education and, ultimately, language revitalization. In addition to the opportunity of sharing experiences with a network of linguists, it is hoped that participants will leave the conference with a new understanding of the topic, innovative ideas for documentation and pedagogy within their own linguistic contexts, and a renewed vigour to implement what they have learnt in their own language situations. Submission Guidelines We welcome abstracts (200 words maximum) for papers (20 minute paper + 10 minute discussion) that include, among other topics, discussion of interdisciplinary approaches and innovative techniques for collecting raw material, presenting metadata, and archiving language materials; teaching endangered languages to both children and adults; and revitalizing language use in homes, schools, and communities. Abstracts are due by 26 November 2010, and should be sent to: Dr Mari Jones (mcj11 at cam.ac.uk) and Dr Sarah Ogilvie (svo21 at cam.ac.uk). Sponsor The conveners are grateful for the support of The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge. From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Wed Nov 3 20:08:33 2010 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:08:33 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings Message-ID: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net From language at sprynet.com Wed Nov 3 20:34:57 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:34:57 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings Message-ID: > I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan > you all turn my stomach. Thanks, Jess, I feel much the same wayS about everyone here. This finding has been around for a long time & used to be considered basic in our field. Ervin-Tripp, 1964: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/pdf/An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Interaction%20of%20Language,%20Topic%20and%20Listener.pdf Can anyone guess why it has receded from us? All the best! alex ----- Original Message ----- From: "jess tauber" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:08 PM Subject: [FUNKNET] Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey,Thoughts and Feelings > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm > > I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan > you all turn my stomach. > > Jess Tauber > phonosemantics at earthlink.net > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Nov 3 21:01:38 2010 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 17:01:38 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings In-Reply-To: <8889C0B77FBF4002A6737B54D51F8A3A@aa82807a474cf4> Message-ID: Jess and Alex, I have used this example from Susan's study of the Nisei women informants in my classes in both Psycholinguistic and Crosscultural Psychology for the last 33 years. Of course Susan was my advisor. But note that her findings, as displayed most poignantly on page 96 are about identity or self-image, not about attitudes towards out-group members. Of course, I would expect similar results for that area, as the sciencedaily report suggests. Also, Lambert and others in Montr?al did a lot of related work about personality perception as based on L2 accent. I really don't see any evidence that any of these ideas have vanished. How could they, given how obvious they are, at least in some regards? --Brian MacWhinney On Nov 3, 2010, at 4:34 PM, alex gross wrote: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/pdf/An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Interaction%20of%20Language,%20Topic%20and%20Listener.pdf > >> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. > > Thanks, Jess, I feel much the same wayS about everyone here. > > This finding has been around for a long time & used to be considered basic in our field. > > Ervin-Tripp, 1964: > > > Can anyone guess why it has receded from us? > > All the best! > > alex > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "jess tauber" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:08 PM > Subject: [FUNKNET] Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey,Thoughts and Feelings > > >> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm >> >> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. >> >> Jess Tauber >> phonosemantics at earthlink.net > > From MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es Thu Nov 4 18:40:30 2010 From: MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es (MARIA DEL ROSARIO CABALLERO RODRIGUEZ) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 19:40:30 +0100 Subject: CALL FOR ABSTRACTS. sle2011: Metaphor in socialinteraction: Culture, genre and discourse communities Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS Metaphor in social interaction: Culture, genre and discourse communities Workshop proposal To be held within the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) (University of La Rioja at Logro?o -Spain, 8-11 September 2011) http://sle2011.cilap.es/ Convenor: Rosario Caballero Rodr?guez (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain) Claiming that human reasoning is largely metaphorical and imaginative not only involves attempting to determine the role of metaphor in cognition, but also how we use metaphor to communicate with each other. Metaphor is both a conceptual and a socialization tool, and one that is partly acquired and effectively put to work through discourse interaction. Hence, there is a need to incorporate the cognitive, linguistic, and cultural aspects of figurative phenomena in metaphor research aimed at explaining why and how people communicate through metaphor. This makes it necessary to combine both a cognitive and a discourse perspective on metaphor if reliable insights are to be gained. In this context, this workshop is intended to be a forum where scholars working within various fields (Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics or Pragmatics) can discuss both theoretical and applied issues related to the occurrence and function of metaphor in social interaction. The main goal, then, is to provide a collaborative environment where the Cognitive Linguistics bottom-up approach to metaphor and other related phenomena can be combined with the top-down procedures of Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics etc., in an attempt to yield a richer view of metaphor, with special emphasis on how metaphor contributes to the shared cultural and cognitive schemas of discourse communities. Some of the topics that this workshop includes are listed below. The presentations should place emphasis on the value of addressing these topics from a perspective that integrates different approaches and/or dimensions of analysis: - Procedures, approaches, and tools to explore metaphor, metonymy, etc., in discourse contexts, particularly genres. - Function of metaphor, metonymy and the like above the level of lexis (e.g. in texts, genres etc.). - Discussions of metaphor as both an individual and collective tool for cognition and communication. Issue: how metaphor is used, expanded, and interpreted in both macro-cultures and their local sub-cultures (e.g. professional communities). - Metaphorical patterns in discourse contexts: types and functions. - Metaphor variation across communities, genres etc. Issues for metaphor identification and/or interpretation. - Genres as acculturation tools in metaphor use. The role of discourse interaction and language in the expansion and 'health' of metaphor. ? All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. ? Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact Rosario Caballero (MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es ) with their name, affiliation and a provisional abstract (max. 200 words) by 12 November 2010. ? If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE' conference website (http: //sle2011.cilap.es/ ) by 15 January 2011. Rosario Caballero Departamento de Filologia Moderna Facultad de Letras Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha Avenida Camilo Jose Cela s/n 13071 CIUDAD REAL Phone number: + 34 926 295300 ext. 3128 Fax number: + 34 926 295312 From MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es Thu Nov 4 18:46:58 2010 From: MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es (MARIA DEL ROSARIO CABALLERO RODRIGUEZ) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 19:46:58 +0100 Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS: RaAM Specialized Seminar: Metaphor across Time and Genre Message-ID: RaAM Specialized Seminar: Metaphor across Time and Genre We are pleased to announce a specialized seminar of the international Association for Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM), which will be held at Palacio de Valdepara?so (Almagro, Spain) 5-7 May 2011. As an association, RaAM strives to advance the study of metaphor, metonymy and other aspects of figurative thought and expression, with a commitment to the application of metaphor research to 'real world' issues. In the present seminar, the theme will be ?Metaphor across Time and Genre?. We intend to highlight the socio-cultural and the discursive quality of metaphor, as well as the fact that it extends over various timescales and is manifested in different kinds of situated social practices (i.e. genres) conventionally used by discourse communities. The seminar will be organized in a vertical manner, in that there will only be one session held at a time. Our main aim is to get people to attend everything, as well as chat, make contacts, renew old ones, and have fun, plus have time to discuss their own research with everybody. The event will feature three plenary lectures: ? Dirk Geraeerts (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) ? Elena Semino (University of Lancaster) ? Eve Sweetser (University of California, Berkeley) We will also have keynote talks by: ? Kathryn Allan (University College London) ? Antonio Barcelona (University of Cordoba) ? Enrique Bernardez (Complutense University, Madrid) ? Jonathan Charteris-Black (University of the West of England) ? Iraide Ibarretxe (University of Zaragoza) ? Veronica Koller (University of Lancaster) ? Gitte Kristiansen (Complutense University, Madrid) ? Farzad Sharifian (Monash University, Australia) ? Javier Valenzuela (University of Murcia) ? Awaiting confirmation from tenth speaker We are soliciting abstracts for 20-minute papers and for poster presentations. Given the vertical format of the seminar, spots for oral presentations will likely be quite competitive. In other words, reviewers will be asked to identify the submissions that seem most likely to generate broad interest due to originality of ideas or significance to the field. For this reason, posters are highly encouraged, and one hour will be reserved in the programme so that poster authors can introduce their work orally. The poster session will be permanently on display throughout the seminar. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words (excluding references) and must specify whether they belong to oral presentations or to posters. Abstracts for both papers and posters must be sent to raam.seminar at mobilearn.es . Authors are encouraged to use the template for abstracts available at http://www.uclm.es/actividades/2011/raam/abstracttemplate.rtf . For any queries, send a mail to the chairs of the seminar: Rosario Caballero (MRosario.Caballero at uclm.es) and Javier Diaz-Vera (JavierEnrique.Diaz at uclm.es). The deadline for abstracts is 15 December 2010. Notification of acceptance decisions will be sent by 1 February 2011. The registration fee is ?90 and covers the book of abstracts, social programme, coffee breaks and two wine receptions. Finally, we hope to be able to provide transportation from Madrid or from Ciudad Real to Almagro. Further details on this will be posted on the seminar?s webpage (http://www.uclm.es/actividades/2011/raam/). We will also provide travel and accommodation information in due time. The 2011 seminar scientific committee: Juana Marin Arrese (Complutense University) Antonio Barcelona (University of C?rdoba) Enrique Bernardez (Complutense University) Lynne Cameron (Open University, United Kingdom) Jonathan Charteris-Black (University of the West of England, United Kingdom) Alan Cienki (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Alice Deignan (University of Leeds, United Kingdom) Charles Forceville (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands) Dirk Geraeerts (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) Iraide Ibarretxe (University of Zaragoza) Veronika Koller (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Gitte Kristiansen (Complutense University) Jeannette Littlemore (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) Graham Low (York University, United Kingdom) Fiona MacArthur (University of Extremadura) Carita Paradis (Lund University, Sweden) Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza (University of La Rioja) Julio Santiago de Torres (University of Granada) Elena Semino (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Cristina Soriano (Universit? de Gen?ve, Switzerland) Richard Trim (University of Aix-en Provence, France) Javier Valenzuela (University of Murcia) The local organizing committee: Rosario Caballero (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Javier Diaz-Vera (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Francisco Jose Ruiz de Mendoza (University of La Rioja) M? Jesus Pinar Sanz (University of Castilla-La Mancha) Rafael Cruz, Jose Miguel Alcolado, Marta Gomez, Carmen Calzado (assistants, University of Castilla-La Mancha) For information on becoming a member of RaAM, see http://www.raam.org.uk/Joining.html Rosario Caballero Departamento de Filologia Moderna Facultad de Letras Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha Avenida Camilo Jose Cela s/n 13071 CIUDAD REAL Phone number: + 34 926 295300 ext. 3128 Fax number: + 34 926 295312 From elc9j at virginia.edu Thu Nov 4 19:06:14 2010 From: elc9j at virginia.edu (Ellen Contini-Morava) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 15:06:14 -0400 Subject: Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This reminds me of a study (in the 1970's?) of Israeli Arab men who were bilingual in Hebrew and Arabic, exposed to arguments against smoking and drinking, that manipulated the variables of language and whether the basis of the argument was religion or health/science. Respondents found the religion-based arguments more effective when delivered in Arabic, and the health/science based arguments when delivered in Hebrew. I unfortunately don't remember the source. Ellen On 11/3/2010 5:01 PM, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Jess and Alex, > > I have used this example from Susan's study of the Nisei women informants in my classes in both Psycholinguistic and Crosscultural Psychology for the last 33 years. Of course Susan was my advisor. But note that her findings, as displayed most poignantly on page 96 are about identity or self-image, not about attitudes towards out-group members. Of course, I would expect similar results for that area, as the sciencedaily report suggests. Also, Lambert and others in Montr?al did a lot of related work about personality perception as based on L2 accent. I really don't see any evidence that any of these ideas have vanished. How could they, given how obvious they are, at least in some regards? > > --Brian MacWhinney > > On Nov 3, 2010, at 4:34 PM, alex gross wrote: > > http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/pdf/An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Interaction%20of%20Language,%20Topic%20and%20Listener.pdf > >>> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. >> Thanks, Jess, I feel much the same wayS about everyone here. >> >> This finding has been around for a long time& used to be considered basic in our field. >> >> Ervin-Tripp, 1964: >> >> >> Can anyone guess why it has receded from us? >> >> All the best! >> >> alex >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "jess tauber" >> To: >> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 4:08 PM >> Subject: [FUNKNET] Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey,Thoughts and Feelings >> >> >>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm >>> >>> I love you in English, feel ambivalent about it in French, but in Yahgan you all turn my stomach. >>> >>> Jess Tauber >>> phonosemantics at earthlink.net >> From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Thu Nov 4 20:18:39 2010 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 16:18:39 -0400 Subject: Stone Age Humans Needed More Brain Power to Make Big Leap in Tool Design Message-ID: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103171451.htm So cutting-edge technology really was cutting edge technology? Anyone here care to comment about possible links to language? It is well known that flint knapping requires the capacity to associate the brightness or dullness of sounds produced during test-tapping, at different positions, of the knapping material with likelihood of