16.2488, Calls: Applied Ling/Austria;Cognitive Science/Japan

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2488. Fri Aug 26 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2488, Calls: Applied Ling/Austria;Cognitive Science/Japan

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1)
Date: 25-Aug-2005
From: Eva Lavric < eva.lavric at uibk.ac.at >
Subject: Code Choice / Code Switching in Professional Contexts 

2)
Date: 25-Aug-2005
From: Karl MacDorman < kfm at ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp >
Subject: Humanoids-2005 Workshop: 'Views on the Uncanny Valley' 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:26:05
From: Eva Lavric < eva.lavric at uibk.ac.at >
Subject: Code Choice / Code Switching in Professional Contexts 
 

Full Title: Code Choice / Code Switching in Professional Contexts 

Date: 29-Oct-2005 - 31-Oct-2005
Location: Graz, Austria 
Contact Person: Eva Lavric
Meeting Email: eva.lavric at uibk.ac.at
Web Site: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/ling/oeling2005/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Language
Acquisition; Sociolinguistics; Translation 

Call Deadline: 30-Sep-2005 

Meeting Description:

Code choice / code switching in professional contexts

Verbal-Workshop at the Österreichische Linguistiktagung (Austrian Conference of
Linguists) in Graz, 29-31 October 2005 

Code choice and code switching are often investigated in contexts of migration
and/or diglossia and are usually related to distinctions of domains, like
family, peer group, religion, profession, etc. This workshop picks up just one
of these domains and concentrates on contexts that are usually related to
buzzwords like foreign language use and foreign language needs. We shall study
the multiple ways in which, without migration or diglossia, code choice and code
switching belong to the linguistic repertoire of many speakers in normal
professional life.  The professional contexts we are thinking of could be:

-	Language teaching in a narrow and in a broader sense: what is the role played
by the switching between L1 and L2 (and possible other L's) in the foreign
language classroom and around it? This includes situations like CLIL and
multilingual schools and/or schools in multilingual regions.

-	Business contexts and especially international business: where do code choice
issues come in in export, and which role do they play in internal communication
within big international companies? What linguistic strategies do companies
adopt when confronted with markets in multilingual societies?

-	Special area: Tourism. In tourism, language is a constant preoccupation, and
it is likely that we will find code choice problems and code choice strategies
specific to each of the various tourism professions. In tourism regions the
foreign language needs are pervasive in nearly all branches of service encounters.

-	Special area: Translation/interpreting. This is a domain which overlaps partly
with the two preceding ones, but it also has some aspects of its own. How do
speakers manage the switching from one language to another in discourse? Who
decides and on what grounds whether to hire a translator? And how do situations
work in which it is one of the participants who takes over spontaneously the
part of the interpreter?

-	Finally, contributions dealing with code choice / code switching in migration
and diglossic contexts shall not be excluded from our field of research,
provided they study the phenomenon in professional situations.

We are going to investigate not only the phenomenology / factuality of code
choices and code switching, but also shed light onto the whys and wherefores,
onto possible patterns of explanation and motivation, e.g. efficiency,
politeness, identity claims, etc. All contributions should have an empirical
foundation.

We shall try to provide the usual 20 minutes' time for each presentation (+ 10
minutes of discussion). The papers are going to be published.

To participate, e-mail your title and an abstract (500 words maximum) until 30th
September to:

eva.lavric at uibk.ac.at

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Eva Lavric
Institut für Romanistik
Universität Innsbruck
Innrain 52
A-6020 Innsbruck
Austria



	
-------------------------Message 2 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:26:09
From: Karl MacDorman < kfm at ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp >
Subject: Humanoids-2005 Workshop: 'Views on the Uncanny Valley' 

	

Full Title: Humanoids-2005 Workshop: 'Views on the Uncanny Valley' 

Date: 05-Dec-2005 - 05-Dec-2005
Location: Tsukuba (near Tokyo, Japan), Japan 
Contact Person: Karl MacDorman
Meeting Email: humanoids2005 at theuncannyvalley.org
Web Site: http://www.theuncannyvalley.org 

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Computational Linguistics 

Call Deadline: 01-Sept-2005

Meeting Description:

The workshop concerns the influence of humanoid robot appearance and behavior on
human-robot communication. 

Views on the Uncanny Valley
A Humanoids 2005 Workshop
Tsukuba, Japan, 5 December 2005

Theme and goals
The term ''bukimi no tani'' or ''uncanny valley'' was coined 35 years ago by Dr.
Masahiro Mori, and it stands today as one of the most commonly known design
considerations of humanoid robots and synthetic characters. In this workshop we
bring together researchers in robotics, visual perception, linguistics, and
neuroscience to discuss the uncanny valley from these different perspectives.
The goal will be to examine how the perception of human and robot motions are
transformed into an appreciation of the events being observed. In addition, we
will try to direct our findings to a discussion of potential theoretical bases
of human-humanoid interaction and to obtaining a method for accurate navigation
around the uncanny valley.

Christian Keysers: In the last ten years, it has become evident that when humans
observe the actions and sensations of others, these are transformed in the brain
of the observer into the observer's own actions and sensations through a series
of mechanisms called 'shared circuits' or mirror circuits. We will review this
literature, suggesting an essential mechanism for understanding others. In
particular, we will show that the perception of robots performing actions
appears to be processed in much the same way as the perception of other humans.
These findings open the way for a neuroscience of human-robot social interactions.

Karl MacDorman: Robots that lie in the uncanny valley may act as a subconscious
reminder of death. We explore this hypothesis by reproducing seminal experiments
from terror management theory, substituting an uncanny robot for the reminder of
death in the control group.

Frank Pollick: The existence of the uncanny valley presupposes several basic
properties of visual cognition. We will first outline these properties and then
show evidence for their existence and how they delineate the scope of the
uncanny valley. 

Target participants
Robotics engineers and computer scientists with an interest in artificial
intelligence, machine learning, pattern recognition, and control, especially
those whose target platform includes humanoid robots; psychologists,
sociologists, and linguists who are concerned with real-time embodied
communication or social development; cognitive scientists who are concerned with
the relationship between brain processes and social dynamics; social and
comparative biologists; and philosophers.

Call for Speakers
If you would like to participate in the workshop as a speaker or on a discussion
panel please send an expression of interest that outlines your proposed
contribution. Please send this as soon as possible to
humanoids2005 at theuncannyvalley.org by (latest September 1) at the latest.




 



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