Phonology 2013

Phonology 2013 will be held November 8-10 on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This is planned to be the first in an annual series of general phonology conferences, to be held at a different location each year.

They are seeking high quality unpublished research in all areas of phonology for presentation at Phonology 2013. In addition to the invited speakers, there will also be oral and poster presentations selected through abstract review. All oral presentations will be published in an online conference proceedings. Abstracts should be anonymous, and a maximum of 2 pages in 12 point font, figures and references included. They can be submitted at http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/phonology-2013. The deadline is midnight US EST, Wednesday July 1.

Invited Speakers:

John McCarthy, UMass Amherst
Sharon Peperkamp, LSCP Paris
Kevin Ryan, Harvard University

The research presentations will take place November 9-10. On November 8, we will hold a tutorial workshop on ‘Computational and Experimental Methods in Phonology’. The full schedule is TBA, but have for now announced the following three of the tutorials:

John Kingston, UMass Amherst ‘Octave/Matlab scripting for Psychtoolbox’
Lisa Sanders, UMass Amherst ‘ERP methods for phonology’
Brian Smith, UMass Amherst ‘Corpus phonology in R’

The Role of Applied Phonetics and Phonology in Teacher Education Research

This open lecture has been postponed to 18th May and the flyer can be accessed from the following link:

The Role of Applied Phonetics and Phonology in Teacher Education Research

A Place for Optimality Theory in Language Teacher Education: A Contemporary Linguistic Framework

So the countdown has begun and will soon be presenting at the upcoming 3rd BUiD International Conference, which will cover Current Trends in Teacher Education at the British University in Dubai on Thursday 16th May and Friday 17th May, 2013. This year’s invited speakers are Prof. Steve Walsh, Prof. Thomas Farrell, and Dr Simon Phipps.

The title of my talk is entitled “A Place for Optimality Theory in Language Teacher Education: A Contemporary Linguistic Framework” and have provided the abstract below this message. The programme schedule can be accessed from the following link: http://www.buid.ac.ae/ctte/programme.html

ABSTRACT
This presentation has two main goals. First, to build a bridge between the Linguistics-Applied (L-A) and Applied-Linguistics (A-L) dichotomy (Davies and Elder, 2004). Second, to apply the top-down view of Optimality Theory (hereafter, OT; McCarthy & Prince, 1994, 1995; Prince & Smolensky, 1993) model to language teacher education. In principle, L-A looks ‘inward’ and uses language data to develop our linguistic knowledge about language, and is concerned in developing new theory, thus adopts a theory-then-research approach. A-L, by contrast, looks ‘outward’ and is concerned with real-world problems in which language is a central issue, thus adopts a research-then-theory approach. With this is mind, OT has been initially applied to phonology also within the L-A approach, and later extended to semantics and syntax, although not as widely. The application of this constraint based theory within the A-L approach is not yet widely attested, and its application to language teacher education in this respect will be a first attempt. This motive stems from the need to better understand the core acquisition processes within a unified framework; these include inter- and intra-speaker variation, the emergence of the unmarked, progression as well as regression. OT is examined more specifically in the context of second language phonology and pedagogy. The fulfillment of this task will, I hope, encourage the use of OT as an analytical tool for language teacher education research.

References
Davies, A., and Elder, C. (2004) (Eds.). The Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Blackwell Publishing.

McCarthy, J., & Prince, A. (1994). The emergence of the unmarked: Optimality in prosodic morphology. Northeastern Linguistic Society, 24, 333–379.

McCarthy, J. J., & Prince, A. S. (1995). Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In J. N. Beckman, L. W. Dickey, & S. Urbanczyk (Eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers, 18 (pp. 249–384). Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association, University of Massachusetts.

Prince, A., & Smolensky, P. (1993). Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar (Tech. Rep. No. 2). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University.

Reading Selections for Physical Library

Yes I admit if you accompany me to this bookstore  you will lose your patience with me, since I can literally lose track of time (that includes my spending!) when in such environment.  Waterstone’s bookstore in Gower St., central London, is one of my many favourite hot spots in London, as it is not like any other funky contemporary bookstores. Location wise it is walking distance to UCL, Institute of Education, and SOAS, so has a nostalgic feel as I have probably visited this bookstore ‘countless’ times when I was studying at University and had always made regular visits to its nearby university libraries. The building itself is also very historical with breathtaking architecture, so one can feel like  entering a museum, and this is all the more enforced with its squeaky floors which prompts you to tiptoe and keep quiet. What makes this bookstore all the more unique is that it contains the ‘largest’ book selections in Linguistics and Education (including second-hand book selections which many contemporary bookstores happen to lack). The books I have selected for this post only include those which I have recently purchased, and this should also drop a few hints on my current research interests.

While this type of shopping passion helps to build my existing library, it also creates problems in logistics and storage, as I currently have four personal libraries in London, Dubai (including my office) and Istanbul.  This is a consequence of my highly mobile lifestyle and so often tempted to only carry my books whenever I travel, but obviously impractical. This then raises the possibility of opting for e-books, which I have partially if not fully, been trying to adapt to the digital age. As for now, I will remain in my happy ‘partially’ digital mode (mainly for environmental and practical reasons) as I am somewhat tempted to continue expanding my ‘physical’ library. This  not only feeds my curious mind, but also my aesthetic values.

Happy Readings

The Role of Applied Phonetics and Phonology in Teacher Education Research

I will be presenting an Open Lecture entitled “The Role of Applied Phonetics and Phonology in Teacher Education Research” at The British University in Dubai (Auditorium), 2 February, between 4-5 pm

ABSTRACT
Phonetics and phonology are two distinctive branches of linguistics and is what helps us understand the fundamentals of speech science. This branch of linguistics is also of interest in the study of language development, since speech perception (i.e. linguistic competence) units specific to language are assumed to exist innately in a new born, and speech production (i.e. linguistic performance) is the earliest output of first language acquisition. In light of this information, this presentation has two main aims. The first is to consider practical (i.e. applied) rather than theoretical aspects of phonetics and phonology, and present the subject in a down-to-earth manner, in order to absorb the most significant basic principles and terminology. The second is to reflect changing trends in speech science research, not only in theoretical and applied linguistics, but also in other inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary domains. The fulfillment of the above tasks will, I hope, help to translate speech science research findings into the classroom and ultimately into practice.

ECER 2013, Istanbul

Flyer_ECER2013-1

A Personal Confessional Tale: Linguistics-Applied or Applied-Linguistics?

I will be presenting a paper entitled: “A Personal Confessional Tale: Linguistics-Applied or Applied-Linguistics” at the next Inter-Institutional Research Roadshow on December 6th, 2012, at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi.

ABSTRACT
A Personal Confessional Tale: Linguistics-Applied or Applied-Linguistics?

This presentation has two main goals. The first is to discuss the role of planned versus unplanned research, and use the Linguistics-Applied (L-A) versus Applied-Linguistics (A-L) dichotomy (Davies and Elder, 2004) as a descriptive tool in order to reflect on the two distinctive research paths I have followed. In principle, L-A looks ‘inward’ and uses language data to develop our linguistic knowledge about language, and is concerned in developing new theory, thus adopts a theory-then-research approach. A-L, by contrast, looks ‘outward’ and is concerned with real-world problems in which language is a central issue, thus adopts a research-then-theory approach. This presentation attempts to examine the value impact of each tradition in the current language learning and teaching research trends. The second goal is to present an experiential narrative of personal, functional and disciplinary reflexivity (Wilkinson, 1988), which will serve as the main source of evidence in this discussion. Fulfillments of the above two goals will, I hope, initiate a further series of ‘confessional’ tales for the exchange and spread of ideas, within and beyond linguistics.

References
Davies, A., and Elder, C. (2004) (Eds.). The Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Blackwell Publishing.
Wilkinson, S. (1988). The role of reflexivity in feminist psychology. Women’s Studies International Forum, 11(5), 493-502.