Abstract submission

Deadline for abstract submission: 20 November 2009

Notification of acceptance: 1 February 2010

Dates of conference: 8-10 July 2010

Summary instructions

Submit abstracts as a PDF attachment containing an anonymous one-page abstract at the following address: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=labphon12. A second page may be used for figures and/or bibliographical references only. Contributed papers may be selected for oral or poster presentation.

Important note: On the EasyChair submission page, there is a section labeled Title and Abstract. In this section, supply a 50-word abstract (plain text only) in the box labeled Abstract. Further down the page, in the section labeled Upload paper, is where you upload your actual abstract as a PDF file (which may include special characters).
** The text of the abstract in the PDF file must be no more than one page long; an optional second page may contain figures and/or bibliographical references. **

Complete Call for Papers

Abstracts are solicited for contributed papers for presentation as 30-minute oral contributions or as posters. Contributions relating to the conference themes are especially encouraged; there will also be sessions for non-thematic papers.

The overall theme for the conference is Gesture as language, gesture and language. Our goal is to bring together researchers who have a gestural perspective on language to encourage cross-fertilization between different approaches and areas of research. Some specific topics that address this theme are the following:

• Speech as gesture. How are gestures used to create phonological structure? What are the fundamental gestural units, and how are they coordinated? How discrete or continuous are the gestures of language? How parallel or different are the gestural organization of spoken and signed languages?
• Phonology of signed languages. The same issues are relevant for signed languages as for spoken languages.
• Gesture with language. How are non-linguistic gestures used in concert with language? How are these gestures coordinated with speech? How similar or different are the non-linguistic gestures accompanying spoken and signed languages, and are their functions similar across modalities?
• Audiovisual aspects of speech. To what extent are visual cues exploited in spoken language communication? How are aural and visual information integrated?
• Diversity of speech gestures, focusing on Native American languages. How varied are the gestures used by different languages? How does this diversity inform our understanding of phonological structure?
• Modulation of linguistic gestures through prosody or sound change. How are gestures modified by linguistic or communicative context? What are the natural paths of change over time in the gestural structure of languages? How are phonological systems affected by such changes? How is the effect of prosody similar, or different, in signed and spoken language? What different effects does prosody have on gestures produced using different articulators, in speech or in sign?

Abstracts are to be submitted as a PDF file containing an anonymous one-page abstract at the following address: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=labphon12. You will need to create an EasyChair account if you do not already have one. Abstracts must be in 12 point Times or Times New Roman font, formatted for A4 or US Letter size paper with margins of 2.5 cm or 1 inch. The maximum length for the text of the abstract is one page; a second page may be used for figures and/or bibliographical references only.

The author's name and affiliation should not appear in the PDF file. One individual may be an author on no more than two submitted abstracts. All abstracts must be written in English. Presentations may be given in English or in ASL.

When completing the submission form on Easy Chair, you will see a space which asks for an abstract to be typed in. This is not the place for your real abstract! Please enter a short statement (no more than 50 words) summarizing your paper. Further down the page (where it says Upload paper) is where you will upload your real abstract as an attachment (PDF file). Before uploading, please ensure that all special characters display properly.

The submission form also asks you to identify which of the conference theme(s) your paper relates to. You may select one or more than one. If your paper does not relate to any of the themes, please select “non-thematic”.

Authors whose papers are accepted will have the opportunity to submit an updated abstract for inclusion in the conference program. Authors of papers accepted for oral presentation will need to submit a complete written version of their paper for distribution to the discussants, no later than 1 May 2010. It is expected that the proceedings of this conference will be published as a special issue of the new Laboratory Phonology journal; further details will be forthcoming.

If you have any question concerning the submission procedure or you encounter any problem, please send an email to: labfon12 ‘at’ unm ‘dot’ edu

The proposals will be evaluated anonymously by the scientific committee.

Please forward this call for papers to others who might be interested.