The Graduate Conference on Areal Linguistics, Grammar and Contacts will take place in the sunny springtime Tartu, Estonia, from the 4th until the 6th of May 2012. The conference is aimed at MA and PhD students, postdocs and young researchers with interests in language contact related topics, areal linguistics and typology. The purpose of the conference is to offer aspiring linguists the chance to present their work, receive broad-based feedback, and get acquainted with the perspectives and research themes beyond the borders of one's homeland. We also see this gathering as an international meeting place for young linguists who share similar research interests or work on the same languages. We invite talks dealing with research topics centered around (but not necessarily limited to) the following themes:
- Contact-induced phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical change;
- Lexical and grammatical replication, shared grammaticalization;
- Typological investigations and wider perspectives on linguistic areas;
- Circum-Baltic languages in general;
- Language contact and sociolinguistics;
- Language contact and dialectal variation;
- L1 and L2 acquisition related matters in connection with the overall themes;
- Globalization and its effect on minor(ity) languages;
- Synchronic, diachronic and panchronic approaches to language contact and linguistic areas.
Due to the location of the event, there is probably going to be a number of talks dealing with Circum-Baltic languages, but other language contact areas such as the Balkans, the Caucasus or Europe in general, etc. are more than welcome, as are presentations dealing with a relevant topic in a single language or comparisons of multiple larger areas. Note that submitting an abstract is not a prerequisite for participation, but certainly highly encouraged.
The working language of the conference is English.
The working language of the conference is English.
Invited plenary speakers:
- Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (Stockholm University)
- Axel Holvoet (University of Warsaw, Vilnius University)
- Florian Siegl (University of Helsinki)
Scientific Committee:
- Seppo Kittilä (University of Helsinki)
- Tuomas Johannes Huumo (University of Turku, University of Tartu)
- Ilona Tragel (University of Tartu)
- Liina Lindström (University of Tartu)
_________________________________
The event will be followed by the International Finno-Ugric Students Conference (IFUSCO - see their new homepage for updates), which will take place in Tartu from the 8th of May until the 11th of May 2012.