18.3735, Calls: Discourse Analysis,Pragmatics/India; Philosophy of Lang/France

Fri Dec 14 16:35:58 UTC 2007

LINGUIST List: Vol-18-3735. Fri Dec 14 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 18.3735, Calls: Discourse Analysis,Pragmatics/India; Philosophy of Lang/France

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Randall Eggert, U of Utah  
         <reviews at linguistlist.org> 

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, 
and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Ania Kubisz <ania at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

As a matter of policy, LINGUIST discourages the use of abbreviations
or acronyms in conference announcements unless they are explained in
the text.

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at 
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html. 

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 13-Dec-2007
From: Esther Ho < egconf at polyu.edu.hk >
Subject: The 3rd 'Talking Across the World' Conference 2008 

2)
Date: 13-Dec-2007
From: Nathan Klinedinst < nathank at ucl.ac.uk >
Subject: Vagueness and Language Use

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:34:10
From: Esther Ho [egconf at polyu.edu.hk]
Subject: The 3rd 'Talking Across the World' Conference 2008
E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=18-3735.html&submissionid=163976&topicid=3&msgnumber=1  

Full Title: The 3rd 'Talking Across the World' Conference 2008 
Short Title: TAW 3 

Date: 25-Apr-2008 - 26-Apr-2008
Location: Bangalore, India 
Contact Person: Gail Forey
Meeting Email: egconf at polyu.edu.hk
Web Site: http://www.talkingacrosstheworld.org 

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics 

Call Deadline: 29-Feb-2008 

Meeting Description

The 3rd International Conference
Talking Across the World 2008

Friday-Saturday April 25-26 2008 
Bangalore, India 

Call for Papers

As the Information Technology Enabled Services - ITES - industry is increasingly
being outsourced to non-English speaking destinations, the need for good English
language communication skills is acute. At present the single biggest problem to
industry growth in this area is English language communication skills.

The applied linguistic research that has started in this industry is fascinating
and the potential is enormous. At present, a number of research bids have been
submitted to look at issues of language assessment, curriculum development,
corpus building and quality measurement in this industry.

We are keen to invite academics who have been working in this area or a related
area to submit a paper for this conference.

Specifically, the conference will address the issues of:

1. Modes of Adult Learning in the workplace
This will cover papers related to adult learning principles; modes of delivery
(e.g. classroom based training- class/small group/ individualized support;
autonomous learning); stages of professional development (e.g. novice - expert
level capacity); coaching and mentoring.

2. Assessing language for work impact
This will cover papers related to language and communication assessment
practices in the BPO industry e.g. examples of how homegrown assessment works in
house and for what purposes; the role of commercially available business English
testing instruments.

3. Academic and workplace partnering
This will cover papers related to how workplaces and the tertiary sector inter
relate in the provision of employment related skills with specific reference to
language and communication skills development at the secondary and tertiary levels.

4. Curriculum innovation and evaluation in language education at the workplace
This will cover papers related to how language research can inform the
development of training materials; the syllabus design process from planning to
implementation to evaluation; development of teacher education and
trainer/coaching support programmes.

5. Intercultural communication and its place in training
This will cover papers related to how intercultural awareness impacts the
success of outsourced BPO work; critiques of existing programmes in
intercultural training and ideas for more effective training and awareness
raising for culture.

6. Discourse analysis and linguistic research
This will cover papers related to linguistic analyses of different aspects of
BPO interaction and transaction, both spoken and written e.g. call centre
exchange and email/chat support.

Papers will be 40 minutes (30 minutes presentation and 10 minutes questions and
answers).

Abstracts should be sent by e-mail to egconf at polyu.edu.hk, using the Word
template available on our website: www.talkingacrosstheworld.org.