conchoidal fracture and material texture- hit the stone the wrong way, at the wrong position, or with the wrong tool and you're out of business. Something perhaps akin to sound symbolism? Or 'bipartite constructions' with instrument/bodypart and pathway/position affixes and similarly organized longer ideophones? Other developed technologies probably also require the same sorts of knowledge, though with softer, wetter materials (that don't leave fossils). Jess Tauber From language at sprynet.com Thu Nov 4 20:46:43 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 16:46:43 -0400 Subject: An Epilogue to our Discussion... Message-ID: You'll find a fitting epilogue to our discussion about the value of linguistics in this month's Atlantic, an article entitled "Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science." It's on-line at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269 This piece represents the latest advance on "evidence-based medicine." a field I referenced as the basis for my 2005 LACUS presentation "Is Evidence-Based Linguistics the Solution? Is Voodoo Linguistics the Problem?" Here's a few brief excerpts: "At every step in the process, there is room to distort results, a way to make a stronger claim or to select what is going to be concluded," says Ioannidis. "There is an intellectual conflict of interest that pressures researchers to find whatever it is that is most likely to get them funded." Simply put, if you're attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you're motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you'll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right. "Even when the evidence shows that a particular research idea is wrong, if you have thousands of scientists who have invested their careers in it, they'll continue to publish papers on it," he says. "Its like an epidemic, in the sense that they're infected with these wrong ideas, and they're spreading it to other researchers through journals." --------------- These findings have repercussions for all studies not grounded in measurable observed results. The equivalent article about our field might be entitled "Lies, Damned Lies, and Mainstream Linguistics." I can anticipate that some of you might prefer to get off the hook by rationalizing "if medical professionals can't get the basis of their study straight, then why should we feel guilty if we can't either...?" But this won't cut it. Medicine has almost unlimited practical effects on all of us, and regardless of its theoretical or research problems, the motto of med students remains "Common Things Are Common." There are countless reliable cures, tonics, and physical therapies that work perfectly well most of the time for countless well-known health problems. And conscientious doctors have at least an even chance of treating more serious maladies. But linguistics today in its mainstream aberration has virtually no practical effects at all on any segment of society. This was certainly not the vision nor the intention of Whorf, Sapir, Hayakawa, Ogden, or Richards, who foresaw a linguistics that could reach deeply into the lives of individuals, societies, and cultures. If the entire medical profession can admit both tacitly and publicly that their theoretical and research fundamentals are not in order, would it really be too much to ask for the sages of TGG to do the same? I guess it would... Perhaps we'll have to await the advent of a new generation of Young Turks who stumble on these old ideas and/or reinvent them as new. Assuming they'll be able to find the funding... All the best to everyone! alex PS--i am grateful to my colleague Paul F. Wood (himself a long-time critic of mainstream errors in "The Linguist" out of London) for calling this article to my attention. ************************************************************** The principal purpose of language is not communication but to persuade ourselves that we know what we are talking about, when quite often we do not. ************************************************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frederick J Newmeyer" To: "Funknet" Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 1:12 PM Subject: [FUNKNET] Outsiders' views of the value of linguistics > Hello, > > For a survey article that I'm writing, I plan to assemble quotes from > people outside the field of linguistics on what they see as the value, or > lack of value, of work done in linguistics. So I would like to cite > published quotes from psychologists, anthropologists, literary > specialists, etc. on their views about the value/relevance of linguistics > for their particular concerns and its value/relevance in general. Can > anybody help me out by pointing me to relevant quotes? > > Let me give one example of the sort of thing that I am looking for. The > late computational linguist Fred Jelinek reportedly wrote: 'Whenever I ?re > a linguist our system performance improves'. > > Thanks. I'll summarize. > > Best wishes, > > --fritz > > fjn at u.washington.edu > > > > Frederick J. Newmeyer > Professor Emeritus, University of Washington > Adjunct Professor, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser > University > [for my postal address, please contact me by e-mail] > > From mark at polymathix.com Thu Nov 4 22:16:19 2010 From: mark at polymathix.com (Mark P. Line) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 17:16:19 -0500 Subject: Stone Age Humans Needed More Brain Power to Make Big Leap in Tool Design In-Reply-To: <5034382.1288901920081.JavaMail.root@wamui-hunyo.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I doubt that anything interesting can be said about narrowly language-related cognitive abilities being somehow related (in some speakers, at some times) to particular non-linguistic cognitive abilities such as those underlying flintknapping. It would be very much more interesting to find this or that cognitive ability that can be shown to be utterly and necessarily divorced from language. Just as an aside: My suspicion of evolutionary "leaps" is directly and exponentially proportional to the length of time since that leap is supposed to have occurred. -- Mark Mark P. Line Bartlesville, OK jess tauber wrote: > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103171451.htm > > So cutting-edge technology really was cutting edge technology? Anyone here > care to comment about possible links to language? It is well known that > flint knapping requires the capacity to associate the brightness or > dullness of sounds produced during test-tapping, at different positions, > of the knapping material with likelihood of conchoidal fracture and > material texture- hit the stone the wrong way, at the wrong position, or > with the wrong tool and you're out of business. Something perhaps akin to > sound symbolism? Or 'bipartite constructions' with instrument/bodypart and > pathway/position affixes and similarly organized longer ideophones? Other > developed technologies probably also require the same sorts of knowledge, > though with softer, wetter materials (that don't leave fossils). > > Jess Tauber > > -- Mark Mark P. Line Bartlesville, OK From twood at uwc.ac.za Fri Nov 5 07:39:55 2010 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 09:39:55 +0200 Subject: An Epilogue to our Discussion... In-Reply-To: <1B1BA5163C634044B390D18FD1332FF6@aa82807a474cf4> Message-ID: >>> "alex gross" 11/4/2010 10:46 pm >>> If the entire medical profession can admit both tacitly and publicly that their theoretical and research fundamentals are not in order, would it really be too much to ask for the sages of TGG to do the same? I guess it would... Well, Chomsky did say that he thought that linguistics might have nothing to offer to the teaching of a language, which is an extraordinary enough thing to say. Alas, he was right (at least in his own case). Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal From francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es Fri Nov 5 08:35:17 2010 From: francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es (Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 09:35:17 +0100 Subject: Fwd: SLE Workshop: Sociolinguistics & the Media In-Reply-To: <20101105001944.8408B53634@xenon11.um.es> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: J.M. Hernandez-Campoy Date: 2010/11/5 Subject: SLE Workshop: Sociolinguistics & the Media To: CALL FOR PAPERS *Sociolinguistics and the Media: The Use of Mass Media as Linguistic Data Corpora for the Study of Sociolinguistic Variation and Change * *Workshop Proposal * To be held within the *44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea** (SLE) * (University of La Rioja at Logro?o ?Spain, 8-11 September 2011) http://sle2011.cilap.es/ Convenor: J.M. Hern?ndez-Campoy (Universidad de Murcia, Spain) As we know, *Sociolinguistics* is that area of Linguistics which deals with the relationships between language and society. It specifically focuses on how human beings actually use language in social interaction in their everyday lives, and its studies are made of languages in their social context entirely. To simplify somewhat, its concerns are to learn more about language by investigating topics such as the mechanisms of linguistic change, the nature of linguistic variability, and the structure of linguistic systems. Through the correlation of extralinguistic factors, such as socio-demographic and/or context variables, with linguistic variables, Sociolinguistics is being able to detect, locate, describe and explain the symmetry existing between social variation and linguistic variation in terms of *sociolinguistic variation*. Significance is understood as the causality relationship of linguistic and extralinguistic data. The samples used from mass media communication have been demonstrated to be very useful sources for the study of styling and the analysis of linguistic variation and change. On the one hand, style enjoys a pivotal position in sociolinguistic variation, with *stylistic* (or intra-speaker) variation constituting a principal component together with * linguistic* variation and *social* (or inter-speaker) variation. On the other, language variation and change are one of the two sides of the sociolinguistic coin (together with linguistic diversity), constituting one of the great unsolved mysteries of linguistic science, and consequently a challenge to generations of scholars so far. In many ways, they reflect the multifaceted shaping of human relationships for the transmission of social meaning. The aim of this workshop is to show results and conclusions from different empirical studies carried out in different and distant languages, focussing on variationist phenomena of language use and choice, and emphasizing theoretical as well as methodological aspects. *Bibliography: *Bell, Allan. (1982). Radio: The style of news language. *Journal of Communication* 32: 150-164. Bell, Allan. (1982). This isn?t the BBC: Colonialism in New Zealand English. * Applied Linguistics* 3: 246-258. Bell, Allan. (1984). Language Style as Audience Design. *Language in Society * 13: 145-204. Bell, Allan. (1991). *The Language of News Media*. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Coupland, Nikolas. (1985). Hark, Hark the Lark: Social Motivations for Phonological Style-Shifting.* Language and Communication* 5 (3): 153-172. Coupland, Nikolas. (2001). Dialect Stylization in Radio Talk.* Language in Society *30 (3): 345-75. Coupland, Nikolas. (2001). Language, Situation, and the Relational Self: Theorizing Dialect-Style in Sociolinguistics. In Penelope Eckert & John R. Rickford (eds.), *Style and Sociolinguistic Variation*. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell, 185-210. Coupland, Nikolas. (2007). *Style: Language Variation, and Identity. *Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cutillas-Espinosa, J.A. & Hern?ndez-Campoy, J.M. (2006). Nonresponsive Performance in Radio Broadcasting: A Case Study. *Language Variation & Change* 18(3): 317-330. Cutillas-Espinosa, J.A. & Hern?ndez-Campoy, J.M. (2007). Script Design in the Media: Radio Talk Norms behind a Professional Voice. *Language & Communication* 27(2): 127-152. Cutillas-Espinosa, J.A. & Hern?ndez-Campoy, J.M. & Schilling-Estes, N. (2010). Hyper-vernacularisation in a Speaker Design Context: A Case Study. *Folia Linguistica* 44(1): 31-52. Gordon, E., Campbell, L., Hay, J., Maclagan, M., Sudbury, A., & Trudgill, P. (2004). *New Zealand English: Its Origins and Evolution*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hern?ndez-Campoy, J.M. & Jim?nez-Cano, J.M. (2003). Broadcasting Standardisation: An Analysis of the Linguistic Normalisation Process in Murcia. *Journal of Sociolinguistics* 7(3): 321-347. Hern?ndez-Campoy, J.M. & J.A. Cutillas-Espinosa. (2010). Speaker Design Practices in Political Discourse: a Case Study. *Language and Communication*30: 297-309. Johnstone, Barbara. (1996). *The Linguistic Individual: Self-expression in Language and Linguistics*. New York: O.U.P. Johnstone, Barbara. (2009). Stance, Style and Linguistic Individual. In: A. Jaffe (ed.), *Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Stance*. New York: O.U.P., 29-52. Trudgill, P. (2004). *New-Dialect Formation. The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes*. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van de Velde, Hans, Merinel Gerritsen, and Roeland Van Hout. (1996). The Devoicing of Fricatives in Standard Dutch: A Real-Time Study Based on Radio Recordings. *Language Variation and Change* 8: 149-175. Van de Velde, Hans, Roeland Van Hout, and Marinel Gerritsen. (1997). Watching Dutch change: A real time study of variation and change in standard Dutch pronunciation. *Journal of Sociolinguistics* 1 (3): 361-391. *Details of Call for Papers: *-All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. -Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact J.M. Hern?ndez-Campoy (jmcampoy at um.es) with their name, affiliation and a provisional title by *12 November 2010*. -If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE? conference website (http: //sle2011.cilap.es/) by 15 January 2011. *Important Dates (Summary): *-Submission of provisional title: 12 November 2010. -Notification of acceptance of workshop proposal: 15th December 2010. -If the workshop proposal is accepted then all abstracts will need to be submitted to SLE by 15th January 2011, via the SLE conference website: http://sle2011.cliap.es -Notification of acceptance: 31st March 2011 -Registration: From April 2011 onwards -Conference: 8-11 September 2011 (apologies for multiple postings) ================================================== Prof. Juan Manuel Hern?ndez-Campoy (Dr.) Departamento de Filolog?a Inglesa Facultad de Letras Campus de La Merced Universidad de Murcia 30071 Murcia (Spain) Tel.: +34-868-88.31.81 Tel. M?vil: 629-552424 Fax.: +34-868-88.31.85 E-Mail: jmcampoy at um.es http://webs.um.es/jmcampoy ================================================== _______________________________________________ Si tiene cualquier pregunta sobre el funcionamiento de la lista o desea darse de baja env?e un correo a aesla.webmaster at uji.es. Por favor no env?e correos a la lista pidiendo informaci?n. Infoaesla mailing list Infoaesla at llistes.uji.es http://llistes.uji.es/mailman/listinfo/infoaesla -- From francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es Fri Nov 5 08:35:54 2010 From: francisco.ruizdemendoza at unirioja.es (Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 09:35:54 +0100 Subject: Fwd: SLE Workshop: English as a Global Language In-Reply-To: <20101105082748.979B253B20@xenon11.um.es> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: J.M. Hernandez-Campoy Date: Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:27 AM Subject: SLE Workshop: English as a Global Language To: *CALL FOR PAPERS English as a Global Language: A Sociolinguistic Approach to the Influence of English on the Lexicon of Other Languages Workshop Proposal * To be held within the *44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea* (SLE) (University of La Rioja at Logro?o - Spain, 8-11 September 2011) *http://sle2011.cilap.es/ * Convenor: Eduardo Salda?a Navedo (Universidad de Murcia, Spain) Nowadays, English enjoys a privileged position in language use and choice. In fact, it has some kind of special status (as a first, second or foreign language) in over 70 countries, and it is the most commonly used lingua franca in international contexts of communication. Its influence is so important that many intellectuals and scholars are afraid that several historical languages (such as French, Spanish, German and numerous minority varieties) might change drastically because of English, and even end up disappearing. For fear of it, many national governs have tried to avoid or - at least - control the use of foreign words and/or loanwords come from other languages, specially English. On the other hand, it is well-known that lexical transfers is not a new phenomenon. It has always been quite common in history having very influential cultures and languages which have exported several of their features to other nations and linguistic systems. Moreover, lexical transfers must not necessarily be seen as a negative aspect derived from globalization. They may provide languages with unique opportunities to enrich their lexicon with new voices and previously nonexistent shades of meaning, so that they can define all the innovations and new realities that are coming up faster and faster. This workshop is intended to be a forum for the discussion of the different factors that play a role in the transference of words from English to many other languages all over the world. With this scenario in mind, the presentations for this workshop should place emphasis on some of the following topics: -The effects of globalization on the acquisition of words coming from English. -The influence of mass media on the diffusion of lexical transfers from English. -Technical discourses written in English as a gate to Anglicisms. -The importance of bilingual speakers (including translators) in the spreading of Anglicisms. -The relevant role that teaching English as a foreign language may be playing in the increasing amount of lexical transfers from that linguistic system. -The relationship of different socio-demographical factors (age, gender, social class, etc.) with the rates of knowledge, use and acceptance of lexical transfers from English. -The influence attitudes towards English language and/or British and North American culture may have in speakers? acceptance of foreign words and loanwords from English. All presentations will be 20 minutes plus a 10 minute question time. Interested researchers in taking part in this workshop are kindly invited to contact Eduardo Salda?a Navedo (esn18615 at um.es) with their name, affiliation and a provisional title by *12 November 2010*. If the present workshop proposal is accepted (the date of notification being 15th December 2010), abstracts should be submitted to SLE conference website (http://sle2011.cilap.es/) by 15 January 2011. Selected references: -Crystal, David. (2001) *English as a global language*. Cambridge: Cambridge Universty Press. -Jenkins, Jennifer. (2007) *English as a lingua franca: attitude and identity*. