ICOS2017: XXVI International Council of Onomastic Science, University of Debrecen, Hungary, August 27-Sept. 1 2017

The International Council of Onomastic Science will be holding its next congress at the University of Debrecen in Hungary from the 27th of August to the 1st of September 2017. The theme of this year’s conference is “locality and globality of the world in names.” Several different symposia will be featured at this year’s meeting, for example, “International onomastic cooperations and projects”; “Systematical relations between toponyms and anthroponyms”; and “Applied Onomastics in practice”. Early-bird registration for ICOS2017 has been officially opened; go here for information.

The International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) is the international organisation for all scholars who have a special interest in the study of names (place-names, personal names, and proper names of all other kinds). The aim of the Council is the advancement, representation and co-ordination of name research on an international level and in an interdisciplinary context.

Call for Papers: Toponyme – eine Standortbestimmung, Mainz, Germany, Sept. 18-19 2017

From the 18th to the 19th of September 2017, an international conference on toponymy entitled “Toponyme – eine Standortbestimmung” will be held in Mainz, Germany, at the Academy of Sciences and Literature. Scientific abstracts are currently being accepted on any area of toponymic research. Paper proposals are especially welcome in one of the following areas: unofficial place names; the grammar of place names; strategies for (re)naming place names; the compilation and use of large toponymic datasets; the visualization and digitalization of place name data; the relationship between place names and cartography. The deadline for abstracts is the 30th of April 2017. More information on this event can be found here.

The focus of the conference is to open up new perspectives for toponomic research, which are to flank the necessary traditional names lexography. In particular, new subjects, questions, perspectives and methods are to be developed and interfaces to post-biodiversity are to be explored, which can lead to further research projects. The conference is therefore aimed not only at representatives of linguistic name research but also for other linguistic disciplines (eg dialectology), historical and historical auxiliary sciences, archival and bibliology, geography, archeology.

Call for Papers: CIHLIE: Coloquio Internacional sobre la Historia de los Lenguajes Iberorrománicos de Especialidad, Alcalá de Henares, Spain, October 19-20th 2017

An international conference on the history of Ibero-Romance languages will be held from the 19th to the 20th of October 2017 in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. “Coloquio Internacional sobre la Historia de los Lenguajes Iberorrománicos de Especialidad” or CIHLIE provides a scientific platform for researchers working within the areas of Discourse Analysis, Historical Linguistics, Text/Corpus Linguistics, and Lexicography. The languages of scientific interest at this conference are Aragonese; Catalan-Valencian-Balear; Galician; Leonese; Occitan; Portuguese; Spanish. The call for abstracts ends on the 30th of April 2017. More on this event, including submission requirements, can be found at the CIHILE website.

The specific objectives of the Colloquium will be:

Describe the dialogue as a way of transmitting knowledge between disciplines and subdisciplines, traditions and schools, scientists and lay people from a diachronic and synchronic perspective
To discover, describe and investigate the dialogical genres that functioned as reference texts and determine the importance of these genres for the development of specialty languages
Encourage diachronic research as an instrument for discovering and describing forms of oral imprinting related to the transmission of knowledge and the implantation of models and traditions of scientific exposition based on dialogue
To investigate the history of the reception of certain theoretical treatises, of the specialized languages, the discursive traditions and textual models linked to them both by the scientists of the same language and culture as by the scientific community of other languages and cultures
Promote interest in specialized translation, as well as the problems that translators have encountered throughout the history of this activity and in the translation of texts of specialty of the past.
To inquire into the paths taken by texts, models and terms – for example through translation, adaptation, etc. – and how they were adapted or modified when discussing specialized languages in other languages or in other scientific fields.

Call for Papers: ALW1: 1st Workshop on Abusive Language Online, Vancouver, Canada, July 30-August 4 2017

Recent years have seen an exponential increase in the frequency and severity of abusive language used online. From the 3rd to the 4th of August 2017, ALW1: 1st Workshop on Abusive Language Online, an international scientific workshop on this linguistic phenomenon will be held in Vancouver, Canada. The workshop will be held in as a part of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) which will be held from July 30th to August 4th, 2017. Researchers interested in submitting an abstract proposal for possible presentation at the workshop can find out more about this important event at the website. Submission guidelines are here. The submission deadline is Thursday, the 27th of April 2017.

Paper Topics

Long and short papers on any of the following general topics are invited:

Assessment of all current methods of addressing abusive language
The social, personal and cultural effects of abusive language online
Legal ramifications of measures taken against abusive language use
NLP models and methods for abusive language detection
Application of NLP tools to analyze social media content and other large data sets
NLP models for cross-lingual abusive language detection

Best practices for using NLP techniques in watchdog settings
Development of corpora and annotation guidelines

“The Dynamics of Lexical Innovation: Data, Methods, Models” workshop, Munich, Germany, June 28-30, 2017

A workshop entitled “The Dynamics of Lexical Innovation: Data, Methods, Models” has been scheduled for the 28th to the 30th of June 2017 in Munich, Germany. The purpose of the workshop is to offer lexicography experts a scientific forum for cooperatively investigating the ways in which lexical innovations diffuse speech communities via usage domains and media. In particular, the focus will be placed on the challenges involved in the theoretical and computational models of lexical innovation and diffusion processes. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the journal Pragmatics & Cognition in 2018. Read more about the workshop here.

Confirmed speakers include:

Richard Blythe
Christophe Gérard
Jack Grieve
Will Hamilton
Suzanne Kemmer
Terttu Nevalainen
Jelena Prokić
Tanja Säily

Call for Papers: “Challenges for Wordnets” Workshop, LDK 2017, Galway, Ireland, June 18, 2017

On the 18th of June 2017, a workshop on computational linguistics, semantics, and lexicography will be taking place in Galway, Ireland. The official theme of the conference is “Challenges for Wordnets”. It will be co-located with the First Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge (LDK 2017). Wordnets are commonly used today to model word meanings in natural language processing. The one-day conference will specifically address the advantages and disadvantages posed by wordnets today. Abstracts for possible presentation are currently being accepted; read the Call for Papers here. In particular, papers dealing with modeling, application, compatibility, and evaluation are being solicited. Papers should be submitted via EasyChair. More information on the workshop can be found here. The deadline for submissions is March 30 2017.

Please submit papers of between 4-10 pages, excluding references, formatted using the Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence formatting guidelines. Submissions should be anonymous. Submissions will be reviewed by at least 3 reviewers and will be made available on online prior to the workshop.

Authors of good submissions will be invited to submit extended versions for a special issue of the Cognitive Studies | Études cognitives journal. The extended versions will be carefully peer reviewed, but the scope of this special issue will be set in advance.

DomainX™ 2017 Conference, London, England, April 9 2017

On the 9th of April 2017, an international conference on Domain Naming, DomainX™, will be held in London, England. One of the main purposes of the conference is to spread public awareness about the industry of domain names and naming. The conference also provides an excellent opportunity for globally networking within the this growing industry. More on this event can be found at the website.

Since inception in 2014, DomainX™ has been a dedicated annual domain name conference with multiple yearly events across the globe to network, spread awareness and educate public about domain names and the industry.

Call for Papers: Naming the Human, University of Strasbourg, France, January 12-18, 2018

In Strasbourg, France, a multidisciplinary conference dedicated to the names used to designate human beings, their activities, and their identities will be held from the 10th to the 12th of January 2018. The official theme of this event is “Naming the Human: Description, Categorisation, Issues at Stake”. Onomastic researchers interested in presenting their work are encouraged to submit a scientific abstract (max. 4 pages) by first creating an account at Sciencesconf.org, and then accessing the Submissions page. The deadline for abstract submissions is the 15th of June 2017. The official languages of the conference are English and French. More information about this event can be found here: https://nhuma.sciencesconf.org/

This multidisciplinary symposium organized by Laboratory LiLPa (Linguistics, Language, Word, EA 1339) and DRES laboratory (Law, Religion, Business & Society, UMR 7354).

Flat Places, Deep Identities: 2017 Great Plains Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, March 30-31, 2017

From the 30th to the 31st of March, 2017, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will be holding the 2017 Great Plains Symposium. The theme of this year’s event is “Flat Places: Deep Identities”. As the name implies, many of the presentations planned for this event explore the nexus between toponymy and cartography. An excellent example is Chris Steinke’s scheduled paper “Melvin Gilmore, James Owen Dorsey, and the Collection of Indigenous Place Names”. A complete listing of the conference schedule as well as information about registration can be found here.

Why are maps so fascinating? What do they tell us, what assumptions were necessary to construct them, how do they shape our knowledge? The symposium calls for a critical reexamination of maps and the mapping of our region.

This topic is also to be understood figuratively, inviting us to consider the myriad ways in which “maps,” “mapping,” and “place” shape all aspects of how we see and understand the Great Plains. Thus included in the topic are questions of how place and mapping are used in or influence identity and culture, economy and society, agricultural practices, natural resources, environmental issues, business strategy, art and creative expression, literature of place, social relationships, politics and social movements, “deep mapping,” and any other ways in which concepts of mapping and place are revealing and useful.

Call for Papers for the Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference, New York, NY, January 4-7, 2018

ANS Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference

January 4-7th, 2018 in New York, NY

The American Name Society is inviting abstract proposals for a panel with the literary theme “Literary Wordplay with Names.” Case studies in world literature have repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of wordplays in producing puns or highlighting aspects of a narrative. However, comparatively little scholarly attention has been given to examining the names themselves as a rhetorical tool for literary wordplay. Interested authors are encouraged to submit an abstract examining the use of any type of name (e.g., personal names, place names, trade names, etc.) in literary wordplays for any period or genre of literature. Submissions utilizing interdisciplinary approaches are most welcome.

Proposal submission process:

Abstracts proposals of up to 400 words should be sent as an email attachment (PDF format) to Andreas Gavrielatos (a.gavrielatos AT ed.ac.uk)
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.
Proposals must be received by 5pm GMT on 11 March 2017. Authors will be notified about results of the blind review on or by 20 March 2017.
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 Andreas Gavrielatos (a.gavrielatos AT ed.ac.uk).

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