NEWSLETTER

May 2006

Welcome to the May issue of the Newsletter of the Australian Linguistic Society. As usual, the @ symbol in people's email addresses has been replaced with -at-, and clicking on any link will open that site in a new window.

Thanks to all those who contributed to this issue. Enjoy the Newsletter!

Tim Curnow
tjcurnow-at-ozemail.com.au

Conferences! Conferences! Workshops! Institutes!

The deadline for Earlybird rates for this year's ALS conference and the Linguistics Institute is

THIS FRIDAY, 26th May

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Registration will of course still be available after that, but not at earlybird rates.

For information about all of the LINQ2006 events, including the ALS Conference, ALI, ALAA Conference, Australex, PACSLRF, etc, go to http://www.linq2006.une.edu.au.

Please let students know about the various courses available at ALI - details below.

If you will be attending any of the LINQ2006 events, remember that you must find your own accommodation, and it's probably a good idea to book ASAP if you haven't already done it. Go to the LINQ2006 site for some possibilities.

Mary Laughren

Australian Linguistics Institute 2006

The Australian Linguistics Institute will be held in Brisbane in early July 2006. ALI has been the major Linguistics professional development event held in Australia over the last decade and a half, but its future has been under a bit of cloud over recent years. This year it is bouncing back in a new week-long format and with a thematic focus on language and cognition. As ALI2006 will be something of a test-run for the viability of future Institutes in Australia, we invite you to show that you value the role it plays in our professional community and come along!

Find all the info at http://www.ali2006.une.edu.au/

Note the Earlybird Deadline of May 26th - it's time to act now!!

Location: University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Dates: 10-14th of July 2006
Registration: See the website. Earlybird deadline is May 26th, but you can register right up til July 10th.

ALI 2006 is a selection of 12 short intensive courses presented by world experts in their fields. Many courses in ALI 2006 are on the theme 'Language and Cognition', while others focus on language typology, acquisition, and aspects of linguistic theory. It's a unique opportunity for graduate students, advanced undergraduates, professional linguists, and language professionals to upgrade their knowledge and skills in key areas of linguistics. Each course consists of five 90 minute sessions, running Monday through Friday. Three sets of courses will be running in parallel, so participants can attend a maximum of four courses. Confirmed topics and presenters are as follows.

• Bilingualism: cognitive aspects, Istvan Kecskes (State University of New York, Albany)
• Cognitive linguistics, John Taylor (University of Otago)
• Combinatory grammar and natural cognition, Mark Steedman (University of Edinburgh)
• L2 syntax: Age dependent effects, Bonnie Schwartz (University of Hawai'i)
• Language and genetics, Brian Byrne (University of New England)
• Language and thought, Lera Boroditsky (Stanford University)
• Logic in child language acquisition, Stephen Crain (Macquarie University Centre for Cognitive Science)
• Morphology and lexical representations, Andrew Spencer (University of Essex)
• NonPamaNyungan languages of Northern Australia, Nicholas Evans (Melbourne University)
• Papuan languages, William Foley (University of Sydney)
• Semantics masterclass, Anna Wierzbicka (Australian National University)
• Understanding typological distribution, Balthasar Bickel (University of Leipzig)

ALI 2006 is organised by the Language and Cognition Research Centre of the University of New England. For more information, contact Cliff Goddard cgoddard-at-une.edu.au, or Andrea Schalley andrea.schalley-at-une.edu.au or Nick Reid nreid-at-une.edu.au.

Nick Reid

ALS/ALI 2008 - Call for expressions of interest

The ALS Executive is calling for expressions of interest from departments to host ALS and/or ALI in 2008 (and/or beyond, if you like!). We are interested in any and all proposals, including those that have ALS and ALI organised by different institutions in the same location (as with this year), and those that propose to run ALI in a shorter or new format.

Please bring proposals for discussion at the AGM in Brisbane.

Rachel Nordlinger for ALS Executive

News from the University of Sydney

PhD Thesis: Miriam Corris (milip-at-unwired.com.au), 'A Grammar of Barupu: a language of Papua New Guinea', Supervisor: William Foley

This thesis is a descriptive grammar of Barupu, the easternmost member of the Skou family of languages. Barupu is spoken by around 3000 people on the north coast of New Guinea. Barupu is a tone language in which words belong to one of five tone classes. A key feature of Barupu grammar is that there is no oblique marking on NPs - no particles, adpositions or case markers provide information about a nominal's role in the clause. Underived verbs show multiple exponence of subject, which can take the form of double prefixing or prefixing and infixing. There is a set of suffixing morphemes that function like applicatives in adding participants to the clause, but which are very atypical in appearing outside verbal inflection and showing extra agreement for subject. Barupu also has a prefixing Benefactive paradigm that replaces regular subject agreement and can be extended to mark external possession.Appendices to this thesis include a set of interlinearised texts and a draft of a Barupu-English dictionary with an English-Barupu finderlist.

Jane Simpson

Flashback!

From the Linguistic bulletin, September 1970.

"This is the first in the new series of newsletters of the Linguistic Society of Australia. The size of future issues depends very much on you, the members. Please keep us informed about such things as: staff movements, qualifications gained, publications, visitors, in fact about anything of interest to those interested in linguistics in Australia." [Some things never change! TJC]

"Talanya, the Joural of the Linguistics Society of Australia is getting off the ground. After protracted negotiations, Mouton & Co have agreed to publish the journal for the society once a year along with an issue of their own journal: Linguistics. The cost will be Dutch Florins 10.50 per issue (about $2.50). You will be advised of further details as soon as possible. The first issue may be rather slim. Do bear in mind that the size and quality of future issues depends on the contributions of members of the society. It is not by any means too early to be considering an article or review for the second issue of the journal."

From Tim's archive

News from the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology

• Professor Johanna Nichols (University of California, Berkeley) will be at RCLT as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study from 10th June - 18th August. Professor Nichols will be working on 'Lexical typological metrics as distance measures'. The results obtained will be used to measure diversity within language families and linguistic areas, as well as typological distances between pairs and sets of languages.
• Professor Brian Joseph (Ohio State University) will be at RCLT from 22 July – 10 August as a Special Visiting Fellow (sponsored by the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University). Professor Joseph will be awarded the Degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) at a special ceremony at which he will be giving a public lecture. Further information will be available on our website (http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt).
• Raoul Zamponi from Siena has commenced his PhD program with us. He will be working on a comprehensive grammar of Cuna, a Chibchan language from Panama.
• Dr Renée Lambert-Brétière from Université Lumiére Lyon 2 in France will be joining us as a RCLT Postdoctoral Research Fellow in June. Dr Lambert-Brétière is planning to work on Kwoma in East Sepik, PNG.
• The Local Workshops on 'The Semantics of Clause Linking' continue with presentations in the near future by Dr Stephen Morey, Prof Randy LaPolla, Dr Frank Lichtenberk, Rebecca Hanson and Prof Kate Burridge.
• Recently returned safely from fieldwork – Rebecca Hanson (Peru), Seino Van Breugel (NE India), Dr Stephen Morey (NE India), Dr Catriona Hyslop (Vanuatu) and Dr Ghil'ad Zuckermann (Israel).
• Still on fieldwork or soon to leave on fieldwork – Mark Post (NE India), Simon Overall (Peru), Rik de Busser (Taiwan), Dr David Fleck (Peru), Dr Gerd Jendraschek (PNG), Dr Oliver Iggesen (Bolivia), Dr Stefan Dienst (Brazil), Dr Birgit Hellwig (Sudan) and Dr Rosemary Beam de Azcona (Mexico).

Siew-Peng Condon

News from Monash

We are very pleased to announce that Mark Donohue will join the Linguistics Program at Monash in June as a Professorial Fellow. While at Monash Mark will continue his research on the languages of eastern Indonesia and New Guinea. Mark's publications include a full grammar of Tukang Besi and sketches of Warembori and I?saka, and he is currently preparing a grammar of Skou (see http://www.donohue.cc).

Margaret Florey

News from the Linguistics Program at La Trobe University

A new book edited by Jonathan Harrington and Marija Tabain has just been published: Speech Production: Models, Phonetic Processes and Techniques. Psychology Press: New York, 2006. http://www.cognitivepsychologyarena.com/books/book.asp?isbn=1841694371.

Theresa Savage submitted her PhD dissertation, entitled Ethnolinguistic revival in Japan: Commodification and museumification of Ainu, and it was passed by the examiners. She is now finishing up final revisions based on the examiners' comments.

Randy LaPolla

AJL editorial policy

There is currently no formal editorial policy for AJL. Below is a draft of a formal editorial policy, which will be put to the AGM at the July meeting of ALS. If you have any comments, suggestions for amendment etc, can you please forward these to mark.harvey-at-newcastle.edu.au.

Australian Journal of Linguistics Editorial Policy

1. General Review

General review is the responsibility of the journal editors and the editorial board. Upon receipt of a submission, the editors determine firstly whether the submission is:

1. Of satisfactory academic standard
2. Within the scope of the journal

Submissions are reviewed by a minimum of two reviewers. All reviewing is anonymous, unless the editors and the reviewer agree otherwise. Reviewers are selected on the basis that there should be no conflict of interest in their reviewing the submission. Examples of conflict of interest include:

1. Being employed by, or holding an honorary, adjunct, or visiting appointment at an institution hosting one or more of the authors.
2. Being a current or recent past principal supervisor (within the last 5 years) of the higher degree of an author.
3. Being a collaborator with one of the authors (no joint publications, grants, or grant proposals within the last 5 years).
4. Having a close, personal relationship (including enmity) with an author.

Authors may request that certain persons be excluded as reviewers. Agreement to such requests is at the discretion of the editors.

1.1 Initial Submission

With an initial submission, reviewers are requested to return a report evaluating the submission into one of the following four categories.

1. Publish as is
2. Publish subject to minor revisions
3. Revise and resubmit
4. Not suitable for AJL

In order for a manuscript to be accepted on initial submission, all reviews must evaluate it as either Category 1 or Category 2. If this is the case, then subject to the satisfactory completion of any minor revisions required, the manuscript proceeds to publication.

If a manuscript receives one or more reviews evaluating it as Category 4, then it is returned to the authors together with the reviews. It is at the discretion of the editors whether resubmission is permitted.

If a manuscript receives one or more reviews evaluating it as Category 3, and none evaluating it as Category 4, then it is returned to the authors together the reviews and advice that resubmission is permitted.

1.2 Resubmission and re-review

Wherever possible, re-review is undertaken by the reviewers of the original submission. Re-reviewers are provided with a copy of their comments on the original submission.

With resubmission, reviewers are requested to return a report evaluating the resubmission into one of the following three categories.

1. Publish as is
2. Publish subject to minor revisions
3. Not suitable for AJL

Reviewers are advised that the manuscript is a resubmission and that the option for major revisions is not available to resubmissions.

In order for a manuscript to be accepted on resubmission, all reviews must evaluate it as either Category 1 or Category 2. If this is the case, then subject to the satisfactory completion of any minor revisions required, the manuscript proceeds to publication.

If a resubmitted manuscript receives one or more reviews evaluating it as Category 3, then it is returned to the authors together with the reviews. The authors are advised that further resubmission is not possible.

2. Guest Edited Volumes

There are two categories of submissions in guest edited volumes.

1. Submissions where one or more of the guest editors is an author.
2. Submissions where none of the guest editors is an author.

1. Conduct the general review process as set out in §1
2. Liaise with the publishers of the journal in relation to all editorial copy matters

1. The journal editors must deem suitable all reviewers proposed by the guest editors. If the journal editors deem a reviewer unsuitable, the guest editors must provide an alternate suitable reviewer.
2. The journal editors must deem satisfactory all reviews. If the journal editors deem a review unsatisfactory, then the guest editors must provide an alternate satisfactory review.

3. Editorial Board

Members of the editorial board are appointed for 5 year terms by the Executive Committee of the Australian Linguistic Society. The responsibilities of the Editorial Board members are the following.

1. To review manuscripts to determine their suitability for the general review process, as requested by the journal editors.
2. To review manuscripts as a part of the general review process, as requested by the journal editors.
3. To encourage submissions to the journal.

Mark Harvey

Pronunciation of words

A German radio station is producing a feature on Bruce Chatwin and they are seeking help with the pronunciation of words from Australian languages (ideally in IPA).

A list of words is given below. There are pronunications already marked for many of them (using German orthography), however those marked in italics are currently missing pronunciations. Note that not all of them are words from Australian languages.

Anybody who is willing to help please contact Ann-Kathrin Fernandez, e-mail: hfadb-at-hr-online.de.

Anna Margetts

Books and theses

Publications received, August 2005

The following is a list of publications relating to the study of language, received by the Reviews Editor. Note that it is not possible to return books to the publisher, and that acceptance of a book implies no promise that it will be reviewed in the Australian Journal of Linguistics. Reviews are printed as circumstances permit, and copies are sent to the publishers of the works reviewed. If you wish to review a book, please contact the Reviews Editor, Alan Libert (Alan.Libert-at-newcastle.edu.au). Note that many books from previous lists of publications received are still available, so you may want to look at them also.

• Aikenvald, A. Y. and R. M. W. Dixon, eds. (2006) Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Typology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Ewing, M. C. (2005) Grammar and Inference in Conversation: Identifying Clause Structure in Spoken Javanese. John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia.
• Godjevac, S. (2006) Focus Projection in Serbo-Croatian. CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA.
• Love, N., ed. (2006) Language and History: Integrationist Perspectives. Routledge, London and New York.
• McEnery, T. (2006) Swearing in English. Routledge, London and New York.
• Rivas, J. (2004) Clause Structure Typology: Grammatical Relations in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Tras Tram, Lugo, Galicia.
• Sanz, C., ed. (2005) Mind and Context in Adult Second Language Acquisition. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.
• Tsunoda, T. and T. Kageyama, eds. (2006) Voice and Grammatical Relations. John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia.

Alan Libert

New journal: Gender and language

Edited by Bonnie McElhinny, University of Toronto, Canada and Sara Mills, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Call for papers

This new journal Gender and Language aims to publish cutting edge research. We are interested in publishing articles on any aspect of the subject of language and gender. We welcome research employing a range of linguistic approaches (e.g. conversation analysis, discourse and text analysis, ethnography of communication, pragmatics, variationist sociolinguistics, interactional sociolinguistics, stylistics) and from a variety of disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, women and gender studies, education, philosophy, psychology, folklore, sociology, communication studies, queer studies, literary and cultural studies, as it aims to foster interdisciplinary discussion and dialogue among these disciplines.

Gender and Language is the new journal of the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA). The journal will be published in May and November, and the inaugural issue will appear in 2006. For more information about IGALA, or to join the Association, visit the IGALA website, http://www.stanford.edu/group/igala.

Send contributions of up to 10,000 words by email to the editors:
Bonnie McElhinny, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada. Email: bonnie.mcelhinny-at-utoronto.ca
or to Sara Mills, Dept. of English, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent, Sheffield S10 2BP, UK. Email: s.l.mills-at-shu.ac.uk

Gender and Language Volume 1, 2006, 2 issues per year, ISSN 1747-6321 (print) / ISSN 1747-633X (online).

Sara Mills

Upcoming conferences and calls for papers

Eleventh Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology

Auckland, New Zealand, 6-8 December 2006

Call for Papers

ASSTA and the University of Auckland are pleased to announce the Eleventh International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (SST2006). The conference will be held in the School of Engineering, at the University of Auckland's City Campus.

Conference themes

Submissions are invited for oral and poster presentations. Submissions should describe original contributions to spoken language, speech science and/or technology that will be of interest to an audience including scientists, engineers, linguists, psychologists, speech and language therapists, audiologists and other professionals.

Submissions are invited in all areas of speech science and technology, but particularly in the following areas:

• Speech production
• Acoustic phonetics
• Acoustics of accent change
• Music and speech processing
• Emotional speech, voice, intonation and prosody
• Applications of speech science and technology
• Speech Processing for Forensic Applications
• Speech recognition and understanding
• Speaker recognition and classification
• Speech enhancement and noise cancellation
• Pedagogical technologies for speech and singing
• Corpus management and speech tools
• Contributions of speech science and technology to audiology & speech language therapy

SST2004 at Macquarie University featured a successful session on the Phonetics and Phonology of Australian and New Zealand English (PANZE). The organising committee of SST2006 would like to include a further PANZE session during the conference. In addition to a call for papers relating to the above themes, we are therefore also inviting papers on the Phonetics and Phonology of Australian and New Zealand English. We would particularly be interested in papers that deal with the origins and development of these varieties, though not to the exclusion of papers on other topics relevant to PANZE.

Conference Keynote Speakers

• Pat Keating, Professor of Linguistics, University of California at Los Angeles
• Joseph Perkell, Senior Research Scientist, Speech Communication Group, Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT
• Professor Michael Corballis, Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland

Important dates in 2006

• Submission closing date – Monday 31th July
• Acceptance notice date – Monday 25th September
• Manuscript closing date – Monday 6th November
• Early registration date for conference and pre-conference workshop – Sunday 29th October
• Presenter/Author registration Deadline – Sunday 29th October
• Pre-conference tutorials and workshops – 5th December

This conference continues the series formerly known as the Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, as reflected in the numbering. The change in name to Australasian reflects the expansion and similar renaming of ASSTA to include New Zealand-based as well as Australia-based researchers and companies. It is therefore fitting that this first Australasian conference is being held in New Zealand. See http://www.assta.org/sst/2004/for information on the previous 2004 conference.

For more information about the 2006 conference and paper submission process, please see the ASSTA web site at: http://www.assta.org/. Information will also be posted on the University of Auckland Speech Science web site at http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/Psych/slt/SLTevents.htm.

Helen Charters

3rd International Postgraduate Linguistics Conference

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 22nd – 23rd July, 2006

Call for papers: Second announcement of the postgraduate linguistics conference to be held at Victoria University of Wellington, 22nd – 23rd July 2006.

Third time's a charm: we'd like to announce the dates of this year's postgraduate conference for students of Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Communication Studies, Sign Linguistics, Translation Studies and Languages. The conference is specifically targeted at postgraduate students and is a great opportunity to present the current state of your work and meet your peers. Papers from all research stages are welcome, including proposed research methodologies, progress reports and discussions of final results. The conference is also a chance to practice your presentation skills.

Presentations should last 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Attendance at the conference is free and (scrumptious) lunch and teas are provided.

This year our plenary speakers will be:

• Miriam Meyerhoff, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and
• Rachel McKee and David McKee, Deaf Studies Research Unit, Victoria University of Wellington

Abstracts for papers should be 150-200 words and include the title of the paper, author's name, university affiliation and the author's contact address. The abstracts will be published in the conference programme. Speakers will also have a chance to publish their paper as part of the conference proceedings.

The closing date for submissions is 1st June 2006. Please send abstracts as a Word attachment to vuwling-at-yahoo.co.nz or mail to:
Agnes Terraschke
c/o School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Victoria University of Wellington
P.O. Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand

For updates and further information please refer to our website http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/about/postgrad.aspx.

Janet Holmes

Australasian Discourse Summer School

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 20 Nov-15 Dec 2006

We have now opened enrolments for the 2006 Australasian Discourse Summer School, 20 November to 15 December 2006, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

We are anticipating a large amount of interest in the Summer School; therefore enrol early to avoid disappointment.

The following courses will be offered in the 2006 Summer School:

• Week 1: Introduction to Discourse Theory (20 to 24 Nov)
  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/conted/discoursetheory/week1.html
• Week 2: Discourse Theory and Deconstruction (27 Nov to 1 Dec)
  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/conted/discoursetheory/week2.html
• Week 3: Critical Theory and Discourse Theory (4 Dec to 8 Dec)
  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/conted/discoursetheory/week3.html
• Week 4: Applying Discourse Theory (11 Dec to 15 Dec)
  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/conted/discoursetheory/week4.html

Visit the website http://www.vuw.ac.nz/conted/discoursetheory/index.html for further information on course content, dates, fees and enrolment information.

To enrol please visit http://www.vuw.ac.nz/conted/discoursetheory/enrol.html.

Unfortunately, we had hoped to offer the course, Psychoanalysis and Discourse Theory, as part of the 2006 Summer School, but the presenter for this programme will not be available until the 2007 Summer School. However we are hoping to organise a video-conference presentation with Dr Yannis Stavrakakis during the 2006 Summer School. Please email to register your interest in this event.

For enrolment and fees enquires please email conted-at-vuw.ac.nz or ring New Zealand-04 463 6556.

For course content enquires please email the Course Convenor, peter.kitchenman-at-vuw.ac.nz.

Janet Holmes

10th International Pragmatics Conference

Göteborg, Sweden, 9-13 July 2007

Special theme: Language data, corpora, and computational pragmatics

The conference is open to all other pragmatics-related topics as well (where pragmatics is conceived broadly as a cognitive, social, and cultural perspective on language and communication).

Panels on a wide range of topics are already being prepared.

Plenary lecturers will include (with tentative indication of topic area):

• Douglas BIBER (Flagstaff, Arizona; pragmatics and corpora)
• Bill HANKS (Berkeley; Maya discourse genres and missionization)
• Susan HERRING (Bloomington; computer-mediated communication)
• Jan-Ola ÖSTMAN (Helsinki; addressing Nordic language issues)
• Udaya SING (Mysore; endangered languages)
• Yorick WILKS (Sheffield; computational pragmatics)

Conference chairs: Karin AIJMER & Jens ALLWOOD (Univ. of Göteborg)

Local Site Committee: The other members of the Local Site Committee are: Elisabeth AHLSÉN (Univ. of Göteborg), Robin COOPER (Univ. of Göteborg), Per LINELL (Univ. of Linköping), Thorstein FRETHEIM (Univ. of Trondheim), Anna-Brita STENSTRÖM (Univ. of Bergen), Jan-Ola ÖSTMAN (Univ. of Helsinki)

International Conference Committee: In addition to the members of the Local Site Committee, the International Conference Committee includes: Keiko ABE (Tokyo), Charles ANTAKI (Loughborough), Josie BERNICOT (Poitiers), Rukmini BHAYA NAIR (New Delhi), Adriana BOLÍVAR (Caracas), Walter DE MULDER (Antwerp), Helmut GRUBER (Vienna), Yueguo GU (Beijing), Auli HAKULINEN (Helsinki), Krisadawan HONGLADAROM (Bangkok), Alexandra JAFFE (Long Beach), Sophia MARMARIDOU (Athens), Luisa MARTÍN ROJO (Madrid), Bonnie McELHINNY (Toronto), Jacob MEY (Odense), Marina SBISÀ (Trieste), Jef VERSCHUEREN (Antwerp; ex officio as IPrA Secretary General).

Call for papers

Panel proposals on any topic studied from a pragmatic perspective (including, but not restricted to the special topic) are invited by 15 September 2006.

Individual proposals for lectures and posters, on any topic studied from a pragmatic perspective (including, but not restricted to the special topic), are invited by 1 November 2006.

For complete instructions, as well as all registration information, check the site http://www.ipra.be by 1 July 2006.

What you should expect

• All submission procedures will be web-based (i.e., paper copies, e-mail attachments or faxes will not be accepted)
• The submission site will be up and running by 1 July 2006
• The submission of proposals presupposes IPrA membership
• Panel proposals (deadline 15 September 2006) will have to consist of a brief outline (max. one page) of the theme and purpose of the panel, with a first indication of the people the organizer(s) anticipate(s) to be involved as speakers. Immediately after the deadline the conference committee will, on the basis of the outline (weighed against other proposals in relation to the total number of available time slots), decide (i) whether the proposal is accepted, and (ii) how many 90-minute slots can be made available for the accepted panel. From that moment onwards, the organizer(s) is/are free to fill the allotted sessions in the way they see as most suitable to the theme and the purpose of their panel. Not all panels need to take the same form; some may work with sessions that emphasize discussion; others may want to fit in more (brief) oral presentations; the minimum number of presentations planned for one 90-minute session, however, should be three. Though it is the panel organizer(s) who take(s) active responsibility for the quality of the contributions to their panel (i.e. they decide what is accepted), abstracts for all panel contributions have to be submitted by the 1 November deadline that will be handled for individual submissions. Panel organizers are expected to guide their participants in this process, so that all formal requirements are duly fulfilled. This procedure implies that no-one can submit contributions for panels without the prior consent of the panel organizer(s).
• Individual proposals for lectures and posters should take the form of a brief abstract (max. one page); mind the 1 November 2006 deadline. It is the individual submitter's choice to submit for oral presentation (lecture) or a poster. For oral presentations, 30-minute slots will be available (including discussion time). Posters will be up for one whole day; during that day, there will be a free hour that can be used only for looking at and discussing posters. IPrA actively encourages the submission of posters; experience tells us that they often lead to more serious interaction and result in more lasting and fruitful contacts than oral presentations.
• Because of heavy competition for slots in the program, no-one can be permitted to send in more than one submission of which he or she is the first author (whether panel contributions, lectures or posters). Anyone may be involved in a second or even a third paper if someone else is the first author and will be present at the conference as well. As a rule, first authors handle the submission process. Presenting a paper is, however, always compatible with taking the role of organizer of a panel or acting as a discussant in a panel.

Jef Verschueren

Jobs, grants and scholarships

The University of Sydney Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme 2007

http://www.usyd.edu.au/research/fellowships/postdoc.shtml

The University of Sydney Postdoctoral Fellowships were established in 1996 to support excellence in full-time research undertaken in any Department or School at the University. The University will be offering up to 15 new Fellowships in 2007. The Fellowships are extremely prestigious and highly competitive internationally in line with equivalent externally funded fellowships. Applicants must have an outstanding track record relative to opportunity in order to be short-listed. Successful applicants are expected to be based full-time at the University for the duration of the Fellowship.

Closing dates to research office: 15 September 2006. Applicants must contact the Head of the host School/Department before 11 August 2006 - Professor William Foley (William.Foley-at-arts.usyd.edu.au).

Eligibility

Preference will be given to applicants seeking to join the University from another organisation in Australia or from overseas. Applicants currently employed at the University of Sydney who commenced such employment on or after 1 July 2005 are eligible to apply.

Applicants must have a PhD award dated no earlier than 1 December 2001, or provide evidence in the application of graduand status as at 15 September 2006 (ie. evidence that all the requirements for the PhD award, including examination, have been completed).

Applicants wishing to clarify or seek exemption from eligibility requirements must submit a written request to the Research Office by 28 July 2006.

Assessment Criteria

Excellence will be the primary criterion, both in terms of the project and the researcher. Equal weight will be given to the quality of the project, the track record of the applicant relative to opportunity, and the research environment in the host Department/School.

The guidelines, application form and other associated material for The University of Sydney Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme 2007 are now available at http://www.usyd.edu.au/research/fellowships/postdoc.shtml.

General enquiries: Angie Williams on 9351 4469 or via email: angie.williams-at-usyd.edu.au.
Further information: Chris Robinson on 9351 4795 or via email: chris.robinson-at-usyd.edu.au.

Jane Simpson

About ALS

The Australian Linguistic Society is the national organization for linguists and linguistics in Australia. Its primary goal is to further interest in and support for linguistics research and teaching in Australia. Further information about the Society is available by clicking here.

The ALS Newsletter is issued four times per year, in the middle of February, May, August and November. Copy for the Newsletter should be sent to the Editor, Tim Curnow (tjcurnow-at-ozemail.com.au) by the end of the first week of February, May, August and November. There is a list of people who are automatically advised that it's time to contribute material; if you wish to be added to that list, send Tim an email.

Unless you paid for several years at a time, or have given the Treasurer your credit card details and permission to use it, subscriptions for ALS are due at the beginning of each calendar year; the year you are paid up to is shown on the address label on the envelope your copy of the Australian Journal of Linguistics comes in. A subscription form is available by clicking here.

The only membership list is maintained by the Treasurer, Doug Absalom (Doug.Absalom-at-gmail.com). If you wish to check your membership status, change your address or make some other enquiry, please contact Doug.