Call for papers

Submission of papers for the ALS2007 Conference has now closed.

• Main call for papers
• Workshop on the language of poetry and song
• Workshop on definiteness and referentiality

Call for papers (main session)

All Members of the Australian Linguistic Society wishing to present a 20 minute paper on any area of linguistic research followed by 10 minutes of discussion at the 2007 ALS Meeting are invited to submit a one page abstract containing the following information:

• Name(s) of author(s) (to be removed for refereeing purposes)
• Institutional affiliation(s) (if any)
• E-mail address
• Title of proposed paper
• Keywords
• Abstract of proposed paper including list of references where applicable

You may like to think about a paper oriented to the shared day with the Indigenous Languages Conference on a topic of mutual interest to both linguists and Indigenous language workers.

All submissions will be anonymously refereed.

Only members of ALS may present a paper at the annual conference. Information about membership of ALS can be found here.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 16th March 2007. The abstract should be in .rtf format. To reduce font problems, please attempt to use one of the standardly available fonts (e.g. Times New Roman, Helvetica), or one of the SIL Unicode fonts Charis SIL or Doulos SIL. If for some reason this is not possible, please consult with us first about the possible font issues. Abstracts should be submitted electronically as an email attachment with the filename YOURNAME_ALS2007 (where YOURNAME is the family name or surname of the first author). Please give the subject line of the email as "YOURNAME ALS abstract".

Send the abstract to [email protected].

We will notify you of whether your paper has been accepted by April 30th 2007. Accepted abstracts will be posted on the ALS2007 website.

Following the conference, presenters will be invited to submit full versions of their papers to appear in DEST-level refereed conference proceedings.

Language of poetry and song (workshop)

The 'Language of poetry and song' is a one-day cross-disciplinary workshop at the annual conference of the Australian Linguistic Society held at the University of Adelaide, September 26-28, 2007.

The workshop is an opportunity for researchers working on either recent or traditional musical genres within linguistics, ethnomusicology or anthropology to explore linguistic features of song/poetry with others working in this field.

Papers should address issues such as

• How do musical form and linguistic form interact?
• Are there restrictions on the types of grammatical structures found in song/poetry?
• Can words be shortened or extended to fit song metre?
• What sorts of special vocabulary do they contain? If there are 'fillers' what are their metrical purposes?
• How do the intended meanings of song/poetry differ, or go beyond, the meanings in speech?
• How do the meanings and broader significances of song/poetry relate to the local social context?

Papers addressing other issues relating to the language of song or poetry are also welcome. Presentations should be 20 minutes long with 10 minutes for questions.

Abstracts must not be longer than 300 words and be submitted by March 16th, 2007 in word or PDF format to [email protected].

Definiteness and referentiality: Theory and description (workshop)

Workshop website:
http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~bbaker2/ALS2007DefWorkshop/index.htm.

A workshop on Definiteness and Referentiality will be held in conjunction with ALS 2007. We welcome papers on all aspects of definiteness (and specificity) in Australian, Austronesian, Asian and other natural languages, and in all areas of linguistics including sociolinguistics, language variation and change, first and second language acquisition, conversational analysis, and cognitive processing of definiteness.

The theme of the workshop will be Definiteness and Referentiality: Theory and Description. We welcome submissions dealing with any of the following:

• data based studies of definiteness properties in particular languages
• theoretical aspects of definiteness and/or specificity
• the article systems of language group(s)
• the interaction of definiteness/specificity with the grammar of a language
• the behavior of subsystems within languages, e.g. polarity references and number and quantification of nouns
• the acquisition and development of definiteness properties in child and second languages
• language change in progress with respect to a property or subsystem of a language.

We plan to have both a general session and a poster session. Proposals for either session should include the author's name and affiliation, contact details (including e-mail and postal addresses), title of the paper, institutional affiliations (if any), keywords , and a one page abstract of no more than 500 words, excluding examples and references. Key references may include, but are not limited to, the work of Irene Heim, M. Enc, Kamp & Reyle (DRT), B. Partee, Donka Farkas, T. Givon, Christopher Lyons, J. Hawkins, and M. Haspelmath.

When submitting your abstract, please indicate whether it is for a paper or a poster, and, if for a paper, please state whether you would be prepared to be considered for a poster instead.

Papers in the general session will be 20 minutes in length, with a further 10 minutes question and discussion time. Posters will be displayed for one whole day, with a time slot left specifically for discussing them. Poster sessions are ideal for feedback on work in progress. Honors students are encouraged to apply.

Each abstract will be blind reviewed on the basis of the following criteria:

• Topic appropriate to the workshop
• Paper contributing new knowledge on the topic
• Argument supported by data from natural language
• Clear statement of results
• Overall quality as seen from the abstract

Submissions should be sent electronically to [email protected]. In the e-mail subject line, please write 'NAME ALSDEFworkshop' where NAME is your surname. The abstracts should be sent in the body of the e-mail message and also as an attachment in PDF or rtf format with filename: YOUR NAME_ALSDEFworkshop.

Deadline for abstracts is March 16th with notification of acceptance by the end of April.

Selected papers from the workshop will be peer reviewed according to DEST standards and published in a special volume devoted to the workshop theme.

The Workshop organizers are Brett Baker (University of New England), Marie Fellbaum Korpi (The Australian National University), Harumi Minagawa (The University of Auckland) and Lesley Stirling (The University of Melbourne).