Conference: Onomastic Investigations, Latvian Language Institute, Riga, Latvia, May 10-11 2018

The Latvian Language Institute of the Latvian University will be holding a conference entitled “Onomastic Investigations”. The conference will be held in Riga, Latvia, from May 10-11th, 2018. Topics of the conference include the following: problems of theoretical onomastics; proper nouns in the context of ethnic genesis and glottogenesis; and language contacts in proper names. More on the conference can be found here: onomastica2012@gmail.com The flyer for the conference, in English, can be found here.

Call for Papers: MiOKO XXI, International and Nationwide Conference on Onomastics, Lublin, Poland, Oct 4-62018

The 21st International and Nationwide Conference on Onomastics (MiOKO) will be held at Maria Curia-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland, from the 4th to the 6th of October 2018. This year’s conference will focus on terminology applied to proper names and the need for establishing theoretical and terminological agreement (metaonomastic reflection) as well as mechanisms involved in forming and introducing onyms to a language, with an emphasis on the specific ways they have functioned in the Polish language (and other languages). The deadline for abstract submission is April 15, 2018. More detailed information about the conference can be found here at the website (in Polish).

Call for Papers: Taking Risks in Applied Linguistics, BAAL2018, York, UK, Sept. 6-9 2018

The 51st Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL2018) will be held from the 6th to the 9th of September 2018 in York, UK at St. John University. The deadline for abstract submissions is the 31st of March 2018. The theme of this year’s conference is “Taking Risks in Applied Linguistics.”

The overall purpose of the 2018 conference is to provide a scientific forum for exploring new ways of pursuing our research and improving our practice. Our global community is facing unsettling times, and language use is at the heart of many of the challenges we face. Such challenges include: new and renewed areas of social inequality; political, social and economic instabilities; language learning and teaching-related concerns; and legislative changes which affect the rights of certain groups. The 2018 meeting will be a forum for bold thinking to address these challenges.

The call for papers can be found at the BAAL website.

Call for Papers: VESNA Symposium, Linz, Austria, October 4-6 2018

The Society for Study of Language and Names in Austria [Verein zur Erforschung von Sprache und Name in Österreich (VESNA)] will be holding a conference in German entitled “Namenforschung im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit” (“Name research in the field of tension between science and the public”) from the 4th to the 6th of October 2018 in Linz, Austria. The relationship between science and the public, which is important for both sides but not always tension-free, should form the thematic framework of this conference. Aspects of the – more or less successful – transfer of knowledge between name research and the interested public can be addressed as well as the subject-related exchange between neighboring disciplines (linguistics, history, geography, ethnology, archeology, numismatics, heraldry, etc.).

Researchers interested in giving 30 minute (with 10 minute discussion sessions) scientific presentations are requested to email abstracts by March 31, 2018 to the following address: tagung@stifter-haus.at

More information can be found at the ICOS website, and the call for papers, in German, can be downloaded here.

Call for Papers: 2019 ANS Conference Special Panel on Literary Names

computer-564136_960_720The ANS is inviting abstract submissions for a panel on Literary Names for the 2019 annual conference to be held in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America. The purpose of the panel is to highlight research in, and study of, names in works of fiction.

All professional names enthusiasts are invited to submit an abstract for a 20-minute presentation. Abstract proposals should answer one or more of the following questions:

  1. How do the texts under analysis make use of onomastics to establish and convey character and/or plot?
  2. How does linguistic analysis bear on the reading of these texts?
  3. How is the field of onomastics enhanced by your research?

To submit a proposal, simply send a 250-word abstract proposal and a 100- word professional biography to Susan Behrens [sbehrens@mmm.eduby the 15th of July 2018. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2019 Panel” in the subject line of your email.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2018. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS and need to register with both the ANS and the Linguistic Society of America. Please feel free to contact Susan Behrens should you have any questions or concerns.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Call for Papers for the Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference, Chicago, IL, January 3-6, 2019

ANS Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference

January 3-6th, 2019 in Chicago, IL

The American Name Society is inviting abstract proposals for a panel with the literary theme “Borrowed Names and interactions in Literature.” Literary interactions between authors have always been of great interest in Literary Studies and Literary Theory. Influences, allusions, and intertexts can significantly affect the onomastic choices of an author and result in name borrowings. The papers of this panel will focus either on examples of these practices, thus contributing to the understanding of specific naming choices, or on the role of literary onomastics in theories of intertextuality, allusion, etc.

For more information about MLA 2019, check out the official website.

