Summer School Bilingual Minds, Bilingual Machines

[Caroline Floccia]

Dear colleagues,

This might be of interest to you and/or students.
Best regards,
Caroline

Summer school: Bilingual minds, bilingual machines
Cognition Institute, Plymouth University, 24th-28th June 2013
Final call for applications

The young human brain copes remarkably well with two or more languages,
with early bilingualism often resulting in perfect parallel proficiency. In
contrast, automatic translation and language recognition systems remain
suboptimal, despite powerful computing resources, large-scale corpora and
increasingly sophisticated training algorithms.

The summer school is a unique opportunity for postgraduate students and
early-career researchers in psychology and computer science to engage over
common issues informed by both disciplines. How can we model bilingual
processing? How are two phonologies represented? How is meaning related to
word forms? How far can meanings be shared between languages in the human
mind and in machines?

The school will feature interactive lectures from world-leading
researchers: psychologists investigating early and late bilingualism;
cognitive scientists modelling the bilingual mental lexicon, from phonology
to semantics; computer scientists and roboticists designing automated
translators and language recognition/learning systems. Participants will
also gain hands-on experience in computational modelling, cutting-edge
robotic technology and advanced techniques of experimental psychology. They
will also have the opportunity to submit an abstract for poster session
that will take place during the week, with two selected for a 20-minute
conference-style presentation.

The school is supported by EUCog (www.eucognition.org). Registration is
open to a maximum of 30 participants (tinyurl.com/bilingualismsummerschool).

Confirmed speakers
Professor Tony Belpaeme, Plymouth University – developmental robotics
Professor Marc Brysbaert, Ghent University – adult bilingualism
Dr Bill Byrne, University of Cambridge – automatic translation
Professor Angelo Cangelosi, Plymouth University – developmental robotics
Professor Detmar Meurers, University of Tübingen – learner corpora and
computational linguistics
Dr Katerina Pastra, Cognitive Systems Research Institute, Athens – embodied
machine translation
Dr Patrick Rebuschat, Bangor University – bilingual cognition
Professor Majd Sakr, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar – bilingual
robotics
Professor Nuria Sebastian-Galles, Universitat Pompeu Fabra – developmental
bilingualism
Dr Yinjang Wu, University of Sheffield – developmental bilingualism

Application and registration
We are seeking applications from postgraduate students and early-career
researchers (i.e., not more than three years post-PhD). Registration fees
for the week are £400, which includes accommodation, breakfasts, lunches,
refreshments and a full social programme. To register your interest, please
submit the following documents in PDF format.
- Curriculum vitae (up to two pages), indicating level of English language
attainment.
- Description of research interests and potential benefits of participation
(one page).

Please submit your application by 26th April 2013. Selected applicants will
be notified of acceptance on 3rd May. Applications should be emailed to:
bilingualismsummerschool at gmail.com.

There is no need to reapply if you have previously done so.

Organising committee
Allegra Cattani, School of Social Science and Social Work, Plymouth
University
Caroline Floccia, School of Psychology, Plymouth University
Laurence White, School of Psychology, Plymouth University


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-- 
Dr. Caroline Floccia
Reader (Associate Professor)
PSQ A213
School of Psychology
University of Plymouth
Drake Circus
Devon PL4 8AA
tel: (+0044) 1752 584822

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