Sociolinguistics: Newcastle

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Announcement:  15th Sociolinguistics Symposium

Location:  Centre for Research in Linguistics of the University of
Newcastle upon Tyne Date: 01-APR-04 - 04-APR-04

Call Deadline: 31-Jan-2003

Web Site: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/crl/pages/ss2004.html
Contact Person: Organizing Committee
Meeting Email: li.wei at ncl.ac.uk


The 15th Sociolinguistics Symposium, Europe's premier international
conference on language in society, will return to Newcastle (UK) after 18
years, in April 2004. It will be hosted by the Centre for Research in
Linguistics of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The Sociolinguistics
Symposia began in the 1970s by a group of UK-based sociolinguists who saw
the need for a fairly informal forum to discuss research findings and to
debate theoretical and methodological issues concerning language in
society. It has since grown into a large, international conference,
typically attracting 400-500 participants. Normally, it takes place once
every two years in a UK university but sometimes in continental Europe
too. In 1986, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne hosted the 6th
Sociolinguistics Symposium. We are very pleased that it will return in
2004.

Themes:

The conference organisers welcome papers on any aspect of
sociolinguistics. Proposals on the following themes are particularly
welcome:

* Interface between sociolinguistics and generative linguistics
* Corpus-based sociolinguistics
* Language and culture
* Language and cross-cultural communication
* Language maintenance and language shift
* Applications of sociolinguistics to professional contexts

There will be thematic colloquia, convened by specialists. Abstracts can
be submitted as part of a colloquium, or individually for parallel
sessions or posters. More details of the Call for Papers will be available
shortly, but it is likely that the deadline for submission of abstracts
will be before October 2003.

Keynote Speakers (who have agreed to participate to date):

Peter Auer, University of Freiburg
Jane Hill, University of Arizona
Lesley Milroy, University of Michigan
Shana Poplack, University of Ottawa

Sociolinguistics Symposium 15 is currently inviting abstracts (ca.
750-1500 words) for proposals for:

1) specialized workshops
2) colloquia organized around a theme

In your abstract, please indicate expressly whether your proposal is for
(1) a workshop or (2) a thematic colloquium.

Workshops and thematic colloquia that relate in some way to the conference
theme ''Culture, Contact, and Change'' are particularly welcome. Send
abstracts to SS15 at ncl.ac.uk; you may email your abstract as an attachment
(.rtf preferred), or in the body of the email message. Please note that
this call is for workshops and thematic colloquia ONLY; a general call for
papers and posters will follow early in the new year (2003).