Corpora: Call: Romance corpus linguistics

[Claus Pusch]

2nd FREIBURG WORKSHOP ON ROMANCE CORPUS LINGUISTICS

Corpora and Historical Linguistics: Investigating Language Change
through Corpora and Databases

organized by the Department of Romance Languages of Albert-Ludwig
University

Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), September 11th-13th, 2003

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

The description and explanation of diachronic language change requires
the examination, analysis and comparison of texts and linguistic
evidence that come from very different periods, genres, registers and
traditions of speaking. The 2nd Freiburg Workshop on Romance Corpus
Linguistics will be dedicated to the question how the methods and
techniques of modern corpus linguistics can be put to use in order to
investigate language change and which innovative insights may result
from the application of corpus linguistic methods in the field of
historical linguistics.

Language change shall be considered, in this context, on different
levels: as long-term change that modifies profoundly the language(s)
involved, even altering its (their) typologic structure, which requires
for an adequate corpus-linguistic treatment databases with an important
diachronic deepness and which include evidence that comes inevitably
from written sources only; and as middle- and short-term change, that
emerges already from the comparison of very few text or speaker
generations and for which the constitution of corpora with reduced
diachronic depth, maybe including both written and spoken language data,
is sufficient.

In line with the principles of the 1st Workshop (2000), the 2nd Freiburg
Workshop on Romance Corpus Linguistics will comprise the following two
panels:

* Panel A "Corpus projects, language data management and tools for
analysis": This panel will be open for the presentation of currently
on-going or completed corpus and database projects; the main focus will
be on projects with a historical perspective on long-, medium- or
short-term language change.

* Panel B "Corpus-based diachronic studies on Romance languagues": For
this panel, contributions on diachronically oriented research on
specific questions and phenomena, empirically based on corpora and
databases, are invited.

Furthermore, a half-day para-workshop will be organized within the
conference, where the machine-readable treatment and mark-up of
historical texts and diachronic language data will be exemplified,
illustrated and discussed.

Paper submissions: Please submit paper proposals by sending an abstract
(approx. 250 words) including your name, academic affiliation, mail and
e-mail address. Abstracts in electronic form (ASCII, MS-WORD or PDF
files), sent as e-mail attachments to <info at corpora-romanica.net>, are
strongly encouraged. The deadline for submission of papers is March
15th, 2003. Papers may be read in German, any Romance language, and
English. Confirmation of acceptance of your paper will be sent out
before March 30th, 2003. If there are more proposals than panel slots, a
part of the contributions will be presented during a poster session.

For more information on the conference, on fees, social program, travel
and accomodation, etc., please have a look at the conference web page at
<http://www.corpora-romanica.net>, or contact the workshop's convenor:

Claus D. Pusch
Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet, Romanisches Seminar
Werthmannplatz 3, D-79085 Freiburg im Breisgau
Fax +49 / 7 61 / 2 03 31 95
E-mail <info at corpora-romanica.net>.

--
**********************
Dr. Claus Dieter Pusch
**********************
Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg im Breisgau
Romanisches Seminar - Lehrstuhl Prof. Raible
(office) Werthmannplatz 3 - D-79085 Freiburg im Breisgau
(home) Ibentalstrasse 15a - D-79256 Buchenbach
Fon (office) +49/761/203-3172  (home) +49/7661/6310
Fax (office) +49/761/203-3195  (home) +49/7661/6310
http://www.claus-pusch.de