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - Rosenhouse, Judith & Rotem Kowner (eds.). (2008) *Globally speaking: Motives for adopting English vocabulary in other languages*. Bristol: Multingual Matters. -Thomason, Sarah G. (2001) *Language contact*. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. -Thomason, Sarah G. & Terrence Kaufman. (1992) *Language contact, creolization and genetics linguistics*. Berkeley: University of California Press. -Trudgill, Peter. (2000) *Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society*. London: Penguin. -Weinreich, Uriel. (1953) *Languages in contact: Findings and problems*. The Hague: Mouton. (apologies for multiple postings) ================================================== Prof. Juan Manuel Hern?ndez-Campoy (Dr.) Departamento de Filolog?a Inglesa Facultad de Letras Campus de La Merced Universidad de Murcia 30071 Murcia (Spain) Tel.: +34-868-88.31.81 Tel. M?vil: 629-552424 Fax.: +34-868-88.31.85 E-Mail: jmcampoy at um.es http://webs.um.es/jmcampoy ================================================== From dmdonvan at ix.netcom.com Sun Nov 7 14:29:42 2010 From: dmdonvan at ix.netcom.com (Denis Donovan) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 09:29:42 -0500 Subject: Chomsky - different perspective Message-ID: Anyone still interested in the discussion of whether language is a uniquely capacity and whether other species possess might want to read a paper in press by Gergely Csibra and Gy?rgy Gergely. The paper seems quite relevant to the current Hauser controversy as well. I would be most interested in reactions to Csibra and Gergely's thesis since it would appear to made the species divide even wider. Similarities across species are fascinating but they don't always have the same implications--which is why there is no need to deny similarities across species in order to appreciate the differences. After all, nearly thirty years ago Patricia Kuhl and J. D. Miller demonstrated that chinchillas perceive artificial stimuli along the da-ta continuum just as categorically as do humans. In fact, Kuhl and Miller found that when they plotted a graph of chinchilla da-ta discrimination the results were nearly identical to those of an English speaker. Here's a taste of what the Csibra and Gergely paper offers. Csibra, G. and G. r. Gergely (in press). "Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: . http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk/people/scientificstaff/gergo/pub/index.html/pedagogy_adaptation.pdf (110610). Abstract: We propose that the cognitive mechanisms that enable the transmission of cultural knowledge by communication between individuals constitute a system of 'natural pedagogy' in humans, and represent an evolutionary adaptation along the hominin lineage. We discuss three kinds of arguments that support this hypothesis. First, natural pedagogy is likely to be human-specific: while social learning and communication are both widespread in non-human animals, we know of no example of social learning by communication in any other species apart from humans. Second, natural pedagogy is universal: despite the huge variability in child-rearing practices, all human cultures rely on communication to transmit to novices a variety of different types of cultural knowledge, including information about artefact kinds, conventional behaviours, arbitrary referential symbols, cognitively opaque skills, and know-how embedded in means-end actions. Third, the data available on early hominin technological culture are more compatible with the assumption that natural pedagogy was an independently selected adaptive cognitive system than considering it as a by-product of some other human-specific adaptation, such as language. By providing a qualitatively new type of social learning mechanism, natural pedagogy is not only the product but also one of the sources of the rich cultural heritage of our species. From the text: During recent years, we have documented that human infants and children possess specialized cognitive mechanisms that allow them to be at the receptive side of such cultural transmission. By being sensitive to ostensive signals (such as direct eye-contact, infant-directed speech, or contingent reactivity), infants are prepared to identify and interpret others' actions as communicative acts that are specifically addressed to them [2,3]. They also display interpretive biases that suggest that they expect to learn generic and shared knowledge from such communicative acts. For example, infants expect that ostensive signals will be followed by referential signals [4], pay preferential attention to generalizable kind-relevant features of objects that are referentially identified by demonstrative communicative acts addressed to them [5,6], learn causally opaque means actions from communicative demonstrations [7], and assume that communicated valence information about objects (i.e., whether they are evaluated positively or negatively) is shared by others [8]. These and other findings suggest that preverbal human infants are prepared to receive culturally relevant knowledge from benevolent adults who are, in turn, spontaneously inclined to provide it. This paper advances the hypothesis that the cognitive systems that make natural pedagogy possible reflect an evolutionary adaptation in the hominin lineage. This account can be contrasted with other explanations, according to which this type of social learning is not human-specific, or is the result of cultural rather than cognitive (hence biological) evolution and therefore not universal across human cultures, or is a by-product of some other basic adaptation. We think that empirical and theoretical arguments can be advanced against these proposals. (pp. 4-5) -- ===================================================== Denis M. Donovan, M.D., M.Ed., F.A.P.S. Director, EOCT Institute Medical Director, 1983 - 2006 The Children's Center for Developmental Psychiatry St. Petersburg, Florida P.O Box 47576 St. Petersburg, FL 33743-7576 727-641-8905 DenisDonovan at EOCT-Institute.org ===================================================== From grvsmth at panix.com Sun Nov 7 14:52:12 2010 From: grvsmth at panix.com (Angus B. Grieve-Smith) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 09:52:12 -0500 Subject: Chomsky - different perspective In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/7/2010 9:29 AM, Denis Donovan wrote: > I would be most interested in reactions to Csibra and Gergely's thesis > since it would appear to made the species divide even wider. > Similarities across species are fascinating but they don't always have > the same implications--which is why there is no need to deny > similarities across species in order to appreciate the differences. > After all, nearly thirty years ago Patricia Kuhl and J. D. Miller > demonstrated that chinchillas perceive artificial stimuli along the > da-ta continuum just as categorically as do humans. In fact, Kuhl and > Miller found that when they plotted a graph of chinchilla da-ta > discrimination the results were nearly identical to those of an > English speaker. I don't understand. It seems that the chinchilla data contradict Csibra and Gergely's thesis. It's not like you can just say "da" on a mountainside in Peru and the chinchillas will jump; they had to be trained to respond to this distinction. Although this training was presumably not "natural pedagogy," it's pretty clear that chinchillas are receptive to similar kinds of activities. One thing that gets me about all this research is the circular nature of it: We have activities that are uniquely human, and those activities are what separates us from the animals. Okay, then I want a grant to figure out the color of George Washington's white horse. The other thing that gets me is why so many people care so much about separating themselves from other animals, and why they assume that everyone else cares. No offense, but to me that's one of the least interesting research questions I can think of. Anyone who wants to research it can go ahead, but they don't have to belittle my reasons for studying language because they're not the same as theirs. -- -Angus B. Grieve-Smith grvsmth at panix.com From v.evans at bangor.ac.uk Mon Nov 8 04:31:56 2010 From: v.evans at bangor.ac.uk (Vyv Evans) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 04:31:56 +0000 Subject: Language and Cognition Vol. 2, No. 2, October 2010 is now available Message-ID: **************JUST PUBLISHED************** Language and Cognition *Volume*: 2, *Number*: 2 (October 2010) Journal website: www.languageandcognition.net Publisher website: http://www.reference-global.com/loi/langcog Table of contents below. Don't forget to ask your library to subscribe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Adaptive cognition without massive modularity* Raymond W. Gibbs and Guy C. Van Orden Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 149-176. Abstract | PDF (470 KB) | PDF with Links (471 KB) *Do classifiers predict differences in cognitive processing? A study of nominal classification in Mandarin Chinese* Mahesh Srinivasan Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 177-190. Abstract | PDF (528 KB) | PDF with Links (532 KB) *The conceptual structure of deontic meaning: A model based on geometrical principles* Paul Chilton Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 191-220. Abstract | PDF (792 KB) | PDF with Links (795 KB) *Talking about quantities in space: Vague quantifiers, context and similarity* Kenny R. Coventry , Angelo Cangelosi , Stephen N. Newstead , and Davi Bugmann Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 221-241. Abstract | PDF (816 KB) | PDF with Links (818 KB) *Abstract motion is no longer abstract* Teenie Matlock Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 243-260. Abstract | PDF (446 KB) | PDF with Links (450 KB) *Mutual bootstrapping between language and analogical processing* Dedre Gentner and Stella Christie Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 261-283. Abstract | PDF (425 KB) | PDF with Links (430 KB) *Reviews* Language and Cognition October 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2: 285-300. Abstract | PDF (417 KB) | PDF with Links (420 KB) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Prof. Vyv Evans Professor of Linguistics www.vyvevans.net Head of School School of Linguistics & English Language Bangor University www.bangor.ac.uk/linguistics General Editor of 'Language & Cognition' A Mouton de Gruyter journal www.languageandcognition.net -- Gall y neges e-bost hon, ac unrhyw atodiadau a anfonwyd gyda hi, gynnwys deunydd cyfrinachol ac wedi eu bwriadu i'w defnyddio'n unig gan y sawl y cawsant eu cyfeirio ato (atynt). Os ydych wedi derbyn y neges e-bost hon trwy gamgymeriad, rhowch wybod i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a dil?wch y neges. Os na fwriadwyd anfon y neges atoch chi, rhaid i chi beidio ? defnyddio, cadw neu ddatgelu unrhyw wybodaeth a gynhwysir ynddi. Mae unrhyw farn neu safbwynt yn eiddo i'r sawl a'i hanfonodd yn unig ac nid yw o anghenraid yn cynrychioli barn Prifysgol Bangor. Nid yw Prifysgol Bangor yn gwarantu bod y neges e-bost hon neu unrhyw atodiadau yn rhydd rhag firysau neu 100% yn ddiogel. Oni bai fod hyn wedi ei ddatgan yn uniongyrchol yn nhestun yr e-bost, nid bwriad y neges e-bost hon yw ffurfio contract rhwymol - mae rhestr o lofnodwyr awdurdodedig ar gael o Swyddfa Cyllid Prifysgol Bangor. www.bangor.ac.uk This email and any attachments may contain confidential material and is solely for the use of the intended recipient(s). If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email. If you are not the intended recipient(s), you must not use, retain or disclose any information contained in this email. Any views or opinions are solely those of the sender and do not necessarily represent those of the Bangor University. Bangor University does not guarantee that this email or any attachments are free from viruses or 100% secure. Unless expressly stated in the body of the text of the email, this email is not intended to form a binding contract - a list of authorised signatories is available from the Bangor University Finance Office. www.bangor.ac.uk From language at sprynet.com Mon Nov 8 10:55:12 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 05:55:12 -0500 Subject: An Epilogue to our Discussion... Message-ID: > Well, Chomsky did say that he thought that linguistics might > have nothing to offer to the teaching of a language, which is > an extraordinary enough thing to say. Alas, he was right (at > least in his own case). > Tahir Yes, and he also made an attempt to cover his derriere on MT as follows: `as for machine translation and related enterprises, they seemed to me pointless as well as probably quite hopeless.'* But the whole history and development of the mainstream movement under its various names favored the opposite direction. Thanks, Tahir, for being the only one to reply to my message after almost four days...could it just be because it was pretty unansweable...? All the best to everyone, including Fritz! alex *Chomsky, Noam (1975) The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, p. 40, University of Chicago Press. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tahir Wood" To: "Funknet" ; "alex gross" ; "Frederick J Newmeyer" Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 2:39 AM Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] An Epilogue to our Discussion... >>> "alex gross" 11/4/2010 10:46 pm >>> If the entire medical profession can admit both tacitly and publicly that their theoretical and research fundamentals are not in order, would it really be too much to ask for the sages of TGG to do the same? I guess it would... Well, Chomsky did say that he thought that linguistics might have nothing to offer to the teaching of a language, which is an extraordinary enough thing to say. Alas, he was right (at least in his own case). Tahir -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer > http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal > > From FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk Wed Nov 10 20:00:59 2010 From: FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk (Lise Fontaine) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:00:59 +0000 Subject: Cardiff University: Postgraduate Funding Opportunities Message-ID: Hello everyone, I'd like to let people know about various funding opportunities for post-graduate study and research in Language and Communication at Cardiff University. Please see below. with best wishes Lise Cardiff University Centre for Language and Communication Research School of English, Communication and Philosophy Postgraduate Funding Opportunities in Language and Communication Research ESRC Studentships in Language and Communication at Cardiff The Centre for Language and Communication Research (CLCR) is able to support applications to the ESRC Open Studentship Competition for PhD studentships, covering tuition fees for British and EU students plus a generous stipend. You must apply for your Cardiff University degree programme by Monday 7th February 2011. Further information is available at http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/opportunities/postgraduate/Guidance.aspx#0 In order to be considered for a studentship, in the first instance you need to apply for postgraduate study at Cardiff University. Please contact Dr Justine Coupland (PhD Admissions, CouplandJ at cf.ac.uk), or Professor Peter Garrett, (Director of Postgraduate Research, GarrettP at cf.ac.uk) or Mrs Dawn Harrington (CLCR Postgraduate Administrator, clcr-pg at cf.ac.uk) for further details. Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentships (AHRC) Under the Block Grant Partnership between the AHRC and the Centre for Language and Communication Research can also support applications for studentship awards, available in 2011/12, in the subject areas of Linguistics and in English Language and Literature. We invite applications for: 1 Research Preparation Masters in Linguistics. 1 doctoral award in Linguistics 3 doctoral studentship awards in English Language and Literature You must apply for your Cardiff University degree programme by Monday 7th February 2011. For further details, application forms and guidance notes please visit: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/pg/funding/ahrcawards/index.html Cardiff University President?s Research Scholarships The University is making available 72 ?flagship? postgraduate research awards which carry the prestige of association with the University?s new President, the Nobel Prize for Medicine (2007) winner, Professor Sir Martin Evans. A number of these awards are available for postgraduates seeking to research in the area of 'Re-constructing Multiculturalism'. Deadline: The 2011/12 application process is beginning in Autumn 2010. For more information, see: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/presidents/multiculturalism/index.html School Research Bursaries and 'Cardiff 125' Scholarships Please see the following webpage for more information. http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/degreeprogrammes/postgraduateresearch/schoolfunding/ Please visit the Centre for Language and Communication website to find details of our primary research areas: http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/degreeprogrammes/postgraduateresearch/langcommunicationmphil/index.html For more information about these and other funding opportunities please contact: Sarah Robertson, Academic Support Officer (encap-ac at cf.ac.uk). http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/pg/funding/index.html From rchen at csusb.edu Sat Nov 13 15:32:52 2010 From: rchen at csusb.edu (Rong Chen) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:32:52 +0800 Subject: FW: ICLC 11, Xian--last reminder Message-ID: Dear Colleagues- Please be reminded that the abstract submission deadline for ICLC 11, to be held July 11 to 17, 2011 in the historic city of Xi'an, China, is *Nov.15th, 2010* (your local time). All information about the conference, including abstract requirements, tentative schedule, registration fees, and conference dinner and sightseeing, are found at www.iclc11.org. Besides the conference dinner that will be provided with the compliments of the Conference host--Xi'an International Studies University--the OC is actively seeking ways to cover the planned half-day sightseeing for conference participants. Rong Chen, Academic Affairs Coordinator Dafu Yang, Executive Co-Chair From michikok at humnet.ucla.edu Sat Nov 13 18:06:58 2010 From: michikok at humnet.ucla.edu (Kaneyasu, Michiko) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:06:58 -0800 Subject: Call for abstracts: Workshop on East Asian Languages Message-ID: The Asian Linguistics Graduate Student Association at the University of California, Los Angeles announces its 17th Workshop on East Asian Languages (WEAL). WEAL 2011 will take place March 18th-19th (Friday-Saturday) at the Royce Hall Conference Room, 314 Royce Hall, UCLA. Keynote speakers for the workshop will be: ? Patricia M. Clancy (University of California, Santa Barbara) ? Hyo Sang Lee (Indiana University) ? Yoshiko Matsumoto (Stanford University) ? Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu (San Diego State University) Abstracts are invited for talks on any topic in East Asian linguistics. WEAL is intended to be a data-based and informal workshop for presenting and discussing issues on East Asian languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Therefore, we would especially welcome presentations on initial results and other issues arising from ongoing projects as well as finished papers. Talks will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Anonymous abstracts should be 350 words or less (excluding examples and/or references), and must be submitted electronically. Please indicate your source(s) and type(s) of data in the abstract (e.g. audio/visual recordings, texts, conversational, elicited, narrative, etc.). For co-authored papers, please indicate who plans to present the paper as well as who will be in attendance. Please limit your abstracts to the following formats: PDF or Microsoft Word document; and use the author?s name as the filename. Send electronic submissions to: 2011weal at gmail.com, with the subject line ?WEAL 2011: Last name, First name.? In the body of the email to which the abstract is attached, please provide the following information: (1) Category (formal or functional) and subfield (e.g., discourse, pragmatics, language acquisition, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, phonology, syntax, semantics, etc.) (2) Full title of your paper (3) Names of authors (4) Affiliations (5) E-mail address for each author (6) Designation of e-mail address for official communication in the case of joint authorship (7) Phone number for each author DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: December 31, 2010 (5:00 PM, PST) Late submissions will not be accepted. Notification of acceptance will be sent via email by January 31, 2011. Further details regarding the workshop and registration are available at http://ucla.orgsync.com/org/algsaucla If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact the workshop organizers via e-mail at 2011weal at gmail.com. From language at sprynet.com Sat Nov 13 22:18:40 2010 From: language at sprynet.com (alex gross) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:18:40 -0500 Subject: Chomsky - different perspective Message-ID: > The other thing that gets me is why so many people care so much about > separating themselves from other animals, and why they assume that > everyone else cares. No offense, but to me that's one of the least > interesting research questions I can think of. Anyone who wants to > research it can go ahead, but they don't have to belittle my reasons for > studying language because they're not the same as theirs. I agree completely, Angus, I wonder if these people may not be closet creationists without realizing it. The glory of Darwin's discoveries was in fact rooted in proving how connected we are to animals, after all we share so very much with them, including ingesting, digesting & excreting our food, sexual reproduction, same-sex sexual couplings, tribal and/or species self-protection, merely listing the obvious... Oddly enough, I believe our links with animals also include language--as I have painstakingly maintained ever since 1993 language can be readily interpreted as a development out of spray-markings, from the chemical spray of simple single-cell creatures to the scent markings of higher animals to the sound markings we call language. At each stage the number & variety of messages becomes greater but at the cost of creating species- or clan-specific systems of sound markings not understood by other species or clans, as the Tower of Babel falls & languages become "foreign" to one another. I developed this outlook at least a decade before the Evolang crew started their boondoggle, encouraging academics from any field, often those with slight or shallow backgrounds in language, to hurl a dart at the board by advancing their own theories about how language began. Clearly many of these savants felt the need of some "higher" theory of language, something the Discovery Channel could bill as "the crucial step that separated man from all other creatures." I have provided what I consider irrefutable proof that language evolved from spray & scent markings at conferences of linguists and translators. I have simply asked the members of these audiences to hold up their hands to their mouths and whisper into their palms for 20 seconds while I went on speaking. Invariably they found that their palms were covered by a film of spray. People desperately want to believe that somehow our existence on this planet is high & dry & abstract & sterile & if not eternal at least relatively permanent, unlike the existence of animals around us. But face it, everything about our lives is moist, liquid, clammy, messy & impermanent--our weather, our lakes, our oceans, our meat, our fruit and vegetables, our sex drives, our entire bodies. So why wouldn't the origins of language be moist and clammy too? Offensive? Sure, for some people. But there are people who find offensive almost everything that isn't high-sounding & abstact. Perhaps they even find life itself offensive, which couldn't be more fluid. As the cliche has it, life is a sexually transmitted disease that is invariably fatal. All the best to you & everyone! alex PS: Two of my pieces advancing this theory of language origin: http://language.home.sprynet.com/lingdex/ariadne.htm#totop http://languag2.home.sprynet.com/f/evidence.htm#top ************************************************************** The principal purpose of language is not communication but to persuade ourselves that we know what we are talking about, when quite often we do not. ************************************************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: "Angus B. Grieve-Smith" To: Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 9:52 AM Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Chomsky - different perspective > On 11/7/2010 9:29 AM, Denis Donovan wrote: >> I would be most interested in reactions to Csibra and Gergely's thesis >> since it would appear to made the species divide even wider. Similarities >> across species are fascinating but they don't always have the same >> implications--which is why there is no need to deny similarities across >> species in order to appreciate the differences. After all, nearly thirty >> years ago Patricia Kuhl and J. D. Miller demonstrated that chinchillas >> perceive artificial stimuli along the da-ta continuum just as >> categorically as do humans. In fact, Kuhl and Miller found that when they >> plotted a graph of chinchilla da-ta discrimination the results were >> nearly identical to those of an English speaker. > I don't understand. It seems that the chinchilla data contradict > Csibra and Gergely's thesis. It's not like you can just say "da" on a > mountainside in Peru and the chinchillas will jump; they had to be trained > to respond to this distinction. Although this training was presumably not > "natural pedagogy," it's pretty clear that chinchillas are receptive to > similar kinds of activities. > > One thing that gets me about all this research is the circular nature > of it: We have activities that are uniquely human, and those activities > are what separates us from the animals. Okay, then I want a grant to > figure out the color of George Washington's white horse. > > The other thing that gets me is why so many people care so much about > separating themselves from other animals, and why they assume that > everyone else cares. No offense, but to me that's one of the least > interesting research questions I can think of. Anyone who wants to > research it can go ahead, but they don't have to belittle my reasons for > studying language because they're not the same as theirs. > > -- > -Angus B. Grieve-Smith > grvsmth at panix.com > > From caterina.mauri at unipv.it Mon Nov 15 21:33:25 2010 From: caterina.mauri at unipv.it (Caterina Mauri) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:33:25 +0100 Subject: International Spring School - "Europe beyond Europe: new horizons on pidgins and creoles" Message-ID: ** WE APOLOGIZE FOR CROSS-POSTING ** ------------------------- INTERNATIONAL SPRING SCHOOL 2011 "Europe beyond Europe: new horizons on pidgins and creoles" LETiSS - Center for Postgraduate Education and Research Pavia, 18-22 April 2011 DEADLINE EXTENDED !!! ------------------------- Dear list members, the Center for Postgraduate Education and Research on ?Languages of Europe: Typology, History and Sociolinguistics? (LETiSS) ANNOUNCES its 2nd International Spring School on "Europe beyond Europe: new horizons on pidgins and creoles", to be held in Pavia (Italy), 18-22 April 2011. The LETISS Center has been the first center in Italy (and in Europe) specifically dedicated to the linguistic situation of Europe, approached from a variety of perspectives. More information on the aims, the research topics and the activities of the Center can be found on the website (link provided below). When and Where The Spring School will last one week, from Monday, 18 until Friday, 22 April 2011, at the IUSS Institute in Pavia (viale Lungo Ticino Sforza 56, 27100 Pavia, Italy ? www.iusspavia.it). Who and What - Teachers and courses The everyday schedule, from Monday to Friday, will be as follows: 9-10.45: 1st course 11.15-13.00: 2nd course 15-16.45: 3rd course 17.15-19.15: 4th course 1st course? Margot van den Berg (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen): "Creoles at birth? The role of nativization" 2nd course? Barbara Turchetta (Universit? della Tuscia): "The contribution of Pidgin and Creole studies to the general theory of language change" 3rd course? Susanne Michaelis (University of Gie?en/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig): "Grammatical structures in creole language. First results from APiCS" 4th course ? Bettina Migge (University College Dublin): "The Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics of Creole languages" The students 20 advanced students in linguistics and related fields will be selected by the Scientific Committee of the School. The main criterion will be the degree of relatedness/pertinence of their research interests with the topics of the School. A certificate of participation will be given to all participants. Applications *applicants must have achieved at least the B.A. + M.A. level (= a five years cycle); therefore students may be Ph.D. students, Post- docs, and young researchers; *in the CV applicants should indicate any research activities and publications that may be relevant for the admission; *applicants should also attach a short description of their past, ongoing and future research projects (up to three pages). No tuition fee is required!! LETiSS will even cover attendants? accommodation expenses! Important dates - 10th December: application deadline. At this stage, the CV + short description of the research projects must be attached (please write an e-mail to: letiss at iusspavia.it or emanuele.miola at unipv.it). - 15th December: applicants who have been accepted will receive a communication with all relevant information Contacts Organizers: Caterina Mauri, Emanuele Miola, Paolo Ramat, Andrea Sans?. Please send your application and any questions to: letiss at iusspavia.it or emanuele.miola at unipv.it LETiSS website: www.iusspavia.it/eng/LETiSS LETiSS Spring School 2011 website: http://www.iusspavia.it/eng/LETiSS.springschool From mg246 at cornell.edu Mon Nov 15 22:52:53 2010 From: mg246 at cornell.edu (monica gonzalez-marquez) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:52:53 +0100 Subject: 2nd Call - EMCL 5.1 - Freiburg Message-ID: Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics 5.1 -- Freiburg **** March 6 -- 11, 2011 https://sites.google.com/site/emcl5freiburg/ --------------------Application deadline: December 15, 2010---------------------- We invite applications for the, 5th Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics workshop, to be held in, Freiburg, Germany, March 6 -- 11, 2011 The goal of EMCL is to facilitate dialogue among language researchers with different methodological backgrounds, i.e. theorists, experimentalists, corpus linguists, etc. We do this by creating an environment where specialists learn from each other by developing a research project together where their various skills are combined. Intended audience: Language researchers with an embodiment, situated cognition and/or cognitive linguistics background. No prior experimental or corpus training is required though an understanding of the theoretical issues is necessary. Participants can be at different early stages in their careers, i.e. graduate