11-12 February 2012

The 38th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society

Call for Papers

The 38th annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society will be held at the University of California, Berkeley on FEBRUARY 11-12, 2012. The meeting will comprise a Thematic Session, and a General Session. Invited speakers are listed below.

THEMATIC SESSION: LANGUAGE CONTACT

The BLS 38 thematic session invites papers pertaining to all aspects of language contact, a major phenomenon that concerns all areas of linguistics and many linguistics-related fields. We are looking for submissions form all linguistic subfields and all theoretical frameworks: phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and others. We also strongly encourage interdisciplinary work spanning two or more disciplines, such as anthropology, history, archaeology, geography, molecular anthropology and genetics. Computational approaches to language contact are also welcome. A driving question is: how can the inter-disciplinary study of language contact phenomena contribute to uncovering key aspects of the history and culture of entire regions and populations?

Invited Thematic Session Speakers

  • Mark Donohue, Australian National University
  • Patience Epps, University of Texas at Austin
  • Victor Friedman, University of Chicago
  • Sarah Thomason, University of Michigan

    • GENERAL SESSION

    The General Session will cover all areas of linguistic research. We welcome proposals from diverse theoretical frameworks as well as papers on language-related topics from other disciplines (e.g., cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, anthropology, literature, areal studies).

    Invited General Session Speakers

  • John Esling, University of Victoria
  • Dominique Sportiche, UCLA & Department of Cognitive Studies (ENS - Paris)

    • ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

    Deadline

  • Abstracts must be received via e-mail at bls_submissions@berkeley.edu by

    • No late submissions can be accepted. Authors will be notified of decisions concerning abstracts by mid-December.

    Submission Guidelines

    An author may submit at most one single and one joint abstract. In the case of joint authorship, one email address should be designated for official communication with BLS.

    Abstracts must clearly present a specific thesis statement and include a description of topic, approach, and conclusions.

    Abstracts must fit on one page with margins no smaller than .5" in font no smaller than 10-pt (1" margins with 12-pt font is preferred). Data and examples must be given within the body of the text, but references may be included on a separate page if necessary. To preserve anonymity during the review process, authors should not include their names or otherwise reveal their identity anywhere in the abstract.

    Abstracts that do not fit these specifications will not be considered.

    Electronic Submissions

    All abstracts must be submitted electronically as PDF documents. Further instructions for electronic submissions are available here.

    Presentation and Publication

    Presentations are allotted 20 minutes, as well as 10 minutes for questions. Presented papers are published in the BLS Proceedings. Authors agree to provide camera-ready copy (up to 12 pages) by May 15, 2012. In order to expedite publication of papers, BLS will digitally publish the proceedings from the 38th Annual Meeting.

    Style Sheet for Submission of Final Paper for Proceedings

    Please follow the guidelines outlined in the Author's Kit when preparing your paper, and rememeber that the firm due date is May 15th, 2012.

    If you have not yet filed with us a copyright release form please do so as soon as possible. You may scan your signed form and email it to us at bls@berkeley.edu.

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