The 2004 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Association of Great Britain will be held at the University of Surrey Roehampton, from 30th August to 2nd September. The local organiser will be Judith Broadbent (J.Broadbent@roehampton.ac.uk). This is the first meeting following the new pattern, which was recently adopted by the Association at its annual general meeting. The 2004 meeting will last four days and will feature several special events, including two invited speakers and an invited Language Tutorial.
Special events
1. The Henry Sweet Lecture 2004 entitled “‘Unborrowable’ areal traits” will be delivered by Marianne Mithun (University of California, Santa Barbara) on the evening of 30th August.
2. There will also be a Workshop on ‘Contact, borrowability, and typology’, related to the Henry Sweet lecture, and organised by Yaron Matras (University of Manchester) and April McMahon (University of Sheffield) on the afternoon of 30th August.
3. The Linguistics Association Lecture 2004 on ‘Null subjects, ellipsis and empty categories’ will be delivered by Anders Holmberg (University of Durham) on 2nd September.
4. There will also be a special, themed session on the topic of ‘Null subjects, ellipsis and empty categories’, related to the Linguistics Association Lecture, for which abstracts are now invited. These should be submitted in the same way as abstracts for the general sessions, but should be clearly marked that they are intended for the special session, also on 2nd September.
5. There will be a Language Tutorial on Michif, given by Peter Bakker (University of Aarhus).
6. There will be a session on ‘Teaching linguistics to students of Modern Languages’ organised by the LAGB’s Education Committee, featuring Paul Rowlett (University of Salford) and Florence Myles (University of Southampton).
Deadline for abstracts: Monday 10th May 2004 (for details of abstract submission, see below); sets of abstracts may be submitted together for a themed session (for further details, see below).
Venue
The meeting will be held at the University of Surrey Roehampton, Froebel College. The University of Surrey Roehampton is part of the Federal University of Surrey, together with the University of Surrey Guildford. Roehampton is made up of four colleges set in beautiful parkland: Digby Stuart, Froebel, Southlands and Whitelands. Froebel College was founded in 1892 by a group of people committed to a radical reform of educational methods. Part of the college is situated in a Grade II* listed building (Grove House) which is set in four acres of beautiful heritage gardens.
Accommodation: will be provided on site at Froebel. Single rooms with en suite facilities are available.
Travel: Roehampton is situated in south London. London Heathrow and Gatwick are the most convenient airports and the nearest station is Barnes. Trains run regularly from London Waterloo to Barnes, and London buses and the Underground connect with USR. Full details will be provided in the second circular.
Call for Papers
Members and non-members are invited to offer papers for the Meeting. The LAGB welcomes submissions on any topic in the field of linguistics; papers are selected on their (perceived) merits, and not according to their subject matter or assumed theoretical framework.
How and when to submit an abstract
Abstracts must be submitted on paper (not by email or by fax). FIVE anonymous copies of the abstract, plus ONE with name and affiliation, i.e. CAMERA-READY, should be submitted, and should be sent in the format outlined below to the President (address below). You must write your address for correspondence (email or surface, although email is very much preferred) on the BACK of the camera-ready copy. (Even if several authors are named on the front, there should be only one name and address for correspondence.) Papers for the programme are selected anonymously - only the President knows the name of the authors. If an abstract is accepted for the meeting, the camera-ready copy will be used to produce the abstracts booklet.
As well a individual abstracts, groups of speakers may submit a set of abstracts for a themed session (or panel) on any subject of their choice. Such groups will normally take up a whole session, and group members may apportion their time within that as they wish (ideal numbers of abstracts for such sessions might be 3, 4, 5 or 6). All the abstracts for such sessions will be considered together, as a group, and one contact for the whole session should be provided. Abstracts for such themed sessions should be submitted together, to the President, with the same format as specified for individual abstracts.
All abstracts should be accompanied by an account of any special requirements regarding audiovisual equipment (other than an OHP). While we will make every effort to provide such equipment, we cannot guarantee that it will be available. The normal length for papers delivered at LAGB meetings is 25 minutes (plus 15 minutes discussion).
Abstracts must arrive by Monday 10th May. The committee will plan the programme as soon as it has selected the successful abstracts, so please indicate on the anonymous abstracts if you cannot present your paper on any particular day during the conference. It is very difficult to reschedule papers after the programme has been planned.
