LINGUIST List 11.2378

Fri Nov 3 2000

Calls: Semantics/Pragmatics, Language Development

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. root, Semantics/Pragmatics of Dialogues - Bi-Dialog 2001
2. jaanus vaiksoo, Conference in Language Development

 Second Call for Papers

 BI-DIALOG 2001

 FIFTH WORKSHOP ON THE SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS OF DIALOGUE

 Bielefeld University, Germany
 June 14-16 2001

 http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/BIDIALOG/

Bi-Dialog 2001 will be the fifth in a series of workshops that aim
at bringing together researchers working on the semantics and
pragmatics of dialogues in fields such as artificial intelligence,
formal semantics and pragmatics, computational linguistics, 
philosophy, and psychology.

We invite abstracts on all topics related to the semantics and
pragmatics of dialogues, including, but not limited to:

- common ground in communication
- semantic interpretation in dialogues
- modelling agents' information states and how they get updated
- multi-agent models
- reference in dialogues
- dialogue and discourse structure
- reasoning in spoken and multimodal dialogue systems

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

Authors should submit an anonymous extended abstract of at most 5
single-column pages (for talks with a duration of 30' plus 10'
discussion) together with a separate page specifying the authors'
names, affiliation, address, and e-mail address. The abstracts 
should be submitted electronically (in LaTeX, postscript, html, 
ascii, or pdf format) to: bidialoguni-bielefeld.de. Submission have
to be in English, which is the workshop language. For the accepted 
talks, a LaTeX style will be made available.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Abstracts due: February 15th
Acceptance notice: April 15th
Final version due: May 22
Conference: June 14-16th

INVITED SPEAKERS (preliminary):

Simon Garrod (HCRC), Isabel Gomez Txurruka (ILCLI), 
Alois Knoll (Univ. Bielefeld), Alex Lascarides (HCRC), 
David Sadek (CNET France Telecom), Robert van der Sandt (Univ. Nijmegen)

ADVISORY BOARD:

Ellen Bard (HCRC), Anton Benz (HU Berlin), Peter Bosch (Univ.
Osnabrueck), Robin Cooper (Goteborg Univ.), Claire Gardent (Univ.
des Saarlandes), Joris Hulstijn, Yasuhiro Katagiri (ATR MIC LR),
Ian Lewin (SRI Cambridge), Massimo Poesio (HCRC), Uwe Reyle (IMS), 
Henk Zeevat (ILLC)

ORGANIZATION:

The workshop will take place at Bielefeld University. The local 
organizers are Peter Kuehnlein, Hannes Rieser, and Henk Zeevat.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Information about Bielefeld University: 
http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/

News about the conference will be posted on the workshop's Web 
page at
http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/BIDIALOG/

Send emails to bidialoguni-bielefeld.de or
pkuehnlelili.uni-bielefeld.de for questions about local
arrangements.

Previous workshops in this series include:

MunDial'97 (Munich)
 (http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/sil/workshop/dialogwsh.html)
Twendial'98 (Twente)
 (http://parlevink.cs.utwente.nl/Conferences/twlt13.html)
Amstelogue'99 (Amsterdam)
 (http://earth.let.uva.nl/~amstelog/)
Gotalog'00 (Gothenburg)
 (http://www.ling.gu.se/gotalog)

CALL: International Futuristic Conference on Language Development:
Estonian in Europe. Tallinn (Estonia), 12-14 March 2001.

Europe together with her languages is going through a period of major
rearrangements where the existence of a corresponding literary language
and its usage proves to be insufficient in achieving the "place under
the sun" in the next millenium world. Thus, we have the pleasure to
invite you to discuss the place, development trends and needs of a
language in this context, with the starting point at the Herderian
times.

We expect oral (20 min.) and poster presentations in one of the
following sub-themes:
1. Language and technology
2. Language and resources
3. Language and structure
4. Language and ethnicity
The topics are elaborated in the explanatory paper below. In addition to
presentations, several panels and debates will be arranged. A selection
of papers will be published.

The working languages of the conference will be Estonian and English.
There will be no conference fee. For participation please submit your
contact data and the preliminary topic of your paper by 1 December. The
deadline for abstracts (1-4 pages, Word or rtf format) is 5 January
2001. Correspondence by e-mail is encouraged. The Organizing Committee
will provide help in arranging accommodation and in other vital matters.

Organizers: Prof. Helle Metslang, Prof. Martin Ehala, Prof. Anu-Reet
Hausenberg, Dr. Mart Rannut, Dr. Silvi Vare.

Inquiries and participation:
Helle Metslang helleeki.ee
Mart Rannut rannuttpu.ee

Snail mail (not preferred): Chair of Estonian, Tallinn Pedagogical
University, Narva Rd 25/29, Tallinn EE10120 Estonia. Ph: +372 6409 312,
+372 6409 316.

The conference is dedicated to the European Language Year, 200th
anniversary of Kristjan Jaak Peterson (a pioneer of the Estonian
language cultivation) and the Estonian National Mother Tongue Day on 14
March.

Explanatory paper
LANGUAGE AND TECHNOLOGY

Concerning the hierarchy of communication networks one may divide
language development into three periods:
1. oral communication (vernacular, speaker-listener simultaneously
involved in the same place);
2. literary language-based oral as well as written communication (time
and space constraint not necessary thanks to Gutenberg);
3. communication between humans as well as machines, in the last case
code is used.
In this context we focus on the following:
�Is our language ready to adapt itself to the new network?
�Are there linguistic levels comparable to technological levels, can we
pick and choose?
�What happens to literary language?

LANGUAGE AND RESOURCES
The technological development of languages creates a new elite "club"
for those languages which have the necessary resources available at its
market or in the form of governmental aid. Others (ca 95% of the
existing languages) will be ranked as losers, shifting to the lower
level of diglossic hierarchy (If one can't speak to one's coffee-pot in
one's mother tongue, one changes language!). Some challenges:
�What is the price for the place in the technological elite club of
languages?
�Where to find the resources, in what form, where to start, how to
implement these?

LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE
The changes in the political and social structure of a society have
resulted in increased variability of language. Globalisation and
integration into major international political (EU) or security
structures (NATO) has impact on the language of speakers concerned. Some
issues to elaborate on:
�Language contacts - harm or profit?
�Towards simplified or sophisticated language?
�The role of language cultivation in the new situation.

LANGUAGE AND ETHNICITY
While since Herder language has been linked to its speakers, their
homeland and their culture through mother tongue, the era of
postmodernity with migrational flows and globalisation, societal
fragmentation and soft security needs a fresh approach to language and
its place. Some points to think on:
�contemporary ethnicity-language link;
�multilingualism and the rights concerned;
�Do we need an innovative societal theory for language?