Proposal submission process:

  1. Abstracts proposals of up to 400 words should be sent as an email attachment (PDF format) to Dr Andreas Gavrielatos (a.gavrielatos@reading.ac.uk).
  2. Proposals should include “MLA proposal” in the subject line of the email.
  3. All submissions must include an abstract title, the full name(s) of the author(s), the author affiliation, and email address in the body of the email and NOT with the abstract.
  4. DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 5pm GMT on 31 March 2018. Authors will be notified about results of the blind review on or by 30 March 2018.
  5. Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers.
  6. For further information, please contact Dr A. Gavrielatos (a.gavrielatos@reading.ac.uk).

More information about ANS and MLA conferences in available on the Conferences page of this website.

Carto Cymru: The Wales Map Symposium 2018, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, May 8, 2018

On the 8th of May 2018, the Welsh Map Symposium 2018 or “Carto Cymru” will be take place at the National Library of Wales.  The theme of this year’s event is “Charting the Seas”. Charting the seas and coasts of the World – how maps depict the sea and coastline and how such mapping is used to widen our understanding of these environments. The symposium is a collaboration between The National Library of Wales and The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales. All interested map lovers, names enthusiasts, and Welsh fans are encouraged to purchase their tickets soon.  Information on tickets and the scheduled programme can be found here.

Call for Papers: Lexicography in the Digital World, ASIALEX2018, Krabi, Thailand, June 8-10 2018

The theme of this year’s ASIALEX2018 is ”Lexicography in the Digital World”. The event will be held from the 8th to the 10th of June 2018 in Krabi, Thailand. Lexicography is much more than simply compiling a dictionary. The field brings together computational linguists, translators, educators, software developers, technical companies, and publishers whose knowledge and experience enrich our understanding of the intricate relationship between dictionary and digitalization. The 12th International Conference of the Asian Association for Lexicography aims to expand the horizons and encourage discussion and cooperation among the many specialists who take different approaches to this field of studies. Researchers working within the area of lexicography are encouraged to send in their abstracts (max. 250-300 words) by the 1st of April 2018. Details on abstract submission can be found at the website.

This year’s guest speakers include:

  • Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera (University of Valladolid, Spain)
  • John Simpson (University of Oxford, United Kingdom)
  •  Pam Peters (Macquarie University, Australia)
  • Virach Sornlertlamvanich (Thammasat University, Thailand)

Call for Papers: 53rd Linguistics Colloquium, Odense, Denmark, Sept. 24-27 2018

From the 24th to the 27th of September 2018, the 53rd Linguistics Colloquium will be held at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark. The theme of this year’s conference is “Linguistic Variation and Diversity”. The colloquium is open to any theoretical approaches.Abstracts for papers (20 minutes presentation plus 10 minutes discussion) or posters should be written in English or German and have a length of 300-500 words including references. The deadline for abstracts is the 12th of March 2018. The website for the colloquium can be found here.

Relevant topic areas of the conference include, but are not limited to:

  • intra- and inter-linguistic variation
  • cross-linguistic comparison – typological, contrastive, historical
  • language contact
  • multilingualism – individual, institutional, societal
  • language policies and minority languages
  • linguistic variation and diversity in the media
  • linguistic variation and diversity in language teaching
  • translation of linguistic variation

Call for Papers: Tagung Namengeographie, Mainz, Germany, Sept. 17-18 2018

On September 17 and 18, 2018, an international conference on the topic of name geography will take place in the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz. The reason for this is that the German Family Name Atlas (DFA) was finished in July 2017 with the publication of the sixth volume. The aim of the project was to record the most common surnames in Germany in their spatial distribution on the basis of grammatical and lexical questions. Thus, the atlas could not only show the distinctive regional distribution of many family names, but it also proves to be a catalyst and model for further family name geographical and lexicographic projects in Germany and abroad. Examples are the “Digital Surname Dictionary of Germany”, the “Surname Atlas of Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Hesse”, the “Luxembourg Family Name Atlas” or the “Luxembourgish family name dictionary”. In addition, it turns out that the geographical evaluation also leads to new insights in other branches of onomastics, as investigations, for example, on call, settlement, guest house or street names show.

Possible topics are:
· Evaluations with material from the DFA, interpretation of DFA maps, including the inclusion of adjacent disciplines.
· Presentation of work in progress, completed or planned name geographical projects (family names and other name types) at home and abroad.
· Geographical studies in areas that have not been researched so far, such as business names.
· Lectures from neighboring disciplines such as dialectology, geography, digital humanities, computational linguistics, computer science, which contribute to the further development of the name geography (compulsory is graphic material).
· Methodical possibilities, technical solutions, visualization of name data.

The deadline for abstract submission is March 31, 2018. Abstracts can be sent by e-mail to namengeographie@adwmainz.de. More information can be found here.