5th Afrikaans Grammar Workshop
Short Title: AGW5

Date: 05-Sep-2025 - 05-Sep-2025
Location: Ann Arbor, USA
Contact: Andries Coetzee
Contact Email: [email protected]
Meeting URL: https://viva-afrikaans.org/portale/inligtingsportaal-reg/afrikaansewerkswinkel

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Afrikaans (afr)
Language Family(ies): West Germanic

The fifth installment of the biannual Afrikaans Grammar Workshop (AGW) will be hosted this year by the University of Michigan, USA. This follows on from the highly successful workshops previously held in South Africa (2016, 2023), Belgium (2018) and the Netherlands (2021).

Like several of the previous workshops, AGW5 will be a hybrid event, with participation available both online and in person at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. The workshop aims to bring together researchers from different theoretical and methodological perspectives who study Afrikaans linguistics. We welcome contributions on any aspect of Afrikaans linguistics, including lexicography, orthography, phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Papers that compare Afrikaans grammar with other West Germanic or unrelated languages’ grammar are also welcomed, as are papers on the diachronic development of Afrikaans grammar, the role of language contact on the grammar, and current grammatical variation.

We are honoured to also announce our two keynote speakers:

(i) Paul Roberge (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)
(ii) Adri Breed (North-West University, South Africa)

Language of presentations: As at previous workshops, the language of presentation at AGW5 will be English.

Length of presentations: All presentations will be 20 minutes long, with an additional 10 minutes for Q&A.

Peer-reviewed conference proceedings: Participants will have the choice to either only present a paper at the workshop, or to also develop their presentation into a short paper for publication in the conference proceedings. Each paper submitted for publication will be reviewed by two anonymous peer reviewers, and will also receive an ISBN number. Proceedings will be published in electronic format on the AGW website.

Student and early-career researchers: Student and early-career researchers: In particular, we invite students and early-career researchers to submit abstracts, including abstracts based on work in progress or on a research proposal. AGW provides an ideal venue for students and early-career researchers to receive feedback on their research plans.

Instructions for abstract submission:

Abstract can be submitted via EasyChair at https://easychair.org/cfp/AGW5.
(i) The text of the abstract should fit on a single page (either A4 or letter size). A second page can be used for examples, figures, and references.
(ii) Use 12 point font size and single spacing.
(iii) Please submit the abstract in Microsoft Word (or other compatible) format, with minimal formatting (i.e., avoid using your own styles).
(iv) All abstracts must be submitted online via EasyChair before 23:59 (SAST) on March 31, 2025.