1. New PALA chair elected
2. AFLA conference announcement
3. PALA conference announcement
4. LAGB conference and summer school announcements
5. BAAL conference and seminar announcements
6. LAGB conference support
7. LAGB education-related news
8. BAAL SIG news
-
NEW PALA CHAIR
Dr Marina Lambrou has been elected Chair of PALA, taking over from Prof Michael Toolan.
AFLA ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The Association for French Language Studies will hold its annual conference at the Universy of Bristol on 15-17 July. More details can be found here: https://afls2019.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/
PALA ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The PALA annual conference is taking place at the University of Liverpool from 10-14 July. The conference theme is ‘Stylistics Without Borders’. More details can be found at: https://www.pala.ac.uk/conference.html
LAGB ANNUAL CONFERENCE
The 2019 Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain (LAGB)will take place at Queen Mary University of London, 9-12 September. The Henry Sweet Lecture will be given by Sandy Chung (UC Santa Cruz) and the Linguistics Association Lecture by Chris Potts (Stanford). There will also be a workshop on Trends in Formal Approaches to Variation. At least five bursaries are available for student/unwaged presenters at LAGB 2019. These will be awarded on a meritocratic basis to the five (or more) most highly rated abstracts by students/unwaged members. For more info see: http://www.lagb.org.uk/home2019.
LAGB STUDENT SUMMER SCHOOL
The LAGB student summer school (organised by the LAGB student committee on 9th September) is free for student members. At this event, students will have the opportunity to learn from masterclasses with experts in pragmatics, syntax and sociolinguistics as well as a workshop and discussion on wellbeing in academia.http://www.lagb.org.uk/summerschool2019
BAAL ANNUAL CONFERENCE
BAAL 2019 will be held at Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK with the theme "Broadening the Horizons of Applied Linguistics" on 29-31 August 2019. We hope the conference theme will encourage proposals from a wide range of disciplines and that this in turn will encourage cross-disciplinary dissemination of ideas and research. Plenary speakers: Julia Carroll – University of Coventry; Tim Grant – Aston University; Kate Pahl - Manchester Metropolitan University; and Adrian Holliday – Canterbury Christ Church University (Pit Corder lecture). The deadline for receipt of abstracts: 31 March 2019. For more information see:https://baal.org.uk/annual-conference/
BAAL/ CUP SEMINARS
BAAL works with CU BAAL / Cambridge University Press to jointly fund seminars. This year’s funding is awarded to the following seminars:
- Blowing away the dust: Illuminating the value of practitioner research in Applied Linguistics
- Creative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics: Purposes, Practices, Possibilities
Organisers: Dr Lou Harvey, University of Leeds, Ms Jessica Bradley, Leeds Trinity University, Dr Emilee Moore, Universitat Autonomy de Barcelona
Date: Wednesday 10th-Thursday 11th July 2019
The website: https://store.leeds.ac.uk/conferences-and- events/essl/conferences/creative-inquiry-and-applied-linguistics- purposes-practices-possibilities
LAGB CONFERENCE SUPPORT
The LAGB student committee supports the development of both postgraduate and undergraduate linguistics students in the UK. In this academic year, we haveawarded a total of £1,875 to nine student-led workshops, conferences and training events across the country. This funding has been used particularly to host invited speakers and to provide bursaries for attendees.
The LAGB also sponsors non-student-led UK-based linguistics conferences up to the value of £300. This year, this has included Cambridge Comparative Syntax 8 and the 27th Manchester Phonology Meeting.
LAGB EDUCATION NEWS
Recently, the LAGB has been involved, through the Common English Forum (CEF), in discussions with the Department for Education about the drop in A-level English language entries and the effect this may have on English language and linguistics in HEIs. Together with the CEF, we drafted a letter to the DfE and Russell group (which was also signed by UCGAL and several other UCGAL members) urging the reinstatement of English language as a ‘facilitating subject’. The LAGB Education Committee session this year, which focuses on this issue, will take place on the 11th September 2018 at 4pm at QMUL. All are welcome. For more info see:http://www.lagb.org.uk/home2019.
The LAGB Education Committee, in collaboration with BAAL (CLiE), has drafted a position paper on SPAG, which can be found on http://clie.org.uk/responses/. The position paper will be publicised prior to the next SPaG tests scheduled to take place between the 13thand 16th May 2019.
The ‘Language Analysis in School: Education and Research’ (LASER) project was launched with great success at the British Academy on the 11th March 2019. Information about LASER can be found on http://clie.org.uk/laser/. Expressions of interest to get involved in LASER and / or subscribe to the LASER mailing list should be sent to dick@LING.UCL.AC.UK.
The UK Linguistics Olympiad is going from strength to strength. In 2018 the UK teams won two gold, one silver, three bronze, one team bronze, and one best answer. All UK competitors returned with a medal; one UK competitor has won gold four years in succession. Similar numbers of participants (1,850) registered for Round 1 in 2019 as last year.
BAAL SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP EVENTS
BAAL Linguistics & Knowledge about Language in Education SIG meeting, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, 5 July 2019
The BAAL Linguistics and Knowledge about Language in Education (LKALE) Special Interest Group will hold this year’s meeting on Friday July 5th, at St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, hosted by the Applied Linguistics Research Group, Department of Education, University of Oxford. The theme will be ‘Developing Reading’. Two keynote speakers: Dr. Holly Joseph from the University of Reading, and Professor Kate Nation from the University of Oxford. Deadline for submission, April 5th 2019; notification of acceptance, May 3rd 2019. For more details please see: https://baallkale.wordpress.com/2019-lkale-sig-meeting/
BAAL Health & Communication SIG Annual Workshop, University of Brescia (Italy), 13 September 2019
University of Brescia (Italy) is to host the Annual Workshop of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Health & Science Communication Special Interest Group (SIG). Researchers in applied linguistics, social marketing, shared decision making, communication (from interpersonal to mass media), psychology, government, and health education are called to make proposals aimed at advancing a synergistic relationship between research and practical information in order to build a new interdisciplinary view of argumentation in Health Communication. This year’s theme is Argumenting Health Communication in The Digital Era. Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Prof. Srikant Sarangi, Prof. Sara Rubinelli, and Prof. Pier Luigi Lopalco. Abstract deadline: 30th March 2019.
More information is available at https://baal.org.uk/2019/02/11/cfp-baal- health-communication-sig-annual-workshop-university-of-brescia-italy- 13-september-2019/
