CFP: Advances in Biolinguistics (SLE 44, preliminary)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Advances in Biolinguistics
WORKSHOP DATES: 10–11 September 2011
CONFERENCE: SLE 44 (http://sle2011.cilap.es)
LOCATION: Logroño (La Rioja), Spain
CFP DEADLINE: 14 November 2010

Contact Person: Kleanthes Grohmann (kleanthi@ucy.ac.cy)

Biolinguistics is concerned with exploring the basic properties of the language faculty, how it matures in the individual, how it is put to use in thought and action (including communication), what brain circuits may implement it, and how it emerged in the human species. In asking these questions, biolinguists try to determine which components of the brain are unique to language, as opposed to shared with other cognitive domains such as music and mathematics, and especially those that also seem unique to humans. If, as seems reasonable to suppose, our linguistic capacity is both uniquely human and, in part, uniquely comprised of language-specific mechanisms, significant conceptual and empirical issues arise concerning its evolution, form, maturation, and function.

We encourage submissions of abstracts that touch on any of the issues listed above, or any other that contributes to our understanding of the biological foundations of the language faculty. Of special interest are contributions that bring biological considerations to bear on linguistic theorizing.

Advances in Biolinguistics is a workshop intended for the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (http://sle2011.cilap.es). Since we will need to submit a proposal with a preliminary list of speakers by November 15, we need preliminary titles and mini-abstracts (3-5 sentences) from potentially interested participants. The deadline for these is Sunday, November 14, 2010. Please note that expressing an interest in participation by sending us a title and mini-abstract is not binding. The final deadline for regular abstracts, to be submitted via the conference site, is January 15, 2011. We will send interested participants a reminder about this, and we will of course also let them know, by mid-December, whether the workshop was accepted.