LINGUIST List 18.1875

Thu Jun 21 2007

Calls: General Ling/Germany; General Ling/Australia

Editor for this issue: Ania Kubisz <anialinguistlist.org>

Directory         1.    Stefan Hinterwimmer, Topicality
         2.    Monika Bednarek, University of Sydney Free Linguistics Conference
Message 1: Topicality
Date: 20-Jun-2007
From: Stefan Hinterwimmer <stefan.hinterwimmerrz.hu-berlin.de>
Subject: Topicality


Full Title: Topicality

Date: 27-Feb-2008 - 29-Feb-2008 Location: Bamberg, Germany Contact Person: Stefan Hinterwimmer Meeting Email: stefan.hinterwimmerrz.hu-berlin.de

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Call Deadline: 15-Aug-2007

Meeting Description

Topicality, Workshop at the 30th annual meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS), Bamberg, 27-29 February 2008.

Organized by Cornelia Endriss (Universitaet Osnabrueck, Institut fuer Kognitionswissenschaft), Stefan Hinterwimmer (Humboldt Universitaet Berlin, Institut fuer deutsche Sprache und Linguistik) and Sophie Repp (Humboldt Universitaet Berlin, Institut fuer deutsche Sprache und Linguistik).

Topicality

Workshop at the 30th meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), Bamberg, Germany February 27-29, 2008

This workshop investigates interpretative and formal aspects of topicality in individual languages as well as cross-linguistically. Its goal is both a more precise and a more comprehensive understanding of the notion of topicality. According to the probably most current view, topics are what a sentence is about (= aboutness). However, the notion of topic is many-facetted and topics have been suggested to have other interpretative functions as well. For instance, they are thought to serve as discourse addresses. Furthermore, they often have been associated with discourse givenness but since indefinites in many languages can also occur in topic positions this latter view must be questioned. In addition to the aspects just mentioned there are interpretative functions which have been associated with topicality that are not directly topical in the sense of aboutness such as frame setting or the structuring of contrastive discourses. On top of that, it has been argued that topicality can have truth-conditional effects, e.g. in the interpretation of indefinites and quantificational adverbs. Topics are marked with different means in different languages: syntactically, prosodically, with morphological markers. Topic markers and topic marking constructions have also been observed to serve uses other than topic marking. The Japanese marker wa, for instance, or the Korean marker nun can also mark contrastiveness. Left dislocation in German shares this characteristic. Furthermore, in many languages - e.g. Tagalog, Vietnamese, Turkish - a topic marker is used to mark the antecedent of conditionals, which suggests that this antecedent might be topical. Finally, topic markers cannot only occur in matrix clauses but also in embedded clauses. Since this is unexpected from the point of view of discourse organisation the precise interpretation of such ''topic-marked'' structures calls for closer inspection.

Building on these observations, the workshop aims at exploring the various ingredients in the interpretation of topicality. Part of this is an investigation of the means of topic marking and the relation between topicality and other functions of topic markers, which cannot be interpreted as (directly) topical, such as the mentioned contrastiveness.

Abstracts should be anonymous, max. two pages, examples and references included, 12pt, pdf format. The talks will be 20 minutes (30 minute slots). Name(s), affiliation(s), and title of the abstract should be included in the body of the email.

E-mail address: topicality_lists.hu-berlin.de (replace the underscore by the usual sign). Submission deadline: August 15, 2007 Notification: September 15, 2007
Message 2: University of Sydney Free Linguistics Conference
Date: 19-Jun-2007
From: Monika Bednarek <Monika.Bednarekphil.uni-augsburg.de>
Subject: University of Sydney Free Linguistics Conference



Full Title: University of Sydney Free Linguistics Conference Short Title: FreeLing

Date: 06-Oct-2007 - 07-Oct-2007 Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia Contact Person: Ahmar Mahboob Meeting Email: freelingarts.usyd.edu.au Web Site: http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/index.php?cf=14

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Call Deadline: 31-Aug-2007

Meeting Description

We would like to invite you to the first international Free Linguistics Conference from 6th- 7th October 2007 at the University of Sydney, Australia. The aim of this conference is to provide scholars, researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students with current research issues from all fields of linguistics & TESOL in an open and widely accessible forum.

Contact: Dr. Ahmar Mahboob, Naomi Knight

Call for papers (posted on behalf of Dr. Ahmar Mahboob and Naomi Knight)

First international Free Linguistics Conference at the University of Sydney, Australia.

The main feature that distinguishes this conference is its focus on freedom:

- freedom from linguistic subfield divisions, - freedom from an established and rigid theme for presentations, and - freedom from fees

Featured speakers at this conference include:

Monika Bednarek, University of Sydney & University of Ausburg Anne Burns, Macquarie University Jim Martin, University of Sydney Alastair Pennycook, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Helen Tebble, Monash University Michael Walsh, University of Sydney

Authors are invited to submit abstracts for papers, colloquia, poster presentations, or hot topics.

- Colloquia (abstract max of 250 words): Colloquia will be 90 minutes in length. Their internal structure is up to their organizers, but sufficient time for discussion is encouraged.

- Single papers (abstract max of 250 words): Papers will be 40 minutes in length, with 30 minutes for presentation, 10 minutes for questions/discussion.

- Hot topics (abstract max of 250 words): Hot topic talks will be 20 minutes in length, with 10 minutes for the talk and 10 minutes for Q&A/discussion. We especially welcome proposals in this category from young researchers/students with new and challenging ideas.

- Poster presentations (abstract max of 250 words): Poster presentations will be given in groups with a 30-minute allotment per session. This format may suit young researchers who want to present their work in a less formal format.

Abstracts are invited from any linguistic (and TESOL) sub-fields, and presenters may choose from the following strands:

Aboriginal Languages, Cognitive Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, Critical Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, First Language Acquisition, Forensic Linguistics, Language & Culture, Language in Education, Language Policy & Planning, Languages Other Than English (LOTE), Multilingualism, Natural Language Processing, Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics, Second/Additional Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, TESOL, Translation, Interpretation, Other.

Abstracts

This conference, which uses Open Conference Systems developed by the Public Knowledge Project, enables participants to submit abstracts online at http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/submit.php?cf=14.

Further Conference Information

Further details about the conference, including travel and accommodation information, programmes and abstracts will be posted on the conference website:

http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/index.php?cf=14