students, post-grads, post-docs, junior faculty, etc. Format: During the course of a week, participants will join one of 5 hands-on mini-labs. Each mini-lab will be responsible for completing a joint research project. A select group of students (max. 8 per group for a total of 40***) will be invited to participate. Each group will work with two researchers who will guide the group in selecting an idea for the group to investigate, structuring and organizing a research project, and carrying it out. The session will end with the presentation of findings and a general discussion. Topics to be covered include, - Deciding on a research topic - Transforming the research topic into a research question - Developing experimental hypotheses and designing an experiment - Data collection - Statistical analysis and interpretation - Presentation of findings to an audience Workshop Faculty Group 1: Rolf Zwaan University of Rotterdam Interests: The relationship between cognition and systems of perception, action, and emotion, Language comprehension, Embodied cognition http://www.brain-cognition.eu/index.html?personal.php?id=Zwaan Alan Cienki, Vrije Universiteit Interests: cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, spoken language, gesture, political discourse, contrastive linguistics http://www.let.vu.nl/en/about-the-faculty/academic-staff/staff-listed-alphabetically/staff-a-d/dr-a-cienki/index.asp Group 2: Kenny Coventry, Northumbria University Interests: language and perception, spatial language, embodiment, decision making http://kenny.coventry.googlepages.com/home Katharina Rohlfing, Bielefeld University Interests: emergentist semantics, early literacy, human-machine interaction, rhetoric and communication https://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~rohlfing/website/data/index.html http://www.cit-ec.de/es Group 3: Lars Konieczny, University of Freiburg Interests: Theoretical, Empirical, and Computational Psycholinguistics, Eye-movements research, Reading, Spoken language comprehension in the Visual-World-paradigm, Spatial reasoning and wayfinding, Cognitive modeling (ACT-R, Connectionist Modeling), Embodied Cognition http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/cognition/Members/konieczny Michele Feist, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Interests: lexical semantics, spatial language, psycholinguistics, acquisition of semantics, language and cognition http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~mif8232/ Group 4: Seana Coulson, University of California, San Diego Interests: Conceptual Blending, Joke Comprehension, Metaphor, Analogical Reasoning, Concept Combination, Sentence Processing http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~coulson/ Panos Athanasopoulos, Bangor University Interests: Bilingualism and Cognition, Language and Thought, Emotion, Language Acquisition, conceptual development http://www.bangor.ac.uk/linguistics/about/panos.php.en Group 5: TBA Anatol Stefanowitsch, University of Hamburg Interests: Encoding of motion events, Second language research, Construction Grammar, Quantitative Corpus Linguistics, Metaphor, Negative evidence http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/stefanowitsch/ Accommodation: Accommodation at walking distance to the university will be arranged for all student participants. Cost will be EUR20 per night. (We "may" receive funds to cover student accommodation, in which case all applicants will be notified.) Participation Fee: EUR125 **, payable by bank transfer or upon arrival by prior arrangement. (This fee helps cover the costs of organization and faculty travel.) Application: To apply, please send the following by December 15, 2010. All materials must be submitted electronically to emcl5.freiburg (at) googlemail.com PLEASE WRITE 'APPLICATION' IN THE SUBJECT LINE. 1. A maximum of two (2) pages, (1000 words), describing, - your background, - your reasons for wanting to participate, - the research group you would like to work in and why. Please include in this section a brief description of your research interests. All topics listed above must be addressed. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. 2. A copy of your curriculum vitae. The application deadline is December 15, 2010 Accepted applicants will be notified on or before January 15, 2011 This workshop is supported by: the FRIAS at Freiburg University http://www.frias.uni-freiburg.de/ the Research training group (GRK DFG 1624/1) Frequency effects in language http://frequenz.uni-freiburg.de/abstract&language=de and the DFG (pending). www.dfg.de ** 2 (two) tuition scholarships will be awarded by lottery to students traveling from Eastern Europe and 3rd world countries. Please state in your application whether you would like to be included in the lottery. *** Please note: Attendance is strictly limited to invited participants. No exceptions will be made so as to preserve pedagogical integrity. **** EMCL 5.2 will be held in Chicago, USA, June 2011 with a different set of faculty. That notice will follow in January, 2011. --- EMCL 5 Organizing Committee: Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Chair, Cornell University Martin Hilpert, University of Freiburg Raymond Becker, Bielefeld University Lars Konieczny, University of Freiburg From eep at hum.ku.dk Tue Nov 16 12:53:03 2010 From: eep at hum.ku.dk (Elisabeth Engberg - Pedersen) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:53:03 +0100 Subject: Final call SALCIII Message-ID: [file://localhost/Users/eep/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_image002.png] FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS for The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition (SALC III) will take place at the University of Copenhagen, June 14-16th (3 days) 2011. Keynote speakers: * Lawrence Barsalou, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia * Per Durst-Andersen, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark * Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel * Marianne Gullberg, Lund University, Lund, Sweden * Hannes Rakoczy, University of G?ttingen, Germany The conference includes, but is not limited to the following themes: * Cognitive impairment and language use * Language acquisition and cognition * Language and cognitive development and evolution * Language and consciousness * Language and gesture * Language change and cognition * Language structure and cognition * Language use and cognition * Linguistic relativity * Linguistic typology and cognition * Psycholinguistic approaches to language and cognition * Specific language impairment We now invite the submission of abstracts for paper or poster presentations. The deadline is December 1st 2010. Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to SALC3 at hum.ku.dk by December 1 2010 (subject: SALC III abstract). The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by February 1st 2011. Three theme sessions will take place: ? Language as social coordination ? A Russian view of linguistic interpretation ? Within and across spaces: Towards a multi-dimensional model of gesture space For further information, please see the conference website. And please indicate the title of the theme session on your abstract if you wish your paper to be considered for one of the theme sessions. Conference website: http://salc3.ku.dk/ For details of SALC, see: http://www.salc-sssk.org/ From crm5 at rice.edu Tue Nov 16 15:43:54 2010 From: crm5 at rice.edu (crm5 at rice.edu) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:43:54 -0600 Subject: FINAL CALL: Rice Working Papers in Linguistics Vol 3. **New deadline: Nov. 30, 2010** Message-ID: Rice Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 3 EXTENDED DEADLINE: **November 30th, 2010** The Rice Linguistics Society (RLS) solicits submissions from all subfields of linguistics (with the exception of ESL/TESOL and related areas of applied linguistics) for publication in the Rice Working Papers in Linguistics. Students and post-docs are strongly encouraged to submit. We especially welcome submissions in line with our department's focus on functional, usage-based approaches to language study using empirical data, including but not limited to the following: -cognitive/functional linguistics -typology and language universals -field studies in less commonly researched languages -sociolinguistics, including sociophonetics -phonetics and speech processing -laboratory phonology -forensic linguistics -corpus linguistics -discourse -neurolinguistics -psycholinguistics and language processing -language change and grammaticalization Submitted papers must meet the following minimum style requirements: -recommended length 15-25 pages (normally 5000-8000 words); significantly longer or shorter papers will be considered on a case-by-base basis (contact the editorial board) -For comprehensive details on format (such as font, margins, examples, references, etc.) please refer to the RWPL template available on the Style sheet link at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~rls/files/Style_Sheet.dot -submit an abstract (maximum 500 words), including 3-5 keywords, as a separate Word file -submit two copies (in addition to your abstract): (1) one copy in Word (2003 or 2007) (2) in addition to the Word submission, you must send a PDF version to ensure fonts are preserved RLS accepts only electronic submissions for the working papers. These must be sent to rwpl at rice.edu, and the body of the e-mail should include: -title of paper -name of author(s) -affiliation -address -phone number -contact e-mail address The EXTENDED DEADLINE for receipt of submissions is **November 30th, 2010**. Questions regarding the submissions process or style requirements may be addressed to the editorial board at rwpl at rice.edu. Carlos Molina-Vital RWPL-EIC From d.trenkic.96 at cantab.net Wed Nov 17 16:01:56 2010 From: d.trenkic.96 at cantab.net (Danijela Trenkic) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:01:56 -0000 Subject: Chair in Language Education, University of York, UK Message-ID: Chair in Education University of York - Department of Educational Studies, Centre for Language Learning Research Ref: UoY01044 The Department of Educational Studies is seeking to appoint a Chair in Education to lead the Department's Centre for Language Learning Research. The Department is looking for an outstanding researcher who has a successful track record of securing research funding for education-focused research in the area of language, and who is committed to excellence in research, teaching and supervision. The post is to commence on 1 April 2011 or as soon as possible thereafter. Salary will be on the professorial scale (current minimum ?53,918 per annum). Informal enquiries to the Head of Department, Professor Judith Bennett tel: +44 (0)1904 323471, email: judith.bennett at york.ac.uk. Please also see the department web pages at www.york.ac.uk/depts/educ Closing date for applications: Wednesday 5 January 2011 For further information and to apply on-line, please visit our website: http://www.york.ac.uk/jobs/ Alternatively contact HR Services on 01904 324835 quoting reference number UoY01044. From sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu Wed Nov 17 20:52:21 2010 From: sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Sandra A. Thompson) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:52:21 -0800 Subject: Call for Papers - LISO Conference Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS */Please give widest distribution/* *THE 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON * *LANGUAGE, INTERACTION, AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION* *University of California, Santa Barbara* *May 12-14, 2011* Presented by: The Language, Interaction, and Social Organization (LISO) Graduate Student Organization at UCSB ~ & ~ The Center for Language, Interaction and Culture (CLIC) Graduate Student Association at UCLA *_PLENARY SPEAKERS_* *Virginia Teas Gill* Illinois State University// /Sociology/ *Julia Menard-Warwick* University of California, Davis /Linguistics/ *Jennifer Roth-Gordon* University of Arizona /Anthropology/ Fourth Plenary Speaker TBA ** *THE 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON * *LANGUAGE, INTERACTION, AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION* The LISO conference promotes interdisciplinary research and discussion in the analysis of naturally occurring human interaction. Papers will be presented by national and international scholars on a variety of topics in the study of language, interaction, and culture. The papers primarily employ analysis of naturally occurring data drawing from methodologies that include conversation analysis, discourse analysis, ethnographic methods, ethnomethodology, interactional linguistics, and interactional sociolinguistics. We welcome abstracts from graduate students and faculty working in the areas of Anthropology, Applied Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Communication, Education, Linguistics, Psychology, and Sociology. Presenters will have either*: (a) 20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion (b) 25 minutes for a data session (small group presentation/discussion of research and data). * to be determined by the abstract review committee */SUBMISSION GUIDELINES/* Abstracts must be submitted via the online abstract submissions system http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/liso2011 Abstracts must be submitted in .doc, .pdf, .txt, or .odt format. Abstracts must be no more than 500 words long and should not include the author's name or any other identifying information. The abstract should include the following: (1) a clear statement of the main point or argument of the paper; (2) a brief discussion of the problem or research question with reference to previous research and the work's relevance to the area of study; (3) a short piece of data to support the main point or argument; (4) conclusions and/or implications of the research, however tentative. In the case of an abstract longer than 500 words, only the first 500 words will be read. Papers will be selected based on evaluation of the anonymous abstract. *Deadline for electronic submission and receipt of abstracts is**January 15, 2011.* Late submissions will not be accepted. Notification of acceptance or non-acceptance will be sent via email by March 31, 2011. For additional information, please visit: http://www.ucsblisoconference.org/ Questions can be sent to: LISOconference at gmail.com Additionally, immediately following the conference will be the Annual LISO Faculty Symposium: *Scales of Space* *University of California, Santa Barbara* *May 15, 2011* ** For additional information, please contact symposium organizers: Mary Bucholtz: bucholtz at linguistics.ucsb.edu Melissa Curtin: mlcurtin at linguistics.ucsb.edu -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: Attached Message Part URL: From Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be Sat Nov 20 23:10:33 2010 From: Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be (Lot Brems) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:10:33 +0100 Subject: Open call for papers and special issue proposals: English Text Construction Message-ID: English Text Construction English Text Construction (ETC) is an international journal devoted to English studies and published biannually by John Benjamins, presently in its third volume, with its current issue (3.2) a special issue devoted to ?Textual choices and discourse genres: creating meaning through form? (guest-edited by Barbara Dancygier and Jos? Sanders, with contributions by Mike Borkent, Barbara Dancygier, Vera Tobin, Lieven Vandelanotte, Jos? Sanders, Elena Semino, El?bieta G?rska, and Carol Lynn Moder). ETC publishes peer-reviewed papers in the different areas of English studies ? literary studies, linguistics and applied linguistics/ELT ? and aims to promote crossfertilization and synergy between these domains in the study of subject and text. Because of this focus, approaches within functional, cognitive and constructional approaches to language naturally fall within the purview of ETC. Authors interested in submitting a paper to ETC can send their submission to the managing editor at keith.carlon at uclouvain.be. Expressions of interest to guest-edit a special issue are welcome at the same address; potential guest editors should bear in mind that an ETC special issue should explicitly address at least two out of its three broad areas of interest, viz. literary studies, linguistics, and applied linguistics/ELT. The full text of ETC?s aims and scope and tables of contents of the first three volumes are available from the Benjamins website at http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=ETC. Editorial information is included below. Editors (as of vol. 4, 2011) Ga?tanelle Gilquin, University of Louvain (applied linguistics/ELT editor) David Pascoe, Utrecht University (literary studies editor) Lieven Vandelanotte, University of Namur (linguistics editor) Managing Editor Keith Carlon, University of Louvain