The 2005 European Second Language Association conference EUROSLA 15

Abstracts are invited for individual papers, panels, posters and doctoral workshop. Presentations in any area of SLA research are welcome. Every abstract will be submitted to blind peer review.

Abstracts (cca. 300 words in length) should be written in .doc or .rtf format and sent as an attachment to the following address: eusla05@ffzg.hr
The presentation title must be included at the top of the abstract.

The e-mail message should include: abstract title, author name and affiliation, fax, postal and e-mail addresses, type of presentation you are aiming at, equipment needed.

POSTERS are intended for one-on-one discussions. Guidelines on organizing good posters can be found at:
http://www.lcsc.edu/ss150/poster.htm
and
http://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/effective.html

PANELS:

Abstracts aiming at 20-minute presentations are invited. Please indicate the panel you are applying for.

Organizer: Marianne Gullberg and Christine Dimroth, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands

Topic: First contact with an L2

In order better to understand what a learner brings to the task of processing input for acquisition "in the wild", i.e.

without the guidance of a teacher to point to relevant features, it seems reasonable both for methodological and theoretical

reasons to focus on the initial state of learning where pre-existing knowledge is kept to a minimum. We would therefore like

to invite papers on the topic of first contact with an L2. Leading questions are: What kinds of linguistic knowledge can be

acquired at first contact with a new language? What are the conditions under which auditory and/or visual signals available in

the perceptual environment become evidence for some linguistic distinction and how is this distinction then acquired?

Organizer: Kirsten Haastrup, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Topic: Vocabulary development and the four skills

Papers are invited on the relationship between L2 learner vocabulary and the mastery of receptive and productive skills in

a second language. Of particular interest to this panel is research which addresses issues such as: Lexical aspects of

interlanguage development; Receptive and productive processes in L2 vocabulary acquisition; The relationship between L2

vocabulary knowledge and reading/listening comprehension; L2 learners’ vocabulary in productive use, oral or written.

Organizer: Gabriele Kasper, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Hawai’i

Topic: SLA in interaction: A conversation-analytic perspective

Several theories of SLA accord a pivotal role to interaction. Yet such theories differ in their epistemological positions on

such fundamental notions as language, meaning, context, and learning. In the view assumed in this panel, L2 learning is

understood as changing participation in social practices, including but not limited to changes in the linguistic resources

engaged in turn construction. Adopting a conversation-analytic approach, the panel will examine evidence for L2 learning as

social practice in a range of different activities and speech exchange systems.

Organizer: Melita Kovačević, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Topic: How form and function meet in bilingual development

On the assumption that bilingual development is marked with a continuous multifold process between the form and function

of language behavior, contributors  are invited to address topics such as: What are the central problems in language learning,

in particular lexical and grammatical learning? How justified it is to discuss language development in terms of timeframes

relevance? What are the mechanism responsible for language development? What are the constraints?

DOCTORAL WORKSHOP: 15 minutes presentation + 15 minutes feedback/discussion.
In addition to the abstract focusing on theoretical and methodological problems encountered in the thesis, indicate one or more researchers within the SLA field with who you would like to discuss your problems.