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ciefl.ernet.in>CIEFL Alumni Association, CIEFL, Hyderabad 500007 (INDIA) - ------------------------------------------------------- You are invited to a special International Congress on WORLD LANGUAGES IN MULTILINGUAL CONTEXTS JANUARY 3-7, 2001 CENTRAL INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES (CIEFL) Alumni Association, Hyderabad, South India. WHY AN INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS? - ---------------------------- Languages of wide circulation (LWCs) have come to play pivotal roles in our fast globalizing, multicultural world. Complex issues - linguistic, socio-cultural, psychological, ethical, and educational - must be addressed to understand their dynamics the world over. WHY INDIA? - -------- India, with several hundred languages including English and several LWCs in active use, represents multilingualism in its constructive and divisive modes. This makes India a natural setting for addressing the complex issues that arise from it. WHY CIEFL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION? - ----------------------------- CIEFL is India's only national university dedicated to research in LWCs including English, French, German,Russian,Arabic, Spanish and Japanese. For over forty years (1958- ) it has been contributing to their study and use, their teaching, the development of instructional materials and technologies, testing etc, and has gained universal recognition. It has had a deep impact on the way English and other foreign languages are taught and tested in India. CIEFL Alumni Association represents an amazing array of scholars and practitioners spread all over the world. WHO IS WELCOME? - ------------- Researchers in language,literature, and culture, language teachers, communication consultants, language planners, translators, interpreters,sociolinguists,applied linguists - anyone with a deep professional interest in language is welcome. WHAT IS THE SCOPE? - ---------------- The Congress will focus on major areas of language study,language education, and language use including: 1. Languages in contact: role relationships, cooperation and conflict: majority and minority languages, globalization and standards, language shift and language loss 2. Language policies and programmes: additive and subtractive bilingualism, language(s) in literacy - mother tongues and other tongues, language equity and marginalization. 3. Multilingual speech communities and monolingual paradigms, multilingual societies and language acquisition models, multilingual's creativity: text and context, genre and Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) in multilingual societies,discourse in multilingual contexts, translation. 4. Language in education: first, second, foreign; approaches to teaching, learning, testing and use; learning for specific purposes; distance learning. 5. Languages and new technologies: audio and visual media, computers and information technology, virtual classrooms. WHAT IS THE WORKING LANGUAGE OF THE CONGRESS? - ------------------------------------------- English. However, papers can be accepted in any other major international languages provided they, along with the translation into English, reach the organizers by JULY 15, 2000. WHAT ARE THE DEADLINES? - --------------------- For submission of papers / workshop proposals: JULY 15, 2000 For registration - Stage I: September 1, 2000 ; Stage II: November 1, 2000 WHAT ARE THE REGISTRATION FEES ? - ------------------------------ US $200 before September 1, 2000 (Stage I) US $250 thereafter (Stage II) Concessionary rates: For Participants from SAARC countries US $100 (US $150 from September 1,2000) For Participants from India: Rs 1000 (Rs 1500 from September 1, 2000) For Members of CIEFL Alumni Association: 20% discount on relevant fees. WHAT IS HYDERABAD LIKE? - ---------------------- Hyderabad is an unforgettable modern metropolis which retains its old world charm. It has a unique blend of Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist, Christian and Parsee cultures. Its roadsfeature bullock carts and cycle-rickshaws along with gleaming BMWs and Mercedes Benzes. The city's cuisine also reflects its ethnic diversity. Hyderabad's clear skies and cool temperatures (daytime temperature between 25 and 27 degrees Celsius in December-January) tempt visitors to move around. And there is plenty for tourists to see in Hyderabad, India's fifth largest city: exquisite handicraft being made, hand-weaving of textiles, small villages, ancient temples and mosques, historical forts, museums, monuments... Hyderabad is also well connected by road, rail and air to all the main cities of India. For a detailed description of Hyderabad's attractions please visit the following websites: http://www.hyderabad.com (and) http://www.andhrapradesh.com WHERE CAN ONE GET MORE INFORMATION FROM ? - --------------------------------------- Please contact Prof. MAKHAN LAL TICKOO, President, International Congress, CIEFL, Hyderabad 500 007, INDIA. Telephone : +91-40-701 8131 Ext Fax : +91-40-701 8402 - ----------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail : congressMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
nis.sdu.dk>LANGUAGE RESOURCES AND EVALUATION LREC 2000 workshop: FROM SPOKEN DIALOGUE TO FULL NATURAL INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE. THEORY, EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION. 29 May 2000 - immediately before LREC 2000, Athens, Greece http://www.nis.sdu.dk/lrec2000workshop SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS Spoken dialogue systems have been in the marketplace since around 1990. Whereas the first systems only had single word recognition there has been a steady development towards increasingly natural spoken dialogue. The most advanced current systems still work within a limited task domain but some are capable of understanding and replying to fairly long user utterances, coping with various kinds of initiative, and taking a variety of contextual issues into account. Naturalness, as perceived by the user, is closely connected to properties such as allowed user utterance length, grammar, vocabulary, style and initiative. Depending on task and situation, perceived naturalness is also connected to how the user can interact with the system. In human-human communication we normally do not restrict ourselves to using speech-only but also include gesture, facial expression, and bodily posture and we often draw on other information sources such as diagrams, maps and drawings. Natural interactive dialogue and conversational systems are moving centre-stage because of increasing interest in adding other modalities to achieve a larger potential than speech alone can offer. Several recent conversational prototype systems include one or several natural interaction modalities in addition to speech. However, there are many open questions and unsolved or insufficiently explored problems related to extending spoken dialogue management and dialogue interfaces to enable increased natural interactivity. The workshop aims to bring together researchers and developers in the area of natural interactive dialogue. The goal of the workshop is to highlight and evaluate empirically based theories and methods for natural multimodal conversational dialogue management and dialogue interfaces, and their evaluation. Focus will be on key issues such as dialogue initiative, reference, communicative acts, feedback, and cooperativity. TOPICS Topics of interest should fall within theory, empirical analysis, and evaluation of key issues in the transition from spoken dialogue to full natural interactive dialogue. Topics include but are not limited to: - Cooperative natural interactive dialogue interfaces and usability - Experience from natural interactive systems development and evaluation - Integration of natural interactivity modalities - Empirically based theories in support of natural interactive dialogue management and interfaces - Communicative acts (beyond speech acts) - Reference in a multimodal context - Dialogue initiative - Task management - Feedback - Methods for evaluation of natural interactive dialogue management and dialogue interfaces SUBMISSION DETAILS Extended abstracts should be around 4 pages in length. Final papers should not exceed six pages. Extended abstracts must be submitted electronically to lailaMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue