|
LINGUISTIC VARIATION ACROSS THE
LIFESPAN
May 2-3, 2008
The Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State
University will host a symposium entitled
Linguistic Variation Across the Lifespan on May
2-3, 2008. The symposium will bring together
scholars from linguistics and related disciplines,
including psychology, speech and hearing sciences,
and anthropology, to examine variability as a
fundamental property of human language at all life
stages. The symposium will focus on questions about
the sources of linguistic variability at each life
stage and the implications of these sources of
variability for language processing, acquisition,
perception, and social identity construction. For
example, in early childhood, how does variability
relate to the acquisition process? In adulthood,
how does stylistic variation mark membership in
communities centered around work or leisure? In
later life, how do physical changes in the vocal
tract contribute to linguistic and social sources
of variability? By bringing together scholars
interested in acquisition, stylistic variation, and
aging, this symposium will also provide the
opportunity to extend research questions beyond
their typical life stage. For example, how does
language acquisition continue beyond childhood? How
could we view adulthood as characterized as much by
variability and transition as other life
stages?
The symposium will include invited talks by:
Penelope Eckert, Stanford University
Carla Hudson Kam, University of California,
Berkeley
Benjamin Munson, University of Minnesota
Gillian Sankoff, University of Pennsylvania
We invite abstracts for contributed talks on
research examining variation at all levels of
linguistic representation in infants, children,
adolescents, and adults. We hope that the final
symposium program will represent a wide range of
approaches to linguistic varability from infancy
through late life, including formal, experimental,
computational, sociolinguistic, developmental, and
historical perspectives.
Contributed talks will be 20 minutes plus 10
minutes for questions.
Abstracts of at most 500 words should be
submitted as an email attachment to springsym@ling.osu.edu
in pdf (preferred) or Word format by January 18,
2008. Please include only the title and text of the
abstract in the attachment. The authors’
names, affiliations, and postal and email addresses
should be included in the text of the email.
Please email springsym@ling.osu.edu
if you have any questions.
|