-------------------------Message 2 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:34:16
From: Nathan Klinedinst [nathank at ucl.ac.uk]
Subject: Vagueness and Language Use
E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=18-3735.html&submissionid=164001&topicid=3&msgnumber=2 

Full Title: Vagueness and Language Use 

Date: 07-Apr-2008 - 09-Apr-2008
Location: Paris, France 
Contact Person: Nathan Klinedinst
Meeting Email: vagueness.paris08 at gmail.com
Web Site: http://paulegre.free.fr/Vagueness/index.html 

Linguistic Field(s): Philosophy of Language; Semantics 

Call Deadline: 15-Jan-2008 

Meeting Description

Vagueness and Language Use
April 7-9, 2008
Paris, ENS & Institut Jean-Nicod 

Second Call for Papers

International Conference
Vagueness and Language Use
April 7-9, 2008 
Paris, ENS & Institut Jean-Nicod

Conference Organizers

Paul Egré (Institut Nicod) & Nathan Klinedinst (UCL/IJN) 

Invited Speakers

- Chris Barker (New York University)
- Delia Graff Fara (Princeton University)
- Chris Kennedy (University of Chicago) 
- Peter Pagin (Stockholm/LOGOS)
- Agustin Rayo (MIT)
- Robert van Roooij (ILLC, Amsterdam)
- Uli Sauerland (ZAS, Berlin)

Conference Description

Vagueness is a pervasive phenomenon in natural language, which appears to be
instantiated in nearly all lexical categories (including adjectives, nouns,
verbs, and quantifiers). In recent years, progress has been made, both in
philosophy and in linguistics, to characterize the sources as well as the
varieties of vagueness. At the foundational level, a central debate concerns
the epistemic vs. semantic nature of the vagueness phenomenon, and the proper
understanding of the relation between the notions of vagueness, ambiguity,
context-dependence, and imprecision. In linguistic theory, some significant
advances have been made on the semantics of gradable adjectives and on the role
and behavior of vagueness related adverbs (such as ''clearly'',
''approximately'', and ''definitely'').

These advances raise the question of how empirical studies of language may bear
on the debate about the nature of vagueness, and whether they can help to
adjudicate between competing accounts (epistemic vs. semantic theories,
contextualist vs.non-contextualist accounts). In addition to that, a number of
issues remain open for investigation: is vagueness manifested and 
resolved in the same way across lexical categories (nouns vs. adjectives,
logical vs. non-logical expressions)? How is the vagueness of lexical items
blocked or inherited in larger semantic units (e.g. in comparative
constructions), and what can this tell us about its nature? How do various
theories explain the fact that we use vague terms successfully to communicate
meaning in spite of their vagueness? The aim of this conference will be to bring
together linguists and philosophers, with contributions on both 
the foundational and the empirical aspects of the phenomenon of vagueness in
natural language.

Deadline for Submission: January 15, 2008 

Submission Details

Submissions should consist of anonymous abstracts of no more than 2 pages,
single spaced, 11pt, including title and references (preferred formats for
submission are pdf and Word). Abstracts should be sent electronically to:

vagueness.paris08 at gmail.com

Authors should include their name, title of the paper, affiliation and contact
information in the body of the email. Abstracts will be reviewed by members of
the conference programme committee and additional reviewers.

Conference Programme Committee

- Anouk Barberousse (Paris)
- Chris Barker (New York)
- Denis Bonnay (Paris)
- Richard Dietz (Leuven/St Andrews)
- Paul Egré (Paris)
- Patrick Greenough (St Andrews) 
- Rosanna Keefe (Sheffield)
- Chris Kennedy (Chicago)
- Max Kölbel (Birmingham/LOGOS)
- Nathan Klinedinst (London/Paris)
- Pascal Ludwig (Paris)
- Peter Pagin (Stockholm/LOGOS)
- Agustin Rayo (MIT)
- Robert van Rooij (Amsterdam)
- Benjamin Spector (Harvard)
- Uli Sauerland (Berlin)
- Timothy Williamson (Oxford)

Further Information

http://paulegre.free.fr/Vagueness/index.html

Contact: vagueness.paris08 at gmail.com

-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-3735	