CASLA 2008

CASLA 2008
Cognitive Approaches to Second Language Acquisition
Dates	2008/03/10 (iCal) - 2008/03/13
Homepage:	linguistlist.org/callconf/browse-conf-action.cfm?ConfID=55144
Location
Location:	Landau, Germany
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Important dates
Submissions:	2007/09/01
Table of Contents

32nd International LAUD Symposium

Call deadline: September 1, 2007

Plenary speakers (confirmed):

Melissa Bowerman Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Nick Ellis University of Michigan, USA

Susan Gass Michigan State University, USA

Jeannette Littlemore University of Birmingham, UK

Peter Robinson Aoyama Gakuin University, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

John Taylor University of Otago, New Zealand

Andrea Tyler Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA

The psycholinguistic and cognitive processes underlying the learning of a foreign or second language have always been a subject of major interest to both (i) Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers and (ii) practitioners involved in language pedagogy, i.e. Foreign Language Learning (FLL). Most SLA theories have thus far assumed a top-down operation from Universal Grammar to L1 and L2 grammars. Just as for first language acquisition, it is assumed that, given sufficient input, a second language system develops in the mind automatically. The L2 input is said to trigger the language acquisition device, which is seen to operate quite autonomously, that is, independently from and without any interaction with other cognitive abilities or faculties such as bodily experiences, image schemas, perception, attention, categorization, emotion, or still other mental faculties.

The Symposium takes a radically opposing view in the sense that language acquisition and learning can, like all human learning processes, only be understood and explained if they are seen as bottom-up, exemplar-based and usage-oriented processes. These can and have to be accommodated in a much broader framework of how people interact with the world around them, store and acquire knowledge in some symbolic form or other, and thus establish a link between cognitive development and language acquisition. The Symposium will explore the even more complex process of L2 learning and acquisition from three different inroads:

(i) the cognitive theoretical foundations of language and learning, (ii) the specific acquisition procedures followed by language learners, and (iii) the rational pedagogic strategies required to facilitate and speed up the acquisition and learning processes seen from the perspective of the cognitive linguistics enterprise. These will be explored in the following three theme sessions:

Theme Session 1: Cognition and language: Theoretical frameworks and models The first session examines the theoretical foundations of language, language acquisition and language learning. A number of theories have emerged from empirical research findings on second language learning and language instruction. In particular, we invite abstracts on the following topics:

- General: Second language acquisition theories and cognition - Comparing and contrasting cognition in first and second language acquisition - The relevance of conceptual knowledge for L2 learning and teaching - Corpus linguistics, cognition and language pedagogy - The nature and sequence of the form-meaning pairing - Cognitive grammar and SLA - Neuro-cognitive issues of language acquisition - Process-oriented instruction of second languages by children and adults

Theme session 2: The mental processes and acquisition procedures involved in SLA: Case studies and empirical findings A second goal of the symposium is to empirically investigate the mental processes of language learners within the acquisition process such as the role of attention as one of the basic explanations of language learning. In particular, we invite abstracts on the following topics:

- Explicit learning, attention and awareness in SLA research - Language awareness and motivation in FLT - Cognition and interlanguage at all linguistic levels (phonological, morpho-syntactic, lexical, constructional, pragmatic) - The mental process of interlanguage development in SLA - Interaction of gesture and speech in the development of metaphorical understanding - Formulaic language as the cornerstone of natural SLA - Constructions infants and L2 learners live by

Session 3: Cognitive language pedagogy: Pedagogical grammar, lexical expansion, cultural fluency The third and main theme of the symposium centers around the theoretical model of cognitive linguistics, which represents a valid framework within which FLL research may take place. Various implications for pedagogically oriented research and for SL classroom practice will be discussed. The contextual facets of CL including the social, cultural, and discourse ingredients of language can be exploited for a communicative and usage-based approach to language teaching in the classroom. 'Applied Cognitive Linguistics', therefore, investigates the links between the theoretical views of CL and their relevance for applications in the areas of language acquisition, learning and pedagogy. The specific goal here is to discuss the didactic potential field of CL in the teaching and learning of second and/or foreign languages. In particular, we invite abstracts on the following topics:

- The relevance of dynamic usage-based models in language acquisition - Corpus-data in a usage-based cognitive grammar - The acquisition-learning debate in the light of CL findings - Culture-specific conceptualizations in an FLT context - Figurative thinking and SLA - Cognition and pragmatic development in a second language syllabus - Cognitive-didactic approaches to the English verb phrase (TMA-system) - Iconicity, construal and prototypicality in Pedagogical Grammars - The issue of 'rules' from a cognitive-linguistics perspective - Idiom and metaphor in lexical expansion and creativity - From the internet corpus to usable learning materials; - From classroom experiments to large-scale experimentation

Conference Fees The conference fee is EUR 75 payable on arrival.

Abstracts Deadline of submission September 1, 2007 Submissions are solicited for theme session presentations which should last for 20-25 minutes with 5-10 minutes for questions (maximum 30 minutes total) All submissions for presentations should follow the abstract guidelines below.

Abstracts of no more than 500 words (about one page) should be submitted via email to Martin Pütz

The abstracts will be subject to anonymous peer-review. Please include the following information in the subject header of your email: Abstract LAUD 2008 - name/s -

Please include the following information in the main body of your email: name of author/s, affiliation, email address, presentation title.

Please also state for which of the 3 theme sessions of the symposium your contribution is intended:

Theme Session 1: Cognition and language: Theoretical frameworks and models

Theme Session 2: The mental processes and acquisition procedures involved in SLA: Case studies and empirical findings

Theme Session 3: Cognitive language pedagogy: Pedagogical grammar, lexical expansion, cultural fluency

Notification of acceptance will be given by September 15, 2007. A first draft version of your paper should be submitted by November 1, 2007, which will be reviewed and, if accepted, pre-published by LAUD and distributed to all participants before March 2008. Selected papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings.

More information on the city of Landau (1 hour by car south of Frankfurt/Main and very close to the Alsatian border, France): Landau or Landau in der Pfalz (pop. 41,821) is an autonomous (kreisfrei) city surrounded by the Südliche Weinstra�?e (southern wineroute) district of southern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a university town (since 1990), a long-standing cultural centre, and a market and shopping town, surrounded by vineyards and wine-growing villages of the Palatinate wine region. Landau lies east of the Pfälzer Wald, Europe's largest contiguous forest (quoted from Wikipedia)

For more information on LAUD (e.g. LAUD Symposium 2006, history, past symposia, conference proceedings etc.) click here www.uni-landau.de/anglistik/LAUD/index.htm Local Conference Organizer Martin Pütz Puetz@uni-landau.de University of Koblenz-Landau Landau Campus FB 6 Institut für Fremdsprachliche Philologien Fach Anglistik Marktstr. 40 D -76829 Landau/Pf. PH: 06341-146-204 Fax: 06341-146-200

Organising committee members: Sabine De Knop, René Dirven, Susanne Niemeier, Martin Pütz, Monika Reif, Ulrich Schmitz, Laura Sicola

This CfP was obtained from WikiCFP