LINGUIST List 6.1713

Thu Dec 7 1995

Calls: Theoretical and applied ling, Romance ling

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. , Call for papers: Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
2. , CALL FOR PAPERS: THE NORTH-WEST CENTRE FOR ROMANCE LINGUISTICS

	CALL FOR PAPERS

 10th International Symposium on
 Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
	April 24-26, 1996

 Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

	School of English,
 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Papers on English and/or Greek are invited from all areas of
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics --Phonetics, Phonology,
Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics,
Psycholinguistics, Discourse Analysis, Foreign Language Teaching
Methodology, LSP, Teaching Translation and Interpretation, Historical
Linguistics, Lexicology, Lexicography, First and Second Language
Acquisition, etc.

The official languages of the symposium will be English and
Greek. Papers should be up to 30 minutes long, and will be followed by
a 10-minute discussion. It is the intention of the Organizing
Committee to publish the full texts of all the papers in the Symposium
Proceedings. Instructions for photo-ready papers will be sent to
authors upon acceptance of their abstracts.

			SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS

Abstracts submitted for considration should reach the Organizing
Committee not later than March 31, 1996. They should be up to one page
long, single-spaced, unreduced, camera-ready. Accepted abstracts will
be published in the Symposium Programme.

Organizing Committee:

Athanasios Kakouriotis (chair)

Lefteris Panagopoulos 	 (vice-chair)
Elsa Mela-Athanasopoulou (secretary)
Lena Agathopoulou (member)
Roubina Tokou-Ninou	 (member)

Mailing Address:

Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics,
School of English,
Aristotle University,
540 06 Thessaloniki,
Greece.

Tel. nos: +31 997457 -- +31 997479
FAX no: +31 997432
e-mail: panagopoulosolymp.ccf.auth.gr

*****************************************************************************

 CALL FOR PAPERS

 THE NORTH-WEST CENTRE FOR ROMANCE LINGUISTICS
 (The Universities of Manchester, Salford,
 UMIST and Manchester Metropolitan)

 ONE-DAY WORKSHOP

 THE DATA OF LINGUISTICS:
 FROM CORPORA TO INTUITIONS AND BACK AGAIN

 Saturday, 16 March 1996, 10.00am - 4.00pm
 Venue: University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK

While corpus-based approaches figured prominently in Bloomfieldian and
post-Bloomfieldian linguistics, the rise of generative grammar was
accompanied by a rejection of corpora - and the `positive' evidence
they contained - as the major source of evidence for the construction
of a theory of language. The fundamental importance of grammatical
judgements (`intuitions') was stressed in Chomskyan work alongside a
critique of the ultimate relevance of probabilistic corpus-based
models for linguistics. Indeed, in a well-known quotation, Chomsky
went as far as to assert: "In linguistics, it seems to me that
sharpening of the data by more objective tests is a matter of small
importance for the problem at hand. One who disagrees with this
estimate of the present situation in linguistics can justify his
belief in the current importance of more objective operational tests
by showing how they can lead to new and deeper understanding of
linguistic structure" (Aspects, 1965: 20-21). While this position was
by no means accepted by all linguists (cf. the quantitative work of
Labov in sociolinguistics, for example), it seems to have been taken
for granted by many linguists over the last twenty years or so. More
recently, the growth of computational techniques and the devising of
large- scale corpora have led to a backlash: many specialists in
Natural Language Processing believe that corpus linguistics is the
sole way forward and that intuition-based approaches are too limited
and too subjective to play a central role in linguistic description.
In addition to this type of approach, the need to sharpen the data has
continued to be seen as central by linguists working within a number
of fields (sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, phonetics), who have
often been critical of the Chomskyan generative tradition with respect
to data.

The purpose of this workshop is to allow for a discussion and
debate around the nature of the data of linguistics. Among
possible questions for discusion are the following: What is the
data of linguistic theory? What is the status of `grammaticality
judgements' in current generative grammar? Can refining data
lead to `quantum leaps' in the description of language? Is
corpus linguistics a genuine alternative to classical intuition-
based approaches? Or is it merely complementary? Can it help
resolve deep questions concerning the nature of language?

Potential contributors are requested to submit one-page abstracts
to the address below by Friday 2 February 1996. E-mail and fax
submissions are acceptable.

Organisers: Paul Bennett, Jacques Durand, Paul Rowlett

For further information, contact:
Paul Rowlett
European Studies Research Institute
University of Salford
Salford M5 4WT
Greater Manchester
Tel: +44 (0)161 745 5990
Fax: +44 (0)161 745 5335
E-mail: P.A.Rowlettmod-lang.salford.ac.uk