Conference Information

Past Conferences:

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 2008, March 14-16:

Telling Stories: Building bridges among Language, Narrative, Identity, Interaction, Society and Culture

Narratives have been studied in many different disciplines: linguistics, literary theory, