LINGUIST List 13.140

Mon Jan 21 2002

Calls: Lexical-Functional Grammar, Ling in the Schools

Editor for this issue: Renee Galvis <reneelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Rachel Nordlinger, LFG2002 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS
2. Kristin Denham, Linguistics in the schools book proposal

	 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS
 LFG2002

 2002 INTERNATIONAL LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL
 GRAMMAR CONFERENCE

 DATES 3-5 July 2002

 National Technical University of Athens, Greece
 URL: http://thais.cs.ece.ntua.gr/LFG2002/

 Abstract submission receipt deadline: 15 February 2002
 Submissions should be sent to the LFG Program Committee
 (see addresses below)


The 7th International Lexical Functional Grammar Conference will be
held by the Computer Science Division of the Department of Electrical
and Computing Engineering at the National Technical University of
Athens, Greece from 3 to 5 July 2002.

LFG-2002 welcomes work both within the formal architecture of
Lexical-Functional Grammar and typological, formal, and computational
work within the 'spirit of LFG', as a lexicalist approach to language
employing a parallel, constraint-based framework. The conference aims
to promote interaction and collaboration among researchers interested
in nonderivational approaches to grammar, where grammar is seen as the
interaction of (perhaps violable) constraints from multiple levels,
including category information, grammatical relations, and semantic
information. Further information about the syntactic theory LFG can
be obtained from:

 http://clwww.essex.ac.uk/LFG/ and
 http://www-lfg.stanford.edu/lfg/


SUBMISSIONS

The conference will primarily involve 30-minute talks, poster/system
presentations and workshops. Talks and poster presentations will
focus on results from completed as well as ongoing research, with an
emphasis on novel approaches, methods, ideas, and perspectives,
whether descriptive, theoretical, formal or
computational. Presentations should describe original, unpublished
work.


POSTERS

This year we're going to encourage an active poster session. All
presenters will be invited to display posters and to have a chance to
chat in more detail with participants about their work. In addition
we will accept papers for poster presentation only. Poster presenters
will be asked not to use their laptops in their presentations.


WORKSHOPS

Workshops are a small group of talks (2-4) on a coherent topic that
can be expected to generate opposing views and discussion with the
broader audience. Participants to workshops are usually
invited. Workshop papers should be distributed in advance among
participants and participants should refer to each others approaches.

At this point in time, we welcome suggestions for workshops from
potential organisers or people with certain interests. Suggestions
for workshops should be sent to the local organizers at:
marksilsp.gr.


STUDENT SESSION

This year we are planning to hold a special student session. We
invite submissions of abstracts for presentations of LFG-related PhD
dissertations and Master theses (or other student research theses)
that have been recently completed, or will be completed by the time of
the conference. The format of the student session talks will be 20
minutes of presentation, followed by a 10-minute discussion period.
For the students presenting at the student session, the conference
fees will be waived.

The submission of abstracts should follow the specifications for the
main LFG talks. **Please indicate clearly that you intend to submit
your abstract to the student session.** In the body of your email
message (or on a separate page if you are submitting a hard copy)
please also include the following additional information: thesis
title, degree type, supervisor, university, and (expected/actual) date
of submission. For further enquiries please email the program
committee at the addresses below.


TIMETABLE

Deadline for receipt of talk submissions: 	15 February 2002
Late deadline for poster-only submissions: 	15 March 2002
Acceptances sent out: 	31 March 2002

Deadline for workshop submissions: 		15 January 2002
Workshop acceptances: 				15 February 2002

Conference: 	3-5 July 2002


SUBMISSION SPECIFICATIONS

Abstracts for talks must be received by February 15, 2002, while
poster-only abstracts will be accepted until March 15, 2002. All
abstracts should be sent to the program committee chairs at the
addresses given below. For workshops, further site information or
offers of organisational help, contact the local organisers at the
addresses below.

Submissions should be in the form of abstracts only. In contrast to
previous years, we are not acccepting the submission of full papers.
Abstracts should be one A4 page in 10pt or larger type and include a
title. Omit name and affiliation, and obvious self reference. A second
page may be used for data, c-/f- and related structures, and
references.

