10.1198, Confs: Linguistics Society of Southern Africa 2000

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-10-1198. Thu Aug 12 1999. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 10.1198, Confs: Linguistics Society of Southern Africa 2000

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1)
Date:  Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:51:00 +0200
From:  "Simon Donnelly" <104simon at muse.wits.ac.za>
Subject:  First International Conference on Linguistics in Southern Africa

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:51:00 +0200
From:  "Simon Donnelly" <104simon at muse.wits.ac.za>
Subject:  First International Conference on Linguistics in Southern Africa

       Linguistics Society of Southern Africa 2000
     FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LINGUISTICS IN
		    SOUTHERN AFRICA

                 12 - 14 January 2000

    'LINGUISTICS AT THE MILLENNIUM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA'

Hosts: Department of Linguistics and Southern African Languages
(University of Cape Town) in conjunction with the Linguistics Society
of Southern Africa.

Background to the Conference: More than any other academic discipline
Linguistics has suffered from the isolationism of the apartheid era,
and the apartheid world-view that eventually divided academics into a
Linguistics society and a society for African languages and
Literatures.  This segregation has been good neither for the study of
the individual languages nor for the holistic study of linguistic
developments in the territory.  Happily that era is at an end and
there are signs of rapprochement between scholars of different
languages in the country and increasing cooperation between
international and southern African scholars.  The 2000 conference is
aimed to take South African Linguistics out of its shell and promote
dialogue on the state of the discipline at the millennium, in terms of
international themes and southern African trends.

In recent times a great deal of debate and conference time in South
Africa has been devoted to issues in Applied Linguistics, like
choosing official languages, choosing media of instruction, preparing
teaching and reference materials in new official languages and so
forth.  At the same time Linguistics curricula at universities have
begun to incorporate such applied interests more and more.  However,
it is becoming clear that Applied Linguistics requires a firmer base
in academic Linguistics than is the case at present; and that it would
be unwise for young Applied Linguistics scholars not to have a proper
training in Linguistics.  It is therefore of some concern that
academic Linguistics is under threat in many universities.

The conference aims to ensure scholarly continuity, by exposing young
scholars and researchers from southern Africa to some key figures of
twentieth century linguistics, rather than have Linguistics as a
resource entirely eroded.  South Africa still has the infrastructure
to be of service to language scholars from other parts of Africa, and
should look to avoiding a situation in many third world countries,
where leading language academics have little research stimulation and
have to move abroad, often to the USA, to pursue serious scholarship.

This to be one of the first international conferences addressing
Linguistics in South Africa as it pertains to all its languages.  In
the apartheid era there were of course no international conferences;
since 1992 there have been 2 international conferences hosted by the
University of the Witwatersrand, these were specifically on African
languages.


    Aims of the conference:

* Leading scholars review the state of their subdisciplines
* Focus on linguistic research in southern Africa in the
	new millennium
* Building up of long-term contacts between scholars from
	southern Africa, the rest of 	Africa and abroad.
* Encouraging young scholars at a time when language
	studies are under threat at tertiary institutions in
	South Africa
* Focus on neglected areas like Khoe-San linguistics and
	African sociolinguistics


    Typical areas of concern to southern African linguists:

* Developments in linguistic theory
* Structure of Khoe-San languages
* Classification of Khoe-San languages
* Structure of Bantu languages
* Sociolinguistics of Bantu languages
* Status & structure of Afrikaans
* Contact between African languages
* New varieties of English
* Accent diversity in English
* Language endangerment and loss
* Multilingualism and linguistic theory
* Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
* Sign language research
* Historical linguistics and African languages
* Second language acquisition theory
* Heritage languages in Southern Africa
* Psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics and language
	development
* The social history of Afrikaans, English, and African
	languages

Other themes related to education and development are welcome; though
in view of the activities of organisations like the Applied
Linguistics Society of Southern Africa and many forums for language
policy and planning, and the theme of the 1999 Linguistics Conference
('Putting Linguistics into Practice') the focus of the 2000 conference
will be more on Linguistics per se.

		Workshops envisaged:

* Khoe-San linguistics and applied linguistics
* Trends in African Linguistics
* Afrikaans socio-historical linguistics
* Applied Linguistics & language teaching
* Variation in Southern African English
* Multilingualism at the Millennium
* Black South African English

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AND FOCUS SPEAKERS:
(to be confirmed, pending funding applications):
William Labov, Salikoko Mufwene, Deborah Cameron, Ayo Bamgbose, Peter
Trudgill, Rajendra Singh, Liliane Haegeman, John R. Edwards,
R.K. Herbert, and other distinguished speakers.

CAPE TOWN ATTRACTIONS:
(do stay for the weekend or week after the conference)

* Conference held at foot of mountain near two oceans
* See the sun set over the Atlantic from the top of Table
	Mountain
* Pleasant warm mid-summer coastal temperatures
* Assistance with tours to Robben Island, Wine Route, city
	and township
* Visiting partners' programme during the day
* Favourable exchange rates


ABSTRACTS: Due 22 September 1999. Send 200 word abstract
to the Conference Secretary (preferably by e-mail).


For further details write to:

Ms Nasma Parker, The Linguistics 2000 Conference Secretary,
P.O. Box 149, Gatesville 7764, Cape Town, South Africa.
Tel.: +27-21-0827790798; Fax: +27-21-6332468;
email: parkerme at iafrica.com

Conference Convenor: Raj Mesthrie, Dept of Linguistics &
Southern African Languages, University of Cape Town,
Private Bag, Rondebosch 7700.

(raj at beattie.uct.ac.za)


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