29.4705, Calls: Language Acquisition, Pragmatics/Belgium

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4705. Wed Nov 28 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.4705, Calls: Language Acquisition, Pragmatics/Belgium

Moderator: linguist at linguistlist.org (Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté)
Homepage: https://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Everett Green <everett at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2018 04:05:30
From: Morgane Jourdain [morgane.jourdain at kuleuven.be]
Subject: International Workshop on the L1 and L2 Acquisition of Information Structure

 
Full Title: International Workshop on the L1 and L2 Acquisition of Information Structure 

Date: 25-Apr-2019 - 26-Apr-2019
Location: Leuven, Belgium 
Contact Person: Morgane Jourdain
Meeting Email: morgane.jourdain at kuleuven.be
Web Site: https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling/is-acquisition/AIS2019 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition; Pragmatics 

Call Deadline: 01-Feb-2019 

Meeting Description:

The aim of this workshop is to gather researchers working on different aspects
of the L1 and L2 acquisition of Information Structure in different languages,
using experimental protocols or corpus research, to gain a better
understanding of the development of Information Structure.


Call for Papers:

In recent years, the study of Information Structure in child language has
gained significant interest. Studies show that the accessibility level of
referents influences children's referential choices (Hendriks, Koster, &
Hoeks, 2014; Hickmann & Hendriks, 1999) or word order (Narasimhan & Dimroth,
2008, 2018; Stephens, 2010; Schelletter and Leinonen; 2003). Children's 
prosodic and syntactic choices to encode the topic and focus have also been
studied in some detail  (Arnhold, Chen, & Järvikivi, 2016; Chen, 2011; De Cat,
2009).

While some studies suggest that morphology and syntax are acquired before
pragmatics and Information Structure (Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005), others
show that some of children's constructions encode an adult-like Information
Structure configuration: French and Italian children use dislocations to
encode the topic of the utterance from the start(Belleti and Manetti, 2018; 
De Cat, 2007, 2009).

Children do not develop all aspects of Information Structure at the same rate.
Dutch children acquire the intonation contour to mark topic before the contour
for focus (Chen, 2011), and Portuguese children acquire the syntactic marking
of focus while they still struggle with the computations required to interpret
stress shift as a focus marker (Costa and Szendrői, 2006). Besides, research
suggests that the comprehension of focus-marking intonation is acquired after
production in child language (Szendrői, 2004; Gualmini et al., 2003; Paterson
et al., 2003, but see Szendrői et al., 2018; Chen, 2010 for a different point
of view).

The study of L2 acquisition of Information Structure has also developed
recently (Colonna et al., 2018; Park, 2018 among others), and reevaluates
former findings. According to Fuller and Gundel (1987), the interlanguage of
L2 learners is characterized by an early topic-prominent stage and a late
subject-prominent stage, but recent research however suggests a transfer from
L1 characteristics (Jin, 1994; Jung, 2004). Some authors consider that L2
learners have difficulties acquiring the syntax-pragmatic and Information
Structure interface (Sorace & Filiaci, 2006; Alvaro, 2018). Some find that L2
learners, as they become more advanced, manage to acquire syntactic
constructions with the appropriate Information Structure function (Reichle and
Birdsong, 2013; Hughes, 2010; Dominguez and Arche, 2010; Donaldson, 2011a,
2011b)
 
The questions which can be addressed include, but are not restricted to:

- Which prosodic, morphologic or syntactic means are used by children to
encode Information Structure? What is the developmental pattern of these
means?
- Are some means to encode Information Structure (prosody vs syntax) acquired
earlier than others? 
- How does the division of labor between syntax/prosody and Information
Structure in the target language impact on its acquisition? 
- Are some aspects of Information Structure (referential vs. relational)
easier to acquire by children?
- Are there early stages in L1 or L2 language development exhibiting more
topic-prominent or subject-prominent characteristics?
- Which aspects of Information Structure are acquired in production before
comprehension?

We invite you to submit proposals for 20-minute individual presentations.
Abstracts should not exceed two pages in length, 12-point type, Times New
Roman, single line spacing, 2.5cm (1 inch) margins, including examples and
tables.

Abstracts should be submitted in PDF format via EasyChair: 

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ais2019

Conference Website: 

https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling/is-acquisition/AIS2019

Keynote Speakers:

Aoju Chen (Utrecht Institute of Linguistics)
Carla Soares (Université Paris VIII) 
Maria Lobo (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Kriszta Szendrői (University College London)




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:

              The IU Foundation Crowd Funding site:
       https://iufoundation.fundly.com/the-linguist-list

               The LINGUIST List FundDrive Page:
            https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4705	
----------------------------------------------------------