THE 29th ANNUAL BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

[Kelley Sacco]

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CALL FOR PAPERS

THE 29th ANNUAL BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

NOVEMBER 5, 6 & 7, 2004

Keynote Speaker: Elizabeth S. Spelke, Harvard University
“Language and Core Knowledge”

Plenary Speaker: Ken Wexler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Beauty and Awe: Language Acquisition as High Science"

Lunch Symposium
“Where does grammar come from? A debate on the nature of child language
acquisition”

Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Stephen Crain, University of Maryland – College Park

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All topics in the fields of first and second language acquisition from all
theoretical perspectives will be fully considered, including:

Bilingualism
Cognition & Language
Creoles & Pidgins
Discourse
Exceptional Language
Input & Interaction
Language Disorders
Linguistic Theory (Syntax, Semantics, Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon)
Literacy & Narrative
Neurolinguistics
Pragmatics
Pre-linguistic Development
Signed Languages
Sociolinguistics
Speech Perception & Production

Presentations will be 20 minutes long followed by a 10 minute question
period. 
Posters will be on display for a full day with two attended sessions during
the 
day.
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ABSTRACT FORMAT AND CONTENT

Abstracts submitted must represent original, unpublished research.

Abstracts should be anonymous, clearly titled and no more than 450 words in
length. They should also fit on one page, with an optional second page for
references or figures if required. Abstracts longer than 450 words will be
rejected without being evaluated. Please note the word count at the bottom
of 
the abstract. Note that words counts need not include the abstract title or
the 
list of references.

A suggested format and style for abstracts is available at the conference
website:
http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/APPLIED/BUCLD/template.html

All abstracts must be submitted as PDF documents. Specific instructions for
how 
to create PDF documents are available at the website:
http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/APPLIED/BUCLD/pdfinfo.html

Free services/software for creating PDF documents are available from:

http://www.adobe.com
(free trial: five free documents)

If you encounter a problem creating a PDF file, please contact us for
further 
assistance.

Please use the first author’s last name as the file name (eg. Smith.pdf). No
author information should appear anywhere in the contents of the PDF file
itself.

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SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Electronic submission: To facilitate the abstract submission process,
abstracts 
will be submitted using the form available at the conference website:
http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/APPLIED/BUCLD/abstract.html

Specific instructions for abstract submission are available on this website.

Abstracts will be accepted between March 15 and May 15.

Contact information for each author must be submitted via webform. No author
information should appear anywhere in the abstract PDF.

At the time of submission you will be asked whether you would like your
abstract to be considered for a poster, a paper, or both.

Although each author may submit as many abstracts as desired, we will accept
for presentation by each author: (a) a maximum of 1 first authored
paper/poster, and (b) a maximum of 2 papers/posters in any authorship
status. 
Note that no changes in authorship (including deleting an author or changing
author order) will be possible after the review process is completed.

DEADLINE: All submissions must be received by 8:00 PM EST, May 15, 2004.

Late abstracts will not be considered, whatever the reason for the delay.

We regret that we cannot accept abstract submissions by fax or email.

Submissions via surface mail will only be accepted in special circumstances,
on 
a case by case basis.

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ABSTRACT SELECTION

Each abstract is blind reviewed by 5 reviewers from a panel of approximately
80 
international scholars. Further information about the review process is
available at:
http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/APPLIED/BUCLD/reviewprocess.html

Acknowledgment of receipt of the abstract will be sent by email as soon as
possible after receipt. Notice of acceptance or rejection will be sent to
first 
authors only, in early August, by email. Pre-registration materials and
preliminary schedule will be available in late August, 2004.

If your abstract is accepted, you will need to submit a 150-word abstract
including title, author(s) and affiliation(s) for inclusion in the
conference 
handbook. Guidelines will be provided along with notification of acceptance.

Abstracts accepted as papers will be invited for publication in the BUCLD
Proceedings. Abstracts accepted as posters will be invited for publication
online only, but not in the printed version.

All conference papers will be selected on the basis of abstracts submitted.
Although each abstract will be evaluated individually, we will attempt to
honor 
requests to schedule accepted papers together in group sessions. No schedule
changes will be possible once the schedule is set. Scheduling requests for
religious reasons only must be made before the review process is complete
(i.e. 
at the time of submission). A space is provided on the abstract submission
webform to specify such requests.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Information regarding the conference may be accessed at
http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/APPLIED/BUCLD

Boston University Conference on Language Development
96 Cummington Street, Room 244
Boston, MA 02215
U.S.A.

Telephone: (617) 353-3085
Email: langconf at bu.edu
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