18.75, Calls: Historical Ling/Canada; Language Acquisition/Poland

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LINGUIST List: Vol-18-75. Thu Jan 11 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 18.75, Calls: Historical Ling/Canada; Language Acquisition/Poland

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            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
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1)
Date: 05-Jan-2007
From: Marina Terkourafi < mt217 at uiuc.edu >
Subject: Towards Realistic Models of Contact-induced Change 

2)
Date: 04-Jan-2007
From: Andrzej Lyda < lyda at us.edu.pl >
Subject: 19th Conference on Foreign/2nd Language Acquisition 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:08:05
From: Marina Terkourafi < mt217 at uiuc.edu >
Subject: Towards Realistic Models of Contact-induced Change 
 

Full Title: Towards Realistic Models of Contact-induced Change 

Date: 06-Aug-2007 - 11-Aug-2007
Location: Montréal, Québec, Canada 
Contact Person: Marina Terkourafi
Meeting Email: mt217 at uiuc.edu
Web Site: http://www.ichl2007.uqam.ca 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Psycholinguistics; Sociolinguistics 

Call Deadline: 01-Feb-2007 

Meeting Description:

A workshop organised under the auspices of the XVIIIth International Conference
on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 2007)

Towards realistic models of contact-induced change: mapping psycholinguistic and
sociolinguistic factors

Traditionally, language contact is considered to be a possible trigger of
diachronic change whereby two or more languages/dialects in a contact situation
influence each other (cf. Thomason 2001). Nevertheless, the precise mechanics of
this influence remain to be worked out.

>From a psycholinguistic perspective, it is not clear at all how language contact
may trigger change. As a matter of fact, this ought to be impossible, at least a
priori, since a sociolinguistic view emphasises 'language' as a social product
and not as the 'mental object' of the individual (cf. Lightfoot 1999). In order
to bridge the gap between the fact that language contact can indeed trigger
language change and the 'internalist' restrictions, namely that the locus of
change is the individual, Kroch & Taylor (1997) proposed the concept of
'competing grammars'. This notion, however, is claimed to be extremely fuzzy
from an acquisitionist perspective because of the mass of evidence pointing
towards lack of significant interference in bilinguals (cf. Meisel 2001a, 2001b;
Müller 2003).

Moreover, the notion of competition between grammars can be difficult to pin
down sociolinguistically. From a sociolinguistic perspective, contact typically
involves two or more varieties/languages which are hardly ever interchangeable
on all levels (cf., e.g., Ferguson 1959). Differences in degree of
standardisation, literacy of speakers, and prestige are only some of the factors
affecting preference for one variety over another in situations such as
colonisation, immigration, and diglossia. This creates further restrictions,
this time of an 'external' nature. Moreover, such restrictions cannot be
relegated to secondary status, merely filtering the outcome of competition at
the structural level. Normative or otherwise broadly social considerations may
pre-empt the possibility for competition itself to arise, if choices already
made by society exclude some potential realisations, or if contact between the
two varieties is limited to only some linguistic environments and the
concomitant structures found therein. In this context, the sense in which the
corresponding grammars may be said to be in competition remains an open question.

The present workshop will address the following questions:
(a)	What constraints do the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic findings
jointly place on a realistic model of contact-induced change?
(b)	Can change induced by language contact be modelled as a change in grammars,
and-if so-in what way?
(c)	How do social factors enter into this process of change, and how can we
model their influence in a consistent way?
(d)	What type of empirical evidence is available to prove or disprove the causal
relation between language contact and language change, given the limitations of
diachronic studies, e.g. the absence of native speakers who may offer
grammaticality judgements?

Invited Speakers

Brian Joseph (Ohio State University)
Georg Kaiser (Universität Konstanz)
Donald Tuten (Emory University) 

We encourage submission of abstracts for papers addressing any of the topics
mentioned above. Papers should explicitly draw theoretical implications from
their findings regarding the nature of contact-induced language change. 

There will be 7 slots for papers. Presentations of papers will have the usual 20
min + 10 min discussion format. We plan to publish selected proceedings with an
international publishing house.

The deadline for submission of abstracts for papers (20 min. + 10 min. for
discussion) is February 1, 2007. Decisions will be emailed to authors by March
15. Those who need an earlier decision on an abstract should contact the
conference organizers. Abstracts (no more than 250 words) should be submitted
online at the conference website (http://www.ichl2007.uqam.ca/)

For information relating to this workshop, please contact the organisers:
Ioanna Sitaridou, University of Cambridge, is269 at cam.ac.uk and
Marina Terkourafi, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, mt217 at uiuc.edu

References

Ferguson, Charles F. (1959). 'Diglossia'. Word 15: 2.325-40.
Kroch, A. & A. Taylor (1997). 'Verb movement in Old and Middle English. Dialect
variation and language contact'. In: van Kemenade, A. & N. Vincent (eds.).
Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change. Cambridge: CUP, 297-325.
Lightfoot, D. (1999). The development of language: Acquisition, change and
evolution. Oxford: Blackwell. 
Meisel, J. (2001a). 'From bilingual language acquisition to theories of
diachronic change'. Working Papers in Multilingualism 30. University of Hamburg. 
Meisel, J. (2001b). 'The simultaneous acquisition of two first languages: Early
differentiation and subsequent development of grammars'. In: Cenoz, J. & F.
Genesee (eds.): Trends in Bilingual Acquisition. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 11-41.
Müller, N. (ed.) (2003). (In)vulnerable domains in Multilingualism. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins. 
Thomason, S. (2001). Language Contact. An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.



	
-------------------------Message 2 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:08:10
From: Andrzej Lyda < lyda at us.edu.pl >
Subject: 19th Conference on Foreign/2nd Language Acquisition 

	

Full Title: 19th Conference on Foreign/2nd Language Acquisition 
Short Title: ICFSLA 19 

Date: 17-May-2007 - 19-May-2007
Location: Szczyrk, Poland 
Contact Person: Adam Wojtaszek
Meeting Email: szczyrkconference at op.pl
Web Site: http://uranos.cto.us.edu.pl/~icfsla/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition 

Call Deadline: 31-Jan-2007 

Meeting Description:

The Institute of English at the University of Silesia is pleased to announce the
19th International Conference on Foreign and Second Language Acquisition.
Traditionally, this conference focuses on research in second and foreign
language learning, concentrating each year on different aspects of the research
field. This time we would like to give priority to the neurolinguistic
perspective of language acquisition studies. With the rapid development of
modern technology and research procedures undreamt of or too costly in the 20th
century, neurolinguistics enables scientists to make increasingly intriguing and
stimulating insights into the processes governing language acquisition,
functioning and production in the human brain. It is one of those fields of
research which, unlike any others within broadly understood linguistics,
developed so significantly within the previous decade and where the necessity of
updating one's knowledge seems an unquestionable necessity. For that reason, our
conference stands a chance of becoming a unique opportunity for all those
involved in language acquisition and learning studies, but working within
different frameworks, to get familiarized with the latest insights offered by
neurolinguists, on the one hand, and for neurolinguists to broaden their
perspectives through contacts with scholars representing alternative paradigms,
on the other. That is why the plenary sessions will be concentrating on the
leading theme of the conference, whereas the presentations in sections will be
divided into thematic areas focusing on various aspects of SLA research. All
those wishing to contribute papers or just to attend presentations are welcome
to participate in the conference.

We are pleased to announce that the following scholars have expressed their
agreement to present plenary papers at our conference: 

Jubin Abutalebi, University of University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan

Peter Indefrey, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen

Terrence Odlin, Ohio State University, Columbus

David Singleton, Trinity College, Dublin

Michael Ullman, Georgetown University, Washington DC 

The Conference will be held in Szczyrk (''shchirk''), an attractive resort in
the Silesian Beskidy mountains of southern Poland. The village follows an
ascending valley between wooded hills, and there are many marked trails for
hiking and walking. In the winter it is one of the most popular ski resorts of
the region. 

The site of the Conference is the Hotel WLÓKNIARZ (''vooknyazh''), at ulica
Willowa 12. The hotel has a restaurant, café, and a bar. The hotel is a 5-minute
walk from the bus station in the town centre of Szczyrk. 

The event will take place between 17th and 19th May 2007. For those who wish to
stay in double rooms the all-inclusive conference fee* of approximately 700
zloty (175 euro) will be collected on arrival at the conference desk.
Accommodation in single rooms (subject to availability) involves an additional
cost of 25 euro (100 z?oty). For those, however, who are willing to transfer the
fee in advance (by 31 March 2007), we offer an ''early bird bonus'' of  25 euro
(100 zloty), on the condition that the money is paid into our conference account
at the University of Silesia. The account number is 74 1050 1214 1000 0007 0000
7909, the beneficiary: Uniwersytet ?l?ski w Katowicach, ul. Bankowa 12, 40-007
Katowice, Poland, the title of the payment: ICFSLA + your name. The swift code
of the bank is INGBPLPW. It is very important that you mark the payment with the
sub-account name ICFSLA and your name, because otherwise the financial
department will not know where to allocate the money and we will not have your
name on the list of those who have paid. The Polish participants paying by bank
transfer, if they wish to receive the VAT bill, must have their fees paid by the
institutions which they represent, otherwise they will have to write to our
financial department and specifically ask for the bill.

Paper abstracts should be sent before 31 January 2007 to the Institute of
English. The registration form, including the paper abstract, may be posted or
sent by fax or as an attachment to an e-mail. If you pay the fee to our account,
please send us also a fax of the payment document.

For conference-related matters, contact Professor Janusz Arabski, or Conference
Organisers, at the following address:

            Institute of English, University of Silesia

            ul. ?ytnia 10

            41-205  Sosnowiec

            POLAND

            tel/fax:               (48  32)  291 74 17

            e-mail:     szczyrkconference at op.pl 

                                       enoffice at ares.fils.us.edu.pl


 



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