Submissions should indicate whether they wish to be considered only as
a talk, as either a talk or a poster, or only as a
poster/demonstration. In the absence of specification, submissions
will be considered for both classes, and the program chairs may decide
that certain submissions are better as poster presentations than as
read papers.

Abstracts may be submitted by email or by regular mail (or by both
means as a safety measure). Email submission is preferred.

Regular Mail:
Include:
- Eight copies of the abstract/paper.
- A card or cover sheet with the paper title, name(s) of the
author(s), affiliation, address, phone/fax number, e-mail address, and
whether the author(s) are students.

Email:
Include the paper title, name(s) of the author(s), address, phone/fax
number, email address, and whether the author(s) are students in the
body of your email message. Include or preferably attach your paper
as either a plain ASCII text, PDF, HTML, or postscript file.
Postscript files require special care to avoid problems: make sure
your system is set to include all fonts (or at least all but the
standard 13); if using a recent version of Word, make sure you click
the printer Properties button and then the Postscript tab, and there
choose Optimize for Portability; on all platforms make sure the system
is not asking for a particular paper size or other device-specific
configuration. It is your responsibility to send us a file that us
and our reviewers can print. You can often test this by trying to
look at the file in a screen previewer such as Ghostview.

All abstracts will be reviewed by at least three people. Papers will
appear in the proceedings, which will be published online by CSLI
Publications. Selected papers may also appear in a printed volume
published by CSLI Publications.

ORGANISERS AND THEIR CONTACT ADDRESSES

Send abstract submissions and inquiries about submissions to:

Program Committee Chairs:

 Jonas Kuhn <jonaskstanford.edu>
 Rachel Nordlinger <rachelnunimelb.edu.au>

Mail:
 LFG2002
 c/- Jonas Kuhn
 Department of Linguistics
 Stanford University
	 	 Stanford, CA 94305-2150
 USA

Contact the local conference organisers at:

Email: Yanis Maistros <maistroscs.ntua.gr>
	Stella Markantonatou <marksilsp.gr>

Mail: Yiannis Maistros
	9 Heroon Polytechniou St
	15773 Zografou
	Greece

	Stella Markantonatou
	Institute for Language and Speech Processing
	Artemidos 6 & Epidavrou St
	15125 Paradisos Amarousiou
	Greece



ALL OTHER INFORMATION including accommodation and registration details
is available on the conference website:

 http://thais.cs.ece.ntua.gr/LFG2002/

CALL FOR PAPERS

BOOK PROPOSAL
Bringing Linguistics into the Schools: 
Preparing K-12 Teachers 

Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck 
Western Washington University

We are collecting articles for a volume on practical applications of
linguistics in the public school classroom (outlined in detail
below). We are presently negotiating with several different
publishers, and will submit a final proposal after we have completed
the list of contributors and finalized the organization of the
volume. Please send a one page abstract to one of us if you would like
to contribute to this volume. Our postal and email addresses are
below. (Please send abstracts electronically if at all possible, or
send abstracts on disk, preferably in a current version of Word.).

English Department
Western Washington University
Bellingham, WA 98225-9055

Kristin Denham		Kristin.Denhamwwu.edu 
Anne Lobeck 		Anne.Lobeckwwu.edu

Deadlines for submission: March 1, 2002

Goals of the Book: 

Traditionally, Linguistics, the study of grammatical systems and their
social uses, has not been included as a field of study in teacher
training curricula. Lately, however, more and more teacher training
programs are requiring courses on linguistics, in an attempt to deepen
students' understanding of the workings of language. Some of the
relevant topics of study in linguistics that can be applied in the
K-12 classroom are listed below.