Editorial Board Karin Aijmer, University of G?teborg Johan van der Auwera, University of Antwerp Claire Connolly, University of Cardiff Amy Cook, Indiana University Barbara Dancygier, University of British Columbia Kristin Davidse, University of Leuven Catherine Emmott, University of Glasgow Roberta Facchinetti, University of Verona Lynne Flowerdew, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Robert Fulton, University of Texas, Austin David Glover, University of Southampton David Hayman, University of Wisconsin Ton Hoenselaars, University of Utrecht Ken Hyland, University of Hong Kong Lesley Jeffries, University of Huddersfield Hilary Nesi, Coventry University Caryl Phillips, Yale University Jean-Michel Rabat?, University of Pennsylvania Ute R?mer, University of Michigan Sam Slote, Trinity College Dublin Tony Veale, University College Dublin From Florence.Chenu at univ-lyon2.fr Mon Nov 22 20:57:59 2010 From: Florence.Chenu at univ-lyon2.fr (Florence Chenu (FC)) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:57:59 +0100 Subject: [conference] 4th International conference of the French Cognitive Linguistics Association (AFLiCo IV; 24-27 May 2011; Lyon, France) SECOND CALL Message-ID: =============== AFLiCo IV SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS =============== (French version follows) AFLiCo IV Fourth International Conference of the French Cognitive Linguistics Association, Lyon, France, 24th-27th May 2011 INVITED SPEAKERS * Dani?le DUBOIS (University of Paris 6, France) * Nick EVANS (ANU College of Asia-Pacific, Australia) * Harriet JISA (University of Lyon 2, France) * Maarten LEMMENS (University of Lille 3, France) * Laura MICHAELIS (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA) * Ulrike ZESHAN (University of Central Lancashire, UK) CONFERENCE WEBSITE http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ SUBMISSION DEADLINES Deadline for general session papers: 22nd December 2010 Deadline for workshops/thematic sessions: 18th December 2010 CONFERENCE THEME of AFLiCo IV 'Cognitive Linguistics and Typology: Language diversity, variation and change '. This conference aims to bring together linguists engaged in cognitively-oriented research with those working in a functional-typological framework on cross-linguistic variation and on language description. The emphasis will be on (1) language diversity of both spoken and signed languages; (2) inter- and intra-linguistic variation; (3) language change. The conference will bring together linguists working with various methodological approaches and using various kinds of spontaneous and elicited data, including spoken and written corpora, fieldwork data, and experimental data. Proposals are invited for workshops/thematic sessions, for general session papers, and for posters, on topics related to the theme, and on topics in Cognitive Linguistics generally. Papers that report empirically-grounded research on less-studied languages and on typologically, genetically and areally diverse languages will be particularly welcome. Topics include, but are not limited to: - methods and data in cognitive linguistics and in language typology and description - convergence and divergence between cognitive linguistics and functional-typological linguistics - studies from a cognitive and/or typological perspective in phonetics, phonology, morphosyntax, semantics and pragmatics - language variation within and across languages, both spoken and signed - language change from a cognitive and/or typological perspective - language acquisition - studies and advances in construction grammar - language and gesture in cross-linguistic perspective LANGUAGES OF THE CONFERENCE The languages of the conference are French and English. ORAL PRESENTATIONS AND POSTERS Proposals are invited for 30-minute slots (20-minute presentation plus question time) in the general sessions and for posters (A1 size). WORKSHOPS, INCLUDING THEMATIC SESSIONS Proposals are invited for half-day or full-day workshops/thematic sessions. Each workshop proposal should contain the following information: - the names and contact details of two workshop organizers - the title of the proposed workshop - an overview of the topic and aims of the workshop (up to 2 pages) - an indication of the desired schedule (number of slots: 4, 6 or 10; half day or full day; number and nature of presentations, discussions, round tables, etc. that the workshop will comprise). Note that, within a workshop, each presentation, discussion or round table will occupy one 30-minute slot in parallel with one general session slot. - an abstract (consistent with the indications below under 'Submission procedure') for each proposed 30-minute presentation Workshop proposals will be refereed in the same way as general session and poster proposals. SUBMISSION PROCEDURE Proposals should be submitted online following the instructions to be found at the following address: http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ Author information (name, affiliation, email address) will be required on the submission website. An author may submit a maximum of two abstracts, of which at least one must be co-authored. In the case of co-authored abstracts, the first-named author will be the contact person. Abstracts will be anonymously reviewed and notification of acceptance will be sent out from 25th February 2011. The anonymous abstracts must be in 12 point Times or Times New Roman font, formatted for A4 or US Letter size paper with margins of 2.5 cm or 1 inch. The maximum length for the text of the abstract is one page; a second page may be used only for figures, glossed examples and bibliographical references. ========================= 2?me APPEL ? COMMUNICATION AFLiCo IV ========================= AFLiCo IV Quatri?me Colloque International de l?Association Fran?aise de Linguistique Cognitive Lyon, France, 24-27 Mai 2011 CONF?RENCIERS INVIT?S * Dani?le DUBOIS (Universit? Paris 6, France) * Nick EVANS (ANU College of Asia-Pacific, Australie) * Harriet JISA (Universit? Lyon 2, France) * Maarten LEMMENS (Universit? Lille 3, France) * Laura MICHAELIS (University of Colorado, Boulder, ?tats-Unis) * Ulrike ZESHAN (University of Central Lancashire, Royaume-Uni) SITE WEB DU COLLOQUE http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ DATES LIMITES POUR LES PROPOSITIONS DE COMMUNICATION : Date limite pour les sessions g?n?rales : 22 d?cembre 2010 Date limite pour les sessions th?matiques : 18 d?cembre 2010 TH?ME DU COLLOQUE AFLiCo IV ?Linguistique cognitive et typologie : diversit? des langues, variation et changement?. L?objectif de ce colloque est de r?unir des linguistes travaillant dans le domaine de la linguistique cognitive et/ou dans le domaine de la linguistique fonctionnelle-typologique sur la variation inter-linguistique et la description des langues. L?accent du colloque sera mis sur (1) la diversit? des syst?mes linguistiques aussi bien oraux que sign?s, (2) la variation qui s?op?re sur les plans inter- et intra- linguistiques et (3) les changements des syst?mes linguistiques. Dans cette perspective, le colloque rassemblera des chercheurs qui travaillent sur des terrains linguistiques vari?s, qui abordent leur objet d??tude dans une perspective synchronique et/ou diachronique et qui utilisent diff?rentes m?thodes et diff?rents types de donn?es telles que des donn?es spontan?es ou ?licit?es, y compris orales ou ?crites, des donn?es de terrain ou encore des donn?es exp?rimentales. Nous attendons des propositions de sessions th?matiques, des propositions de pr?sentations orales de sessions g?n?rales et de posters sur des probl?matiques en lien avec le th?me du colloque et dans le domaine de la linguistique cognitive en g?n?ral. Les propositions portant sur des langues moins bien d?crites et des langues qui varient du point de vue typologique, g?n?tique et ar?al seront particuli?rement appr?ci?es. Les th?matiques incluent, mais ne se limitent pas aux suivantes : - m?thodes et donn?es en linguistique cognitive, typologie et description des langues ; - convergence et divergence entre linguistique cognitive et linguistique fonctionnelle-typologique ; - ?tudes men?es dans une perspective cognitive et/ou typologique dans les domaines de la phon?tique, phonologie, morphosyntaxe, s?mantique et pragmatique ; - variation inter- et intra-linguistique dans les langues parl?es et les langues sign?es ; - changements linguistiques dans une perspective cognitive et/ou typologique ; - acquisition du langage ; - recherches et avanc?es dans le domaine de la grammaire des constructions ; - langue et geste dans une perspective inter-linguistique. LANGUES OFFICIELLES DU COLLOQUE Les deux langues du colloque sont le fran?ais et l?anglais. COMMUNICATIONS ET POSTERS Nous invitons des propositions de communication aux sessions g?n?rales de 30 minutes (20 minutes de pr?sentation et 10 minutes de questions) et des propositions de posters (format A1). ATELIERS ET SESSIONS TH?MATIQUES Nous accueillons des propositions d?une demi-journ?e ou d?une journ?e enti?re pour des ateliers et/ou sessions th?matiques. Ces ateliers/sessions th?matiques doivent ?tre propos?s par deux organisateurs. Chaque proposition doit inclure les informations suivantes : - les noms et les coordonn?es des deux organisateurs - le titre de la session - une pr?sentation du th?me et des objectifs de la session (2 pages maximum) - une pr?cision concernant le temps souhait? (nombre de cr?neaux horaires : 4, 6 ou 10 ; une journ?e ou une journ?e enti?re ; nombre et nature des pr?sentations, discussions, tables rondes, etc.). - un r?sum? d?une page pour chaque pr?sentation (une deuxi?me page peut ?tre utilis?e pour des figures, exemples glos?s et r?f?rences bibliographiques) Les propositions d?ateliers et/ou de sessions th?matiques seront soumises ? la m?me proc?dure d??valuation que les propositions pour les sessions g?n?rales et les posters. La notification d?acceptation sera envoy?e aux deux organisateurs ? partir du 25 f?vrier 2011. SOUMISSION DES PROPOSITIONS Les propositions seront soumises en ligne suivant les instructions indiqu?es ? l?adresse suivante : http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/AFLICO_IV/ Un auteur ne peut soumettre que deux propositions de communication dont une au moins devrait ?tre en co-auteur. Les informations concernant l?auteur (nom, affiliation, adresse email) seront requises lors de la soumission en ligne mais les propositions seront ?valu?es de fa?on anonyme. Dans le cas des propositions en co-auteur le premier auteur sera la personne r?f?rente/contact. Les propositions seront examin?es de fa?on anonyme par 2 membres experts du comit? scientifique. La notification d?acceptation sera envoy?e aux auteurs ? partir du 25 f?vrier 2011. Les propositions ne devront pas d?passer une page. Une deuxi?me page peut ?tre utilis?e pour des figures, exemples glos?s et r?f?rences bibliographiques. Format des propositions : papier A4, marges 2,5 cm, police Times ou Times New Roman. From Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be Tue Nov 23 13:38:17 2010 From: Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be (Freek Van de Velde) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:38:17 +0100 Subject: Call for papers: workshop on exaptation (ICHL 20 Japan) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, This is a call for papers for a workshop on the topic of 'exaptation' (in short, the process of recycling morphology, see Lass, R. 1990. How to do things with junk: exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics 26: 79-102), hosted by Muriel Norde (University of Groningen) and Freek Van de Velde (University of Leuven) at the ICHL-20 conference in Osaka. A detailed description of the workshop can be found here: http://www.ichl2011.com/pdf/Workshop_A0020.pdf. We have quite a number of participants already, but we want to give people interested a chance to join the workshop. Abstracts should be sent via the ICHL website before January 15. If we can't accommodate your abstract in the workshop itself, it may still be accepted for the general session at the conference. Looking forward to seeing you in Osaka. Freek Van de Velde Postdoctoral research fellow Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), University of Leuven Fac. of Arts, Dept. of Linguistics Blijde Inkomststraat 21, P.O. Box 3308 BE-3000 Leuven Tel. 0032 16 32 47 81 Fax 0032 16 32 47 67 Dutch website: http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/nedling/fvandevelde/ English webiste: http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/nedling_e/fvandevelde/ From liesbeth.degand at uclouvain.be Fri Nov 26 08:36:51 2010 From: liesbeth.degand at uclouvain.be (Liesbeth Degand) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:36:51 +0100 Subject: Call for papers: LPTS2011: Across the line of speech and writing variation Message-ID: (texte en fran?ais ci-dessous) * FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS * Across the line of Speech and Writing Variation 2nd International Conference on Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring (LPTS 2011) 16th-18th November 2011, University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) After a first edition in Paris in September 2009, the second edition of Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring (LPTS 2011) will be organized next fall at the University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium). The aim of the conference is to consider text and discourse structure from the perspective of language variation, with a special focus on the distinction between language modes (spoken vs. written) (Biber 1988) and the degree of formality involved (Chafe & Danielewicz 1987). The medium we use to communicate (oral, written or even gestural) plays an important role in the choice we make, consciously or not, when structuring our discourse. However, a more nuanced view, which overrules the traditional dichotomy between speech and writing, consists in situating discourse on a stylistic continuum between a formal and an informal pole (?communicative distance and proximity?) (Koch & ?sterreicher 2001). When organizing our discourse we can draw on linguistic structuring markers, such as connectives, discourse markers or frame markers (Hansen 1998, Schourup 1999), or on (marked) information structure constructions (e.g. clefting) (Lambrecht 1994, Grobet 2002). What is the impact of the nature of the medium (spoken vs. written) and of the style of the discourse at hand (formal vs. informal) on the choice of one linguistic expression or the other? While medium seems to play a role in the discrimination between text types (e.g. casual coffee conversation between colleagues, business meeting, e-novel), what about the potential impact of extra-linguistic parameters, such as emotional weight or spatio-temporal distance between the interlocutors, on the structuring of those texts? These questions bring us face to face with the limits of the traditional dichotomic representation opposing speech and writing on the sole basis of the medium at hand. Therefore, we propose to consider discourse structure not only from the perspective of variation between the written and the spoken mode, but also from the perspective of variation on a continuum from formal to informal ways of communicating. In linguistics and psycholinguistics, these issues raise a number of questions: - Which role do speech and writing play in the rise of structuring markers in diachrony? How can we trace the evolution of typical ?spoken? markers in the history of a language that is primarily written? - What is the added value of contrastive (cross-linguistic) studies of discourse structuring markers? - The constant evolution of new information technologies has led to the diversification of the means of communication. Does this imply that on-line press, texting language, chat, or videoconferencing have modified our linguistic behaviors? What is the impact of these new information technologies on discourse structuring? - Is discourse processing different in speech and writing contexts, and what is the specific role of discourse structuring markers in production or comprehension? - How does a native or non-native speaker learn to structure their discourse as a function of text type? What is the role of discourse structuring markers on comprehension? How can these specific markers be accounted for in the learning process? Conference themes We particularly encourage papers that address the links between written/spoken discourse structuring and one of the following research areas: - Discourse and pragmatic markers - Linguistic change and grammaticalization - Segmentation and linearization of discourse - Information structure (saliency, accessibility, topic/comment, etc.) - Phraseology, collocation and formulaic language - Sociolinguistic variation - New media and computer-mediated communication - Cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics - Contrastive and cross-linguistic studies - Language acquisition and teaching - Multidimensional/multimodal approaches (syntactic, semantic, prosodic, gesture, etc.) - Methodological issues (corpus, experimental, etc.) Proposal types There will be two different categories of presentation: - Full paper (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion) - Poster The posters are intended to present research still at a preliminary stage and on which researchers would like to get feedback. Keynote speakers Maria Josep Cuenca (University of Val?ncia) Mark Torrance (Nottingham Trent University) Dorit Ravid (Tel Aviv University) Diana Lewis (University of Lyon 2) Organizing committee Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Important dates Submission deadline: 1 March 2011 Notification of acceptance/rejection: 2 May 2011 Early-bird registration deadline: 15 September 2011 Conference: 16-17-18 November 2011 Languages of the conference English, French Abstracts Abstract should be anonymous and between 500 and 700 words (not including references) and must specify how the paper will contribute to the theme of the conference. It should also provide a clear outline of the aim of the paper including clearly articulated research question(s), some details about research approach and methods and (preliminary) results. Abstracts should be sent by e-mail to lpts2011 at uclouvain.be, before 1 March 2011. Under subject, please write ?lpts2011 abstract?. Please name the attachment as follows: ?lpts2011_yourlastname_yourfirstname.doc?. Make sure to include in the mail: author?s name, affiliation, and postal address; title of the contribution; 3 to 5 keywords; type of presentation (talk or poster). For purposes of easy editing, please make use of the MS Word template (Times 12 in one line spacing) made available on the website of the conference for submitting your abstract. Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by two members of the scientific committee. You will be notified of the outcome of the review process by 2 May 2011. Conference Website: http://www.uclouvain.be/valibel Contact: lpts2011 at uclouvain.be Registration: Details about the registration procedure will be posted on the conference website shortly For sponsoring options, please contact Catherine.Bolly at uclouvain.be or Liesbeth.Degand at uclouvain.be Local organizing committee St?phanie Audrit (University of Louvain) Mathieu Avanzi (University of Neuch?tel) Alice Bardiaux (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Federica Ciabarri (University of Louvain) Lydia-Mai Ho-Dac (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Anne K?ppers (University of Louvain) Vincent Mariscal (University of Louvain) Deniz Uygur (University of Louvain) Scientific committee Karin Aijmer (G?teborg University) Nicholas Asher (University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse) Inge Bartning (Stockholm University) Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (Tel Aviv University) Kate Beeching (University of the West of England) Alain Berrendonner (University of Fribourg) Christophe Benzitoun (University of Nancy 2) Marie-Jos? B?guelin (University of Neuch?tel) Bergljot Behrens (University of Oslo) Yves Bestgen (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Andr?e Borillo (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Shirley Carter-Thomas (Institut T?l?com & Lattice) Michel Charolles (University of Paris 3 & Lattice) Gilles Corminb?uf (University of Neuch?tel) Jeanne-Marie Debaisieux (University of Paris 3) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Jos? Deulofeu (University of Provence) Holger Diessel (University Friedrich-Schiller of Jena) Gabriele Diewald (Leibniz Universit?t Hannover) Ga?tane Dostie (University of Sherbrooke) Britt Erman (University of Stockholm) Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul (Utrecht University) Benjamin Fagard (CNRS & Lattice) Fanny Forsberg (University of Stockholm) Michel Francard (University of Louvain) Fran?oise Gadet (University of Paris 10 ? Nanterre) Ga?tanelle Gilquin (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Isabel G?mez Diez (University of Louvain) Sylviane Granger (University of Louvain) Victorine Hancock (University of Stockholm) Agata Jackiewicz (University of Paris 4 - La Sorbonne) B?atrice Lamiroy (University of Leuven) Fr?d?ric Landragin (CNRS & Lattice) Anne Le Draoulec (CNRS & University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Christiane Marchello-Nizia (ENS Lyon) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Jacques Moeschler (University of Geneva) Mary-Annick Morel (University of Paris 3) Jean-Luc Nespoulous (University of Toulouse) Henning N?lke (University of Aarhus) Jon Oberlander (University of Edinburgh) Magali Paquot (University of Louvain) Marie-Paule P?ry-Woodley (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Paola Pietrandrea (University of Roma tre) Sophie Pr?vost (CNRS & ENS, Lattice) Laurent Rasier (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Fr?d?ric Sabio (University of Provence) Ted Sanders (University of Utrecht) Laure Sarda (CNRS & Lattice) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Catherine Schnedecker (University of Strasbourg 2) Anne Catherine Simon (University of Louvain) Wilbert Spooren (VU University of Amsterdam) Manfred Stede (University of Potsdam) Agn?s Tutin (University Stendhal of Grenoble 3) Luuk Van Waes (University of Antwerpen) Denis Vigier (University of Lyon 2) Diane Vincent (Laval University) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Sandrine Zufferey (University of Geneva) ********************************************************************************** (English above) * APPEL A COMMUNICATIONS * Variation(s) sur la structure de l?oral et l??crit 2e Colloque International sur les Approches Linguistiques et Psycholinguistiques de la Structuration des Textes (LPTS 2011) 16-18 novembre 2011, Universit? catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique) Apr?s une premi?re ?dition parisienne en septembre 2009, la seconde ?dition du colloque international Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring (LPTS 2011) se tiendra ? l?automne prochain sur le site de l?Universit? catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique). Ce colloque a pour objet d?interroger la structuration du texte sous l?angle de la variation entre productions langagi?res, avec une attention particuli?re port?e ? la distinction entre medium langagiers (oral vs. ?crit) (Biber 1988) et au caract?re plus ou moins informel ou formel des textes (Chafe & Danielewicz 1987). Le type de support (phonique ou graphique, voire gestuel) dont nous disposons pour communiquer joue en effet un r?le important dans le choix que nous faisons, consciemment ou non, pour structurer notre langage. D?passant la vision dichotomique qui oppose traditionnellement l?oral et l??crit en donnant la primaut? au crit?re du support communicationnel, une vision plus nuanc?e du texte propose de situer celui-ci sur un continuum stylistique entre deux p?les langagiers, informel et formel (?proximit?? et ?distance communicative?) (Koch & ?sterreicher 2001). Pour organiser notre discours, nous pouvons recourir ? des marques linguistiques structurantes, entre autres aux marqueurs cadratifs, connecteurs et marqueurs de discours (Hansen 1998, Schourup 1999) (par ex. donc, voil? quoi, prenons l?exemple, premi?rement, n?anmoins) ou aux constructions marqu?es au niveau informationnel (par ex. il y a, c?est que) (Lambrecht 1994, Grobet 2002). Dans cette optique, quel serait l?impact de la nature du support (phonique vs. graphique) et du niveau stylistique des textes (informel ou formel) sur le choix de telle ou telle marque structurante ? Si le support semble ? premi?re vue jouer un r?le discriminant entre types de textes (par ex. entre une conversation entre coll?gues dans la caf?t?ria du bureau, deux copains qui chattent et le dernier roman ?lectronique d?un auteur ? la mode), qu?en est-il de l?impact potentiel de param?tres extralinguistiques, tels que la charge ?motive ou la distance spatio-temporelle entre les interactants, sur la structuration de ces m?mes textes? Ces questions nous mettent face aux limites d?une repr?sentation dichotomique qui oppose traditionnellement l?oral et l??crit sur la base du seul type de support en cause. C?est pourquoi nous proposons d?envisager dans ce colloque la structure du discours, non seulement du point de vue de la variation entre medium langagiers, mais aussi du point de vue de la variation des textes sur un axe entre les p?les informel et formel de la communication langagi?re. Cette probl?matique trouve de nombreux ?chos en linguistique : - Quel rapport l?oral et l??crit entretiennent-ils dans les ph?nom?nes d??mergence des marques de structuration en diachronie? Comment peut-on retracer l??volution de marques ?orales? dans une histoire de la langue exclusivement ??crite? ? - Que peuvent nous apprendre des approches contrastives interlangagi?res sur le fonctionnement des marques de structuration du discours ? - Avec la constante ?volution des nouvelles technologies, les moyens de communication et leurs supports se sont diversifi?s. Peut-on pour autant dire que la presse en ligne, le langage sms, le chat, ou les vid?oconf?rences, ont modifi? nos comportements langagiers ? Quel serait l?impact de ces nouveaux supports sur la mani?re de structurer notre langage ? - D?un point de vue psycholinguistique, les processus en jeu sont-ils comparables, en situation de production et de r?ception, pour les marques de structuration de textes plus informels ou plus formels, ayant un support phonique ou graphique ? - Comment un locuteur natif ou non natif apprend-il ? structurer son discours en fonction du type de textes (en production) ? Quel est le r?le de ces marqueurs dans la compr?hension langagi?re (en r?ception) ? Comment int?grer les sp?cificit?s de ces marques dans un curriculum d?apprentissage ? Th?mes du colloque Nous encourageons les auteurs ? soumettre une contribution pouvant apporter un nouvel ?clairage sur la structuration textuelle de l?oral et/ou de l??crit, en lien avec l?une des th?matiques suivantes (de mani?re non exhaustive): - Marqueurs de discours, marqueurs pragmatiques - Changement linguistique et grammaticalisation - Segmentation et lin?arisation textuelle - Structure informationnelle (saillance, anaphore, deixis, th?me/ rh?me, etc.) - Phras?ologie, collocation et figement - Variation sociolinguistique - Nouveaux media et communication m?diatis?e - Linguistique cognitive et psycholinguistique - Analyses contrastives et interlangagi?res - Acquisition et enseignement des langues - Approches multidimensionnelles/ multimodales (syntaxe, s?mantique, prosodie, gestualit?, etc.) - M?thodes de recherche (corpus, exp?rimental, etc.) Types de pr?sentation Les contributions peuvent ?tre de deux types : - Communication orale (20 minutes + 10 minutes de discussion) - Poster Les posters feront ?tat de recherches en cours et seront l?occasion pour les participants d?avoir un retour sur l??tat de leur travail. Conf?renciers invit?s Maria Josep Cuenca (University of Val?ncia) Mark Torrance (Nottingham Trent University) Dorit Ravid (Tel Aviv University) Diana Lewis (University of Lyon 2) Comit? d?organisation Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Dates importantes Date limite de soumission: 1er mars 2011 Notification d?acceptation: 2 mai 2011 Inscription pr?coce: 15 septembre 2011 Colloque: 16-17-18 novembre 2011 Langues officielles Fran?ais, Anglais Modalit?s de soumission Les propositions seront anonymes et r?dig?es en fran?ais ou en anglais. Elles ne devront pas d?passer 500 ? 700 mots (sans les r?f?rences). Pour faciliter l??dition des pr?-actes, les auteurs sont pri?s de r?diger leur proposition au format Word, en Times 12 avec interligne simple, en utilisant la feuille de style disponible sur le site Internet du colloque. Chaque proposition de communication sera expertis?e de fa?on anonyme par deux membres du comit? scientifique. La proposition sera ?valu?e en regard de sa pertinence par rapport ? la th?matique du colloque et de sa qualit? scientifique. Les questions de recherches, la m?thode adopt?e et les r?sultats (pr?liminaires) devront ainsi y ?tre formul?s clairement. Les propositions de communication devront ?tre envoy?es par courriel ? lpts2011 at uclouvain.be, pour le 1er mars 2011. Comme objet du courriel, veuillez sp?cifiez ? lpts2011 abstract ?. Le nom du document en pi?ce jointe sera appel? ? lpts2011_nom_pr?nom.doc ?. Dans le corps du message, pr?cisez : le nom de l?auteur/ des auteurs ; le titre de la communication ; l?affiliation et l?adresse de l?auteur/ des auteurs ; votre pr?f?rence pour une communication orale ou pour un poster ; 3 ? 5 mots cl?s. Site du colloque: http://www.uclouvain.be/valibel Contact: lpts2011 at uclouvain.be Inscription: Des renseignements sp?cifiques concernant la proc?dure d?inscription seront affich?s prochainement sur le site du colloque Pour toute question ou suggestion relative aux sponsors, veuillez contacter Catherine.Bolly at uclouvain.be ou Liesbeth.Degand at uclouvain.be Comit? d?organisation local St?phanie Audrit (University of Louvain) Mathieu Avanzi (University of Neuch?tel) Alice Bardiaux (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Federica Ciabarri (University of Louvain) Lydia-Mai Ho-Dac (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Anne K?ppers (University of Louvain) Vincent Mariscal (University of Louvain) Deniz Uygur (University of Louvain) Comit? scientifique Karin Aijmer (G?teborg University) Nicholas Asher (University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse) Inge Bartning (Stockholm University) Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (Tel Aviv University) Kate Beeching (University of the West of England) Alain Berrendonner (University of Fribourg) Christophe Benzitoun (University of Nancy 2) Marie-Jos? B?guelin (University of Neuch?tel) Bergljot Behrens (University of Oslo) Yves Bestgen (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Catherine Bolly (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Andr?e Borillo (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Shirley Carter-Thomas (Institut T?l?com & Lattice) Michel Charolles (University of Paris 3 & Lattice) Gilles Corminb?uf (University of Neuch?tel) Jeanne-Marie Debaisieux (University of Paris 3) Liesbeth Degand (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Jos? Deulofeu (University of Provence) Holger Diessel (University Friedrich-Schiller of Jena) Gabriele Diewald (Leibniz Universit?t Hannover) Ga?tane Dostie (University of Sherbrooke) Britt Erman (University of Stockholm) Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul (Utrecht University) Benjamin Fagard (CNRS & Lattice) Fanny Forsberg (University of Stockholm) Michel Francard (University of Louvain) Fran?oise Gadet (University of Paris 10 ? Nanterre) Ga?tanelle Gilquin (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Isabel G?mez Diez (University of Louvain) Sylviane Granger (University of Louvain) Victorine Hancock (University of Stockholm) Agata Jackiewicz (University of Paris 4 - La Sorbonne) B?atrice Lamiroy (University of Leuven) Fr?d?ric Landragin (CNRS & Lattice) Anne Le Draoulec (CNRS & University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Christiane Marchello-Nizia (ENS Lyon) Laurence Meurant (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Namur) Jacques Moeschler (University of Geneva) Mary-Annick Morel (University of Paris 3) Jean-Luc Nespoulous (University of Toulouse) Henning N?lke (University of Aarhus) Jon Oberlander (University of Edinburgh) Magali Paquot (University of Louvain) Marie-Paule P?ry-Woodley (University of Toulouse Le Mirail) Paola Pietrandrea (University of Roma tre) Sophie Pr?vost (CNRS & ENS, Lattice) Laurent Rasier (F.R.S.-FNRS & University of Louvain) Fr?d?ric Sabio (University of Provence) Ted Sanders (University of Utrecht) Laure Sarda (CNRS & Lattice) Marie-Anne Schelstraete (University of Louvain) Catherine Schnedecker (University of Strasbourg 2) Anne Catherine Simon (University of Louvain) Wilbert Spooren (VU University of Amsterdam) Manfred Stede (University of Potsdam) Agn?s Tutin (University Stendhal of Grenoble 3) Luuk Van Waes (University of Antwerpen) Denis Vigier (University of Lyon 2) Diane Vincent (Laval University) Dominique Willems (Ghent University) Sandrine Zufferey (University of Geneva) From Elise.Karkkainen at oulu.fi Mon Nov 29 12:08:59 2010 From: Elise.Karkkainen at oulu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Elise_K=E4rkk=E4inen?=) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:08:59 +0200 Subject: Call for papers: Social Action Formats, Oulu, Finland 17-19 May 2011 Message-ID: (apologies for cross-postings) CALL FOR PAPERS International workshop "Social Action Formats: Conversational Patterns in Embodied Face-to-Face Interaction" University of Oulu, Finland, 17-19 May 2011 Website: Email: SAF2011 (at) oulu.fi Recently, conversation analysis and other related areas of research have begun to pay serious attention to interaction as fully material and embodied (cf. ICCA10 conference theme "Multimodal Interaction"). We welcome presentations to this international workshop that examine language and body behavior together as complementary aspects of talk-in-interaction, examining how speakers deploy the grammatical, lexico-semantic, prosodic, and embodied practices (gestures, head shakes, gaze and the body) in the moment-by-moment construction of situated social actions (cf. M. Goodwin 1980, C. Goodwin 2000). On this view, language is not an autonomous (grammatical) system, but a set of practices and resources within the sequential organization of social interaction. The workshop specifically aims to explore the notion of 'social action formats', or conversational patterns for routinely enacting particular activities and actions in interaction (Fox 2000, 2007, Ford et al. 2003, Couper-Kuhlen and Thompson 2005, 2008, Curl 2006). Social action formats can be broadly understood as recurrent conversational patterns or turn-constructional formats which originate in the interactional needs of participants in talk-in-interaction, and in which language and embodiment may be variously present. We invite presentations that explore social action formats within and across languages and cultures, by focusing on the complex relations among grammatical form, sequential organization and embodiment. Presenters will have either: 30 minutes for a presentation and 10 minutes for discussion or 40 minutes for a data session: presentation/discussion of research and data The workshop format allows for in-depth exploration of data by the invited speakers, the presenters, and the audience. The workshop has two invited speakers: Professor Cecilia Ford (University of Wisconsin, Madison) Professor Barbara Fox (University of Colorado) Their extensive research on language and social interaction provide a foundation for much current work on positionally sensitive linguistic and embodied practices. The theoretical starting points to naturally occurring interaction in different settings may include conversation analysis, interactional linguistics, multimodal interaction analysis, and related fields of study that use video recordings of social interactions as their data. Possible topics for papers include (but are not limited to) the following: - What are conversational patterns or 'social action formats'? How can we identify and define them? - Do we begin with language (and traditional linguistic and grammatical categories) or with social action when searching for conversational patterns in interaction? - What are the limits of social action formats and their relationship to units such as intonation units, clauses, or constructions with varying degrees of open and fixed slots? - How do the different modalities and the material world figure in the construction of social action formats at the level of single and extended turns at talk? - Are there formats which are constructed only through embodied action? - Does embodiment extend over sequences of social actions and how? If it does, what are the implications for the participants and the organization of interaction? Participation Proposals for papers or data sessions should be submitted as abstracts of about 500 words, including bibliographic references, diagrams and tables. The proposals should be sent as email attachments to by 31 January 2011. Please include the name and affiliation of author(s) and the title of the paper in the abstract. Authors will be notified about acceptance by mid-February 2011. Important deadlines 31 January 2011 - Deadline for the submission of proposals mid-February 2011 - Information about the decisions of the review process 17-19 May 2011 - International workshop Venue Conference center Lasaretti Registration fees There will be no registration fee for the workshop. Organizing committee Project "Social Action Formats" Elise K?rkk?inen Tiina Keisanen Marika Sutinen For further questions please contact the organizers at SAF2011 (at) oulu.fi References Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Sandra Thompson 2005. A linguistic practice for retracting overstatements: 'Concessive repair'. In Hakulinen, Auli and Margret Selting (eds.), Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk-in-interaction. 257-288. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Sandra Thompson 2008. On assessing situations and events in conversation: 'Extraposition' and its relatives. Discourse Studies 10(4): 443-467. Curl Traci 2006. Offers of assistance: Constraints on syntactic design. Journal of Pragmatics 38(8), 1257-1280. Ford, Cecilia, Barbara Fox and Sandra Thompson 2003. Social interaction and grammar. In Tomasello, M. (ed.). The new psychology of language. Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure, 119-144. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fox, Barbara 2000. Micro-syntax in conversation. Paper presented at the Interactional Linguistics Conference, Spa. Fox, Barbara 2007. Principles shaping grammatical practices: an exploration. Discourse Studies 9(3): 299-318. Goodwin, Charles 2000. Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 1489-1522. Goodwin, Marjorie Harness 1980. Processes of mutual monitoring implicated in the production of description sequences. Sociological Inquiry, 50, 303-317. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Elise K?rkk?inen PhD, University Lecturer, Docent English Philology, Faculty of Humanities Box 1000 FIN-90014 University of Oulu FINLAND http://cc.oulu.fi/~elise/ tel. +358-8-553 3283, fax +358-8-553 3275 mobile +358-44-5547 592 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* From vanvalin at buffalo.edu Mon Nov 29 12:52:51 2010 From: vanvalin at buffalo.edu (Robert Van Valin) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:52:51 +0100 Subject: 2011 Role and Reference Grammar Conference: First call Message-ID: Role and Reference Grammar International Course & Conference 2011 - General information and first call for abstracts The biannual International Course and Conference on Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) "Functional Linguistics: Grammar, Communication & Cognition" will be hosted by the Facultad de Letras, at the Pontificia Universidad Cat?lica de Chile, in Santiago de Chile, August 11th ? 13th, 2011. The international Conference will be preceded by two-day workshops: an introductory course and a workshop in Computational Linguistics based on the FunGramKB framework. The Conference will stage papers and plenary sessions. Our keynote speakers will be Robert D. Van Vain, Jr. (Heinrich-Heine-University D?sseldorf), Francisco Cort?s Rodr?guez (Universidad de La Laguna) and Rolf Kailuweit (Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t Freiburg). The 2011 Conference will deal with issues in Functional Linguistics in all its pertinent topics. Papers dealing with further elaboration of RRG in areas like morphology, syntax, semantics, information structure, as well as language processing are encouraged. Abstracts must be received electronically by March 15th, 2011 at 2011RRG at gmail.com. Abstracts should be no longer than two pages, including data and references, and must be submitted as Word documents (a PDF version is also required if special characters are included). The abstracts should be anonymous. The email message must include the following information: author?s name, affiliation, email address, and title of the abstract. The selection of papers for presentation will be communicated by May 1st, 2011. The talks will last twenty minutes, followed by another ten minutes for discussion. For further information, please check our website: http://rrg2011.weebly.com *********** Prof. Dr. Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. University Professor Department of General Linguistics Institute for Language and Information Heinrich Heine University D?sseldorf Universit?tsstr. 1 40225 D?sseldorf Germany Tel: +49 (0)211 81 10717 Fax: +49 (0)211 81 11325 vanvalin at ling.uni-duesseldorf.de From eep at hum.ku.dk Tue Nov 30 13:38:46 2010 From: eep at hum.ku.dk (Elisabeth Engberg - Pedersen) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:38:46 +0100 Subject: SALCIII EXTENSION of deadline for abstracts Message-ID: EXTENSION OF DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS ? Dec. 12 2010 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS for The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition The Third Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language and Cognition (SALC III) will take place at the University of Copenhagen, June 14-16th (3 days) 2011. Keynote speakers: * Lawrence Barsalou, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia * Per Durst-Andersen, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark * Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel * Marianne Gullberg, Lund University, Lund, Sweden * Hannes Rakoczy, University of G?ttingen, Germany The conference includes, but is not limited to the following themes: * Cognitive impairment and language use * Language acquisition and cognition * Language and cognitive development and evolution * Language and consciousness * Language and gesture * Language change and cognition * Language structure and cognition * Language use and cognition * Linguistic relativity * Linguistic typology and cognition * Psycholinguistic approaches to language and cognition * Specific language impairment We now invite the submission of abstracts for paper or poster presentations. The deadline is December 1st 2010. Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to SALC3 at hum.ku.dk by December 12 2010 (subject: SALC III abstract). The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by February 1st 2011. Three theme sessions will take place: ? Language as social coordination ? A Russian view of linguistic interpretation ? Within and across spaces: Towards a multi-dimensional model of gesture space For further information, please see the conference website. And please indicate the title of the theme session on your abstract if you wish your paper to be considered for one of the theme sessions. Conference website: http://salc3.ku.dk/ For details of SALC, see: http://www.salc-sssk.org/ From ksikorski at li.hodes.com Tue Nov 30 17:11:49 2010 From: ksikorski at li.hodes.com (Karen Sikorski) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:11:49 -0500 Subject: Faculty positions at New York University... Message-ID: PART-TIME FACULTY Online Master of Science in Translation SCHOOL OF CONTINUING AND PROFESSIONAL STUDIES New York University We are seeking linguists to teach in a new online Master of Science program in Translation which begins fall 2011. As globalization continues to impact business and international relations, translation plays an increasingly important role in cultural and economic exchanges. This NYU curriculum has been designed to meet the need for translators for global business transactions and law. Areas of specialization include legal and/or financial translation. The program focuses on translation from French or Spanish into English. Part-time faculty members are needed to teach courses in theory of translation, pragmatics and discourse analysis. The M.S. in Translation curriculum emphasizes advanced linguistic competence, a solid theoretical foundation, a thorough comprehension of legal and financial subject matter, as well as excellent writing skills, speed, and accuracy, and is conceived to produce graduates with a strong foundation and demonstrable professional competencies for this growing field. Qualifications for teaching in the program include a Ph.D. in the relevant field of linguistics and university level teaching experience. The New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies is one of NYU?s fifteen constituent schools and colleges. With its own faculty and specialized undergraduate and graduate programs for both full-time and part-time students, NYU-SCPS is among the University?s five largest Schools as measured by matriculated students, and is also a worldwide leader in continuing professional education. Please send cover letter, C.V., record of research and three letters of reference to: scps.hr at nyu.edu (please indicate Box 3-11D in the ?subject? line); or mail to NYU SCPS, Human Resources Office, 25 West Fourth Street, Room 202, Box 3-11D, New York, NY 10012-1119. Applications and nominations will be accepted until the position is filled. NYU appreciates all applications, but can only respond to qualified candidates. NYU encourages applications from women and members of minority groups. Karen Sikorski Account Director 534 Broad Hollow Road, Ste 305A Melville, NY 11747 P 631-391-0462 F 631-753-1914 E-mail: ksikorski at li.hodes.com Bernard HODES Group http://www.hodes.com TALENT MATTERS? -------------------------------------------------------- Access Manager: This email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail or the information herein by anyone other than the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify us by calling the Help Desk at (212) 999-9911 or email us at helpdesk at hodes.com. From FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk Tue Nov 30 17:15:36 2010 From: FontaineL at cardiff.ac.uk (Lise Fontaine) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:15:36 +0000 Subject: CFP: KEY2011 - Keystroke Language (and Text) Production: perspectives from cognitive and functional linguistics In-Reply-To: <40741.10.0.16.53.1290009716.squirrel@webmail.cantab.net> Message-ID: Hello, Please see below a call for papers for those interesting in the study of language production and the use of keystroke logging methodologies. We hope you will consider joining us in Cardiff in May. with best wishes Lise Fontaine KEY 2011 Keystroke Language (and Text) Production: perspectives from cognitive and functional linguistics 20 May 2011 Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales Supported by the Centre for Language and Communication Research and the LinC Research Network at Cardiff University The use of keystroke logging as a methodology in language research is not a new field of study since the first Computer Keystroke Logging conference was held at Ume? University in Sweden in 2002. However to date this area of research has primarily focussed on written composition and translation studies. The KEY 2011 workshop and conference intends to broaden this perspective by extending the contributions keystroke logging can make to language production generally, including spontaneous language such as chat messaging. Its theme is to explore functional and cognitive perspectives on the use of keystroke logging in language research where the focus of interest is on the dynamic process of production rather than on the static product of language production. Keynote Speakers Professor Kristyan Spelman Miller (University of Winchester) Dr Mick O?Donnell (Universidad Aut?noma de Madrid and Wagsoft Software) Call for papers Papers are invited on the general theme of the conference, dealing with the use of keystroke logging in linguistic and language-related research. Presentations will be 20 minutes with 10 minutes discussion time. Papers which present work in progress or that focus on software development and methodology are also welcome. Although we will consider all contributions that relate to the main theme in general, we especially encourage papers that explore: ? Evidence of cognitive processing in electronic language production ? Corpora and the study of electronically produced language ? Language or text as dynamic process (rather than static product) ? Human-Computer Interaction as related to language and keyboard competence ? Linguistic competence (including translation competence) ? Descriptive work that enhances our understanding of electronically produced language ? Functional accounts of language production (including manual and cognitive errors) ? Methodological and/or ethical issues in the use of keystroke logging software Abstracts An abstract of approximately 400 words should be submitted electronically at the following webpage: http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/KEY2011. Please state, where appropriate, research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. Abstracts will be refereed anonymously by members of the programme committee. The deadline for submissions is 16 March 2011. Notification will be sent to authors by 4 April 2011. KEY2011 website: http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/newsandevents/events/conferences/key2011/ email: linc-network at cf.ac.uk From yutamb at mail.ru Tue Nov 30 21:20:47 2010 From: yutamb at mail.ru (Yuri Tambovtsev) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 03:20:47 +0600 Subject: Frequency of occurrence of preposions Message-ID: Dear colleagues, usually it is possible to find out if two texts are different if some certain linguistic units are used there with different frequencies. Is it possible to differentiate two texts basing on the frequency of occurrence of preposions: on, in, at, under, over, etc. Has many articles been published on the use of prepositions as features? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia