21.4195, Calls: Language Acquisition, Linguistic Theories/Greece

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-4195. Thu Oct 21 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.4195, Calls: Language Acquisition, Linguistic Theories/Greece

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1)
Date: 21-Oct-2010
From: Stavroula Stavrakaki [svoula at auth.gr]
Subject: Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:32:43
From: Stavroula Stavrakaki [svoula at auth.gr]
Subject: Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition

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Full Title: Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition 
Short Title: GALA 

Date: 06-Sep-2011 - 08-Sep-2011
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece 
Contact Person: Stavroula Stavrakaki
Meeting Email: gala2011 at itl.auth.gr
Web Site: http://gala2011.web.auth.gr 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition; Linguistic Theories 

Call Deadline: 15-Mar-2011 

Meeting Description:

GALA 2011 will focus on first and second language acquisition, bilingual 
acquisition, language pathology, the acquisition of sign language and brain 
imaging research for acquisition and pathology. Besides the main session, 
two workshops will be held on 'Phonological representations in early 
language acquisition' (organized by Barbara Höhle) and on 'Syntax and 
Pragmatics: Division of Labour in Acquisition' (organized by Joao Costa and 
Spyridoula Varlokosta). Talks for the main sessions and the workshops will 
be 20 minutes long, followed by 10 minutes discussion. At most one single-
authored and one joint abstract (or two joint abstracts) per author will be 
considered. There will be two poster sessions. Please indicate in your 
submission whether you want your abstract to be considered for the main 
session, a workshop, for oral presentation, poster, or both.

Invited speakers 
Harald Clahsen (University of Essex)
Maria Teresa Guasti (University of Milan-Bicocca)
Chloe Marshall (City University London)

Programme Committee
Sergey Avrutin (University of Utrecht) 
Naama Friedmann (University of Tel Aviv)
Anna Gavarró (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Petra Schulz (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Stavroula Stavrakaki (University of Thessaloniki)
Arhonto Terzi (Technological Educational Institute of Patras)
Laurie Tuller (Université François-Rabelais)
Angeliek van Hout (University of Groningen)

Organizing Committee
Dora Bahourou
Katerina Kalaidzidou
Polyxeni Konstantinopoulou
Stavroula Stavrakaki 
Eleni Vletsi 

Call For papers

Abstracts should be submitted electronically at  gala2011 at itl.auth.gr
Deadline of submission: March 15th, 2011
Notification of acceptance: May 1st, 2011 

Guidelines for abstracts
Abstracts should be at most two pages, with only figures and references in 
the second. 12 point Times New Roman, single spaced, should be used, 
with 2 cm margins. An anonymous abstract and an abstract with author's 
name/s and affiliation should be sent by email as Word or pdf attachments 
(if special symbols are used, pdf format is required). The abstract with name 
and affiliation should be as follows: 

Title (bold, left justified) 
Author's name/s (left justified) 
Affiliation (left justified) 
Abstract 

Two workshops will be held. 

GALA 2011 Workshop
Phonological representations in early language acquisition
Organized by: Barbara Höhle
The workshop will focus on the emergence and the development of 
phonological representation in early first language acquisition. Recent 
research has shown that infants are equipped with highly efficient 
perceptual and learning mechanism that allow for a fast attunement to 
features of the phonological system of the target language during the first 
year of life. On the other hand data from production and word learning 
studies suggest that the establishment of phonological representations 
underlying early production and comprehension is a longer-lasting process 
extending over the first years of life. From the developmental perspective 
one of the intriguing questions is how perception and the emergence of 
abstract phonological representations are interrelated. What are the 
contributions of data-driven learning and of universal phonological 
constraints in the emerging phonological system of the 
child? How are perception and production related? 
This workshop aims at bringing researchers who work in all kinds of areas 
in early phonological development covering all aspects of this research area 
together: i.e. early perceptual development and attunement to specific 
phonological properties of the language including segmental and 
suprasegmental aspects; phonological bootstrapping to other linguistic 
domains like the lexicon, syntax and pragmatics; phonological 
representations in the acquisition of the lexicon. Contributions to all kinds of 
variations of language acquisition like simultaneous multilingual acquisition, 
phonological development in clinical populations are welcome as well.

GALA 2011 Workshop
Syntax and Pragmatics: Division of Labour in Acquisition
Organized by: Joao Costa & Spyridoula Varlokosta

The literature on acquisition of syntax in the late 80s and 90s revealed that 
children's syntactic knowledge is very precocious. In fact, there is evidence 
showing that many syntactic parameters are set at a pre-lexical stage (e.g. 
Wexler 1998), that knowledge of functional structure is available at the time 
children utter their first two word utterances (e.g. Hyams 1992) and that 
knowledge of principles such as subjacency or binding are evident from 
early on (e.g. Chien and Wexler 1990).
The fact that children's utterances are not target-like was attributed to 
specific aspects of pragmatic knowledge that would be acquired late (e.g. 
Rizzi 1993/1994). However, literature from the last decade reveals that 
children master some pragmatic knowledge from very early on as well (e.g. 
de Cat 2003, Crain et al. 2002). Recent research reveals accurate 
production and comprehension of information structure, good mastery of 
certain implicatures  and a good domain of some aspects related to co-
reference.

As it stands, it is reasonable to assume that certain aspects of both 
syntactic and pragmatic knowledge are acquired very early. However, for 
such a statement to be productive, it is important to qualify it. The aim of this 
workshop is to provide answers to questions like the following:

A.When children produce target-deviant sentences, which aspects can be 
explained in terms of late acquisition of syntax?
B.When children produce target-deviant sentences, which aspects can be 
explained in terms of late acquisition of pragmatics?
C.What types of structures/parameters/principles are good candidates for 
late acquisition? What unifies them?
D.What type of pragmatic knowledge is a good candidate for late 
acquisition? 
E.When there is no consensus on whether a certain category is a syntactic 
primitive (e.g. topic, focus, etc.), can acquisition facts shed light on its 
status?
F.What do acquisition facts tell us about the syntax-pragmatics interface?
G.Is there crosslinguistic variation in the acquisition of the syntax-
pragmatics interface? If there is, how can one explain it?





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