LINGUIST List 7.1732

Sun Dec 8 1996

FYI: European summer school on lg acq

Editor for this issue: Susan Robinson <robinsonemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Sven Stroemqvist, European summer school on lg acq

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 EUROPEAN SUMMER SCHOOL

 "The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition:

 - an integrated approach"

 August 13-22 1997

Sponsors: The Nordic Academy for Advanced Study and the European 
 Commission DG XII Science, Research and Development, TMR Programme
Location: Kystgaarden, Nyborg, Fyn, Denmark
Time: August 13-22 1997
Participation: the summer school is planned for around 30 participants. 
 Student participation is open to young researchers, both post-graduate 
 students and post-docs, 15 from the Nordic countries and 15 from 
 other countries in Europe
Structure and content: theoretically oriented seminars in the morning, 
 methodologically oriented workshops in the afternoon (longitudinal 
 data collection designs; experimental designs; the usage of tools 
 for computer aided data collection and analysis; field work)
 and presentations and discussion of the participants' own on-going 
 research in the evenings. The focus is on child first language 
 acquisition, especially language for talking about space and time, 
 but issues of bilingual development, narrative development and 
 the development of writing are also included.
Teaching staff: at this point not fully determined, but includes 
 prof Werner Deutsch
 Technische Universitaet Braunschweig, Germany;
 prof Harriet Jisa
 Dynamique du Langage, Maison Rhone-Alpes de Sciences de l'Homme, 
 France;
 prof Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdottir, 
 University College of Education, 
 Reykjavik, Iceland; 
 Dr Elizabeth Lanza and Dr Hanne Gram Simonsen, 
 Dept of Linguistics and Philosophy, 
 University of Oslo, Norway; 
 Dr Chris Sinha, 
 Institute of Psychology, 
 University of AArhus, Denmark; 
 Dr Magdalena Smoczynska, 
 Jagiellonian University, 
 Krakow, Poland; 
 prof Sven Stroemqvist 
 Dept of Linguistics, 
 University of Goeteborg, Sweden
Technical staff: 1 programmer/systems manager (participants are 
 encouraged to bring their own laptop, if they have one (Mac/PC))

Organizer: 
 prof Sven Stroemqvist (scientist in charge of the proposal)
 Dept of Linguistics, 
 University of Goeteborg, Sweden
 412 98 Goeteborg, Sweden 
 Fax +46 31 7734853
 svenling.gu.se
 prof Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdottir (co-organizer)
 University College of Education, 
 Reykjavik, Iceland; 
 Fax +354 5 633833
 hragnarsismennt.is

Application procedure: Please send your application to 
 prof Sven Stroemqvist or 
 prof Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdottir 
 by e-mail, fax or mail at the above addresses. 
 Your application should include a short Curriculum Vitae 
 and a brief description of your current research (as a 
 post-graduate student or post-doc). 
Deadline of application: April 1, 1997
Terms: The summer school will cover your living expenses during 
 the period of the summer school and reimburse you for your travel 
 costs within reasonable limits
 
>From the proposal abstract: 
"The past 15 years has seen major developments in the study of 
first language acquisition, especially in its methodological 
and empirical foundations. This situation makes possible the 
advancement of an integrated approach to first language 
acquisition. The first foundation of this integrated approach 
is the crosslinguistic study of language acquisition: to seek 
to understand how the diversity of the languages of the world 
shapes the diversity of developmental paths and language 
acquisition careers. The second foundation is a truly broad 
time window on the developmental process: from perceptual 
preferences in infancy at one end to narrative skills and 
language dependant rhetoric in adolescence and adulthood at 
the other.

The proposed summer school project "The cross-linguistic study 
of language acquisition: an integrated approach" would contribute 
to scientific advancement along these lines, especially in view of 
the linguistic diversity of Europe. The different language groups 
of Europe (Germanic, Slavic, Romance, Finno-Ugric, Turkic etc) 
provide an excellent basis for studying acquisition both across 
and within groups of languages. The advancement of the proposed 
line of research can also be expected to have important implications 
for the teaching of European languages as first languages and as 
second or foreign languages, and it also has a potential for a 
deeper understanding of the diversity of typologically determined 
language learning careers as a basis for problems and solutions in 
the areas of translation and interpretation.

...The study of language acquisition is a multi-disciplinary 
field with the participation of linguists, psychologists, 
phoneticians, cognitive scientists, social psychologists, 
anthropologists, and educational scientists. Institutionalized 
fora, however, for acquisition research are very rare, and 
the proposed summer school represents an important event which 
would attract the participation of young researchers and other 
researchers from target groups. The organizing committee will 
encourage participation that reflects the linguistic diversity 
of Europe, so as to reinforce the cross-linguistic rationale for 
the event. We are confident that the summer school will mean an 
important impetus to the advancement and propagation of knowledge 
of language acquisition, especially of its cross-linguistic 
foundations. We are also confident that there is a growing demand 
for this type of knowledge in Europe, which is in the process of 
getting increasingly integrated." 

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