SALALS 2021 Virtual Conference – Abstract submission reminder

REMINDER
Abstract Submission

SALALS virtual conference 2021

21-23 September, 2021

This serves as a reminder of the abstract submission deadline of 24 May, 2021,for the 2021 Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society (SALALS) virtual conference.

The conference is hosted by the Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University with support from the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR). SALALS also welcomes the participation of the South African Association for Language Teaching (SAALT).

The conference will be held online. Come and join us virtually for three days of stimulating debate and discussion – abstracts are invited for papers in all areas of general linguistics, applied linguistics and language practice.

Abstract submission via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=salals2021

See here for the Call for Papers: https://salals.org.za/2021/03/31/1st-call-for-papers-salals-virtual-conference-2021/ 

Notification of abstract acceptance is scheduled for the week of 28 June, 2021.

The conference will be preceded on Monday, 20 September, 2021 by two workshops hosted by SADiLaR: (i) an introduction to working with digital text, using Voyant tools and Regular expressions, where participants will gain new experience on how to analyse and read digital texts in an online environment, with no prior experience required; and (ii) an introduction to ELAN, where participants will gain experience in using ELAN to annotate video and audio recordings, again with no prior experience required. (See below for more information.)

The conference fee is R700 and includes a year’s membership of SALALS (which itself includes a year’s subscription to Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies). Current paid up SALALS members will qualify for a discount of the full conference fee.

Please contact us if you have any questions:
Conference organising committee chairperson: Dr Kate Huddlestone (katevg@sun.ac.za)
SALALS chairperson: Dr Herculene Kotzé (Herculene.Kotze@nwu.ac.za)

As previously communicated, the aim, first and foremost, is to make the 2021 conference as accessible and multilingual as possible. In order to do this, the conference will take the following format:

  • Papers and posters will be pre-recorded by presenters and all presentation materials, including slides/posters and videos, will be hosted on the conference’s Open Science Framework page prior to the conference (https://osf.io/).
  • Papers/posters can be in any of the South African official languages, as well as South African Sign Language (SASL). (Abstracts submitted in a language other than English, must be accompanied by an English translation.)
  • Pre-recorded presentations in languages other than English will be provided with English closed captions/subtitles, while papers related to sign language linguistics will be interpreted into/from SASL.

In addition to the pre-recorded presentations, the conference will consist of live events via Zoom, including keynote presentations, panel sessions, Q&A sessions for the general session presentations and posters, and social events.

Keynote speakers will be announced shortly.

SADiLaR workshop information:

1. Introduction to working with digital text

1.1. Voyant tools

Participants will gain new experience on how to analyse and read digital texts in an online environment – no prior experience required.

What you can do with Voyant (https://service.sadilar.org/voyant/):

  • Use it to learn how computers-assisted analysis works. Check out our examples that show you how to do real academic tasks with Voyant.
  • Use it to study texts that you find on the web or texts that you have carefully edited and have on your computer.
  • Use it to add functionality to your online collections, journals, blogs or web sites so others can see through your texts with analytical tools.
  • Use it to add interactive evidence to your essays that you publish online. Add interactive panels right into your research essays (if they can be published online) so your readers can recapitulate your results.

1.2. Regular expressions

Participants will learn how to search for patterns in text using regular expressions. Knowledge gained in this session will be transferable to many different platforms and analysis systems. No prior experience needed.

2. Elan session

Participants will gain experience in using ELAN to annotate video and audio recordings. No prior experience needed.

With ELAN a user can add an unlimited number of textual annotations to audio and/or video recordings. An annotation can be a sentence, word or gloss, a comment, translation or a description of any feature observed in the media. Annotations can be created on multiple layers, called tiers. Tiers can be hierarchically interconnected. An annotation can either be time-aligned to the media or it can refer to other existing annotations. The content of annotations consists of Unicode text and annotation documents are stored in an XML format (EAF) https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/elan

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