Other Linguistics News

Help us with the marking for the UK Linguistics Olympiad 2012!

What does "Linguistics" mean to school teachers and students? Why should they recommend or choose a relatively unknown subject like Linguistics when English Literature and English Language beckon?

One way we can ensure Linguistics becomes a subject of choice is to introduce it early to school students. The United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad does just this. It offers school students a chance to find out more about Linguistics as the study of language; and, by naming our subject, it shows them that Linguistics is important, worth studying at University.

The Olympiad has grown considerably from small beginnings and this year we have had applications from nearly 300 schools. It is becoming an important event in the secondary school calendar.

What you can do for the Olympiad

The Olympiad needs markers for the week of 13-17 February. This does not need to be a big task - take as many or as few papers as you can manage. Each paper takes about 10 minutes to mark, often less. If you are interested, contact Richard Hudson [dick@ling.ucl.ac.uk] or Martin Edwardes [martin.edwardes@btopenworld.com], indicating how many papers you can manage. Or involve your students in a 'markathon' - a collective marking activity preceded by a discussion of the test paper. For more information about marking, including some examples of marked 2011 scripts, go to www.uklo.org/?page_id=899.

What the Olympiad will do for you

As well as publicising the subject of Linguistics, the Olympiad will recognise your efforts. A list of lecturers and departments who took part in the marking will be circulated to all participating schools, so that the students know where they can apply for linguistics courses, and to give them some names they can google to find out more about the subject. We will also be publishing the list on our web page.

Help make Linguistics a subject that students talk about - and apply for. Don't let the STEM subjects get all the publicity!

Martin Edwardes

31 January 2012

Researching Multilingually (AHRC-funded project)

The recently-awarded AHRC "Researching Multilingually" project seeks to create a research network through which to develop a better understanding of the complexities and opportunities when researching multilingually. This under-investigated theme has been a concern of ours for some time. Thus, the AHRC project builds upon our exploratory seminar in Durham in 2010 and a colloquium of papers on this theme presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguists (BAAL).

We are now inviting researchers with experience of multilingual research design and practice (in whatever disciplinary context and with whatever combination of languages) to join this network in order to share insights into how researchers working multilingually theorise and operationalise their research design. We are interested in all aspects of the multilingual research process, including the use of literatures, design of data collection and generation instruments, management of data sets, data analysis and interpretation processes and outcomes, and presentation (oral and written) of the study with all the representational issues this involves. We are also interested in how research contexts (e.g., examined doctoral studies, funded research projects, community research involving local authorities and charities, etc.) might inform researchers' decisions and practices about the potential multilingual dimensions of their work.

The sharing of such insights will take place through three 2-day seminars in 2012 (one at Durham University, one at The University of Manchester, and one at The University of West England, Bristol). We are anticipating that some contributions might be case studies of particular practices of a study undertaken multilingually; others might focus on the issues that arise in particular research contexts; and others might present possible ways of theorising/operationalising the researching multilingually theme.

Therefore, we are inviting researchers interested in participating in one of these seminars to submit a 500-word abstract for a 30-minute contribution (with 20 minutes afterwards for questions and discussion with about 10 other presenters, and other interested and invited researchers and academics). For those researchers whose abstracts are accepted, reasonable travel, accommodation and subsistence costs will be met by the project.

Send your abstract by 31st January 2012 in the body of an email to mail@researchingmultilingually.com  

Please indicate your preferred venue: Durham University: 28th-29th March, 2012; University of the West of England: 25th-26th April, 2012; or The University of Manchester: 22nd-23rd May, 2012. Notification of acceptance of abstracts will be by mid-February, 2012.

For participants, an outcome of the seminars will be the opportunity to submit an article on the "researching multilingually" aspects of their work for publication in a journal special issue or as a book chapter (both edited by the research team).

For further details on the project please see the website: http://researchingmultilingually.com

If you have any further questions on development of an abstract for one of the seminars, please email the project co-ordinators at: mail@researchingmultilingually.com

Prue Holmes, Richard Fay, Jane Andrews  and Mariam Attia

31 January 2012

Open Access journal Multilingual Education announces its first papers online

Read these articles and submit your research on http://www.multilingual-education.com

• Dialogic meaning construction and emergent reading domains among four young English language learners in second-language reading (Kim D)
• A case study of the College English Test and ethnic minority university students in China: negotiating the final hurdle (Adamson B, Xia B)

29 February 2012

Virtual Special Issue - 'Literature, Language, Learning'

Did you miss Routledge at the Modern Language Association this year? It's not too late to update yourself with the latest publishing connected to the presidential theme of the 2012 MLA Convention with our Virtual Special Issue. We have collected together journal articles relevant to the theme from our portfolio of Language, Linguistics and Literature journals, including Critical Discourse Studies, Language Acquisition, and Language & Intercultural Communication.

The articles are free to view until 29th February 2012. Start reading at http://bit.ly/mla2012

Keep up-to-date with the latest news and offers from Routledge Language, Linguistics and Literature by visiting our subject webpage at http://explore.tandfonline.com/LLL

Jodie Bell, Senior Marketing Executive, Arts & Humanities Journals, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

29 February 2012

Ton Vallen Award 2012

Ton Vallen (1946-2011) was Professor of Multilingualism and Education at Tilburg University, The Netherlands, and a deeply committed member of the Babylon Center for the Study of the Multicultural Society. He dedicated his life and work to the complex issues of language in education in a society increasingly characterized by linguistic and cultural diversity. In memory of his life and scholarship, the Babylon Center honors the scholarly efforts of young postdoctoral researchers in Ton Vallen's field through the annual Ton Vallen Award.

The Ton Vallen Award is given to the author(s) of an article on sociolinguistic and educational issues in multicultural societies, published in an academic journal in the year prior to the award. The author(s) of the article are eligible within five years after obtaining their PhD degree. The article needs to be submitted to the Ton Vallen Award Committee by June 1, 2012, and the award, shortlist and citations will be announced in September 2012.

The Ton Vallen Award intends to provide an incentive to young researchers in this field of inquiry, to publicize and highlight excellence in scholarship in this field, and to stimulate discussion and collaboration among the research community in this field.

The Ton Vallen Award Committee consists of Jan Blommaert (chair), Guus Extra, Sjaak kroon, Ad Backus, Jeanne Kurvers, Nancy Hornberger and Jens-Normann Jörgensen. The Ton Vallen Award comes with a diploma and will be widely publicized through a network of academic communication channels.

Submission and eligibility guidelines

• Authors should have obtained their PhD degree not longer than five years prior to the publication of the article they submit. In case of co-authored articles, all authors of the articles need to satisfy this requirement.
• The submitted article needs to be published in an international peer-reviewed journal. The language of publication is English. The year of publication is 2011.
• The topic of the article needs to be clearly within the field of sociolinguistic and educational issues in multicultural societies. Articles need to be based on original research, present and discuss new data, and give evidence of an effort towards theoretical and methodological innovation.
• The article needs to be submitted electronically, in PDF version, to the Ton Vallen Award Committee via babylon@uvt.nl, accompanied by a CV of the candidate and a statement (a) that the information contained in the CV is truthful and (b) that the applicant(s) is (are) the effective author(s) of the article. Fraudulent submissions will be publicized.
• The deadline of submission is June 1, 2012, 12 noon Western European time. Submissions after that deadline will not be considered.

1 June 2012