LINGUIST List 21.4195|
Thu Oct 21 2010
Calls: Language Acquisition, Linguistic Theories/Greece
Editor for this issue: Di Wdzenczny
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1. Stavroula Stavrakaki ,
Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition
Message 1: Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition
From: Stavroula Stavrakaki <svoulaauth.gr>
Subject: Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition
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Full Title: Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition
Short Title: GALA
Date: 06-Sep-2011 - 08-Sep-2011
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece
Contact Person: Stavroula Stavrakaki
Meeting Email: gala2011itl.auth.gr
Web Site: http://gala2011.web.auth.gr
Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition; Linguistic Theories
Call Deadline: 15-Mar-2011
GALA 2011 will focus on first and second language acquisition, bilingual
acquisition, language pathology, the acquisition of sign language and brain
imaging research for acquisition and pathology. Besides the main session,
two workshops will be held on 'Phonological representations in early
language acquisition' (organized by Barbara Höhle) and on 'Syntax and
Pragmatics: Division of Labour in Acquisition' (organized by Joao Costa and
Spyridoula Varlokosta). Talks for the main sessions and the workshops will
be 20 minutes long, followed by 10 minutes discussion. At most one single-
authored and one joint abstract (or two joint abstracts) per author will be
considered. There will be two poster sessions. Please indicate in your
submission whether you want your abstract to be considered for the main
session, a workshop, for oral presentation, poster, or both.
Harald Clahsen (University of Essex)
Maria Teresa Guasti (University of Milan-Bicocca)
Chloe Marshall (City University London)
Sergey Avrutin (University of Utrecht)
Naama Friedmann (University of Tel Aviv)
Anna Gavarró (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Petra Schulz (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
Stavroula Stavrakaki (University of Thessaloniki)
Arhonto Terzi (Technological Educational Institute of Patras)
Laurie Tuller (Université François-Rabelais)
Angeliek van Hout (University of Groningen)
Call For papers
Abstracts should be submitted electronically at gala2011itl.auth.gr
Deadline of submission: March 15th, 2011
Notification of acceptance: May 1st, 2011
Guidelines for abstracts
Abstracts should be at most two pages, with only figures and references in
the second. 12 point Times New Roman, single spaced, should be used,
with 2 cm margins. An anonymous abstract and an abstract with author's
name/s and affiliation should be sent by email as Word or pdf attachments
(if special symbols are used, pdf format is required). The abstract with name
and affiliation should be as follows:
Title (bold, left justified)
Author's name/s (left justified)
Affiliation (left justified)
Two workshops will be held.
GALA 2011 Workshop
Phonological representations in early language acquisition
Organized by: Barbara Höhle
The workshop will focus on the emergence and the development of
phonological representation in early first language acquisition. Recent
research has shown that infants are equipped with highly efficient
perceptual and learning mechanism that allow for a fast attunement to
features of the phonological system of the target language during the first
year of life. On the other hand data from production and word learning
studies suggest that the establishment of phonological representations
underlying early production and comprehension is a longer-lasting process
extending over the first years of life. From the developmental perspective
one of the intriguing questions is how perception and the emergence of
abstract phonological representations are interrelated. What are the
contributions of data-driven learning and of universal phonological
constraints in the emerging phonological system of the
child? How are perception and production related?
This workshop aims at bringing researchers who work in all kinds of areas
in early phonological development covering all aspects of this research area
together: i.e. early perceptual development and attunement to specific
phonological properties of the language including segmental and
suprasegmental aspects; phonological bootstrapping to other linguistic
domains like the lexicon, syntax and pragmatics; phonological
representations in the acquisition of the lexicon. Contributions to all kinds of
variations of language acquisition like simultaneous multilingual acquisition,
phonological development in clinical populations are welcome as well.
GALA 2011 Workshop
Syntax and Pragmatics: Division of Labour in Acquisition
Organized by: Joao Costa & Spyridoula Varlokosta
The literature on acquisition of syntax in the late 80s and 90s revealed that
children's syntactic knowledge is very precocious. In fact, there is evidence
showing that many syntactic parameters are set at a pre-lexical stage (e.g.
Wexler 1998), that knowledge of functional structure is available at the time
children utter their first two word utterances (e.g. Hyams 1992) and that
knowledge of principles such as subjacency or binding are evident from
early on (e.g. Chien and Wexler 1990).
The fact that children's utterances are not target-like was attributed to
specific aspects of pragmatic knowledge that would be acquired late (e.g.
Rizzi 1993/1994). However, literature from the last decade reveals that
children master some pragmatic knowledge from very early on as well (e.g.
de Cat 2003, Crain et al. 2002). Recent research reveals accurate
production and comprehension of information structure, good mastery of
certain implicatures and a good domain of some aspects related to co-
As it stands, it is reasonable to assume that certain aspects of both
syntactic and pragmatic knowledge are acquired very early. However, for
such a statement to be productive, it is important to qualify it. The aim of this
workshop is to provide answers to questions like the following:
A.When children produce target-deviant sentences, which aspects can be
explained in terms of late acquisition of syntax?
B.When children produce target-deviant sentences, which aspects can be
explained in terms of late acquisition of pragmatics?
C.What types of structures/parameters/principles are good candidates for
late acquisition? What unifies them?
D.What type of pragmatic knowledge is a good candidate for late
E.When there is no consensus on whether a certain category is a syntactic
primitive (e.g. topic, focus, etc.), can acquisition facts shed light on its
F.What do acquisition facts tell us about the syntax-pragmatics interface?
G.Is there crosslinguistic variation in the acquisition of the syntax-
pragmatics interface? If there is, how can one explain it?
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