a.	principles of sentence structure (syntax) 
b.	word formation (morphology)
c.	sound patterns (phonology)
d.	sentence and word meanings (semantics)
e.	conversational and discourse patterns and strategies (pragmatics) 
f.	language acquisition of a first language
g.	acquiring or learning a second language (bilingualism)
h.	language change over time (from Old to Middle to Present Day English)
i.	language variation (by region, ethnicity, race or class, etc.)
j.	language and social identity
k.	language as a tool of discrimination 

It is not necessarily difficult (for linguists) to outline ways in
which the topics listed above are relevant to public school
teaching. Study of sentence structure, word formation and sound
patterns can be related to writing (from academic essays to poetry)
and understanding different cultural literacies. Semantics contributes
to our understanding of word and sentence meaning, and pragmatics
helps us understand conversational patterns, narrative structure, and
discourse routines (in oral and written language). Knowledge of
language acquisition can be applied in analyzing developmental
patterns in both basic and advanced writers, and to teaching writing
and reading in a bilingual classroom. Knowledge of language change and
variation helps us negotiate between academic and home speech
varieties in reading, writing and speaking in a variety of
ways. Understanding that all language varieties are patterned and
systematic helps situate 'standard' and 'non-standard' varieties of
English in the classroom in reasoned rather than discriminatory
ways. Studying language change deepens our understanding of language
as a dynamic system, expressed by shifts in word meanings and syntax,
and reflected in the (notoriously inconsistent) English spelling
system. Studying how our social identities are constructed through
language helps dispel myths and stereotypes based on language, and
fosters linguistic equality in an increasingly multicultural world.

Though offering linguistics courses as part of the teacher training
curriculum is an important first step toward integrating linguistics
into the school curriculum, an even larger challenge remains, namely
to create linguistics courses for teachers that actually bridge theory
and practice. That is, it is not enough for students to take content
courses in linguistics as part of their teacher training
program. Prospective teachers must also be guided in how to
effectively apply this knowledge in their own classrooms.
 

Target Audience

This book will offer ways to practically apply linguistics in the K-12
classroom from a variety of perspectives, toward a variety of
different ends. Though some articles focus specifically on the
language arts (teaching oral and written expression, literacy), others
address applications of linguistics in content areas (teaching math in
a bilingual classroom, for example). Other articles will address
educational policy and the place of linguistics in educational
ideologies. The book is geared primarily toward teachers and students
in teacher preparation programs, though we hope that practicing
teachers in the public schools will also find the articles useful. The
audience for the book is presumed to have no prior training in
linguistics, though the articles are designed to overlap with content
courses in a range of areas in linguistics.


Organization

We hope to organize the book in two alternative templates to provide
instructors with a choice of presenting the material in different
formats. The book will thus be easily navigated by linguists
interested in teacher training, but also by readers who approach the
book from the vantage of education.

Two possible ways articles could be organized are as follows
(depending on content of articles submitted):

Organization I. 
Phonetics and Phonology 
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics and Discourse
Language Acquisition
Language Change
Language Variation
Language and Society

Organization II. 
Linguistics and Composition 
Linguistics and Literacy
Linguistics and Literary Analysis 
Linguistics and the Bilingual Classroom
Linguistics and the ESL Classroom 
Linguistics, Education and Social Policy
Linguistics and Assessment


Relation to other work in the field

As mentioned above, though some teacher education programs require
courses in linguistics, such courses typically focus on content rather
than on pedagogy. That is, though prospective teachers may take a
course on historical linguistics or a course on English syntax, these
courses may not specifically focus on pedagogical applications of
linguistics in the K-12 classroom. Our proposed book would therefore
contribute to the important emergent literature bridging linguistic
theory and practice in public school teaching. The book could be used
as either a classroom text for a linguistics course in an education
program, or as a resource for education courses in related areas.

Contributors so far: 

Edwin Battistella, University of Southern Oregon
John Baugh, Stanford University
Robert Bayley, University of Texas
Kristin Denham, Western Washington University
Sharon Klein, University of California, Northridge
Anne Lobeck, Western Washington University
Patricia Nichols, San Jose State University
Margaret Speas, University of Massachusetts
Rebecca Wheeler, Christopher Newport University