Abstract format
Abstracts must be presented as follows: the complete abstract (i.e. the one containing your title and your name) must be no longer than ONE A4 page (21cm x 29.5cm) with margins of at least 2.5cm on all sides. Only the first page of any abstract submitted will be considered - no appendices or page for references can be accepted. You may use single spacing but type must be no smaller than 12 points. If the paper is accepted, the abstract will be photocopied and inserted directly into the collection of abstracts sent out to participants, so the presentation should be clear and clean.
The following layout should be considered as standard:
(title) Optimality and the Klingon vowel shift
(speaker and email address) Clark Kent (clark@astro.mars.ac.mars)
(institution) Department of Astrology, Eastern Mars University
Content of abstracts
The following guidelines may be useful:
· You should clearly describe the paper’s general topic. (The topic may be a problem of theory or analysis or set of data which have not previously been analysed.)
· You should describe your treatment of the topic, and how it relates to previous work on the same topic. (When referring to previous work, it is enough to quote “Author (Date)” without giving full bibliographical details.) It is not acceptable simply to promise a solution.
· You should explain how you will justify your treatment, and quote crucial evidence - you must trust the committee (and other conference attenders) not to steal your ideas before you have presented them. If you are taking a stand on a controversial issue, summarise the arguments which lead you to take up this position.
Conference Bursaries for postgraduate students and unwaged members
Up to ten bursaries are available for unsalaried members of the Association (e.g. PhD students); preference will be given to those who are presenting a paper, but if there are not ten applications from those presenting papers, applications from non-presenting attenders will also be considered. Applications should be sent to the President (address below), and must be received by the deadline for abstracts (10th May). If you are submitting an abstract and applying for a bursary, BOTH SHOULD BE SUBMITTED TOGETHER. If you are not submitting an abstract, but are still eligible, then you are still encouraged to apply, as we have been able to award bursaries to non-presenting postgraduates in previous years.
Applicants for bursaries must be members of the Association, although applications for membership may be submitted at the same time as applications for bursaries (applications for membership should be sent to the Membership Secretary). Please state on your application: (a) date of joining the LAGB (b) whether or not you are a student; (c) if a student, whether you receive a grant or studentship; (d) if not a student, your employment situation. The bursary normally covers a significant proportion of the conference expenses and of travel within the UK.
Communications with the membership
Website: the new LAGB website can be found at www.lagb.org.
Mailing list: Please ensure that you have joined the LAGB mailing list, which is used for disseminating LAGB information and for consulting members quickly. You can subscribe by sending a message to majordomo@essex.ac.uk, with the following as the body of the message: “subscribe lagb”.
Changes of address: members are reminded to notify the Membership Secretary of changes of address. An institutional address is preferred as bulk mailing saves postage.
Future Meetings
All meetings are held in late August or early September:
2005 University of Cambridge
The Meetings Secretary would very much like to receive offers of future venues, particularly from institutions which the LAGB has not previously visited.
Nominations for speakers, workshops and language tutorials (language and/or speaker) at future meetings are requested; all suggestions should be sent to the Honorary Secretary. The nominations collected will be voted on by the membership at the Annual General Meeting, which is held as part of the Annual meeting.
The LAGB committee
President
Professor April McMahon,
Department of English Language and Linguistics,
University of Sheffield,
5 Shearwood Road, Sheffield, S10 2TD.
april.mcmahon@shef.ac.uk
www.shef.ac.uk/english/language/staff/april.html
Honorary Secretary
Dr Ad Neeleman,
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT.
ad@ling.ucl.ac.uk
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/ad/home.htm
Membership Secretary
Dr Diane Nelson,
Department of Linguistics and Phonetics,
University of Leeds, Leeds, LS6 9JT.
d.c.nelson@leeds.ac.uk
www.leeds.ac.uk/linguistics/staff/diane/Welcome.html
Meetings Secretary
Dr Patrick Honeybone,
English Language, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences,
University of Edinburgh, 14 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9LN.
patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk
www.englang.ed.ac.uk/people/patrick.html
Treasurer
Dr Dunstan Brown,
Surrey Morphology Group, LCIS,
University of Surrey, Surrey GU2 7XH
d.brown@surrey.ac.uk
www.surrey.ac.uk/LIS/SMG/dunstan.htm
Assistant Secretary
Dr Katarzyna M. Jaszczolt,
Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages,
University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA.
kmj21@cam.ac.uk
Nominations for committee member vacancy
The Membership Secretary is to step down from this year, so nominations are requested for a replacement. Any member may be nominated by any other member (and self-nominations are welcome), and nominations should be sent to the President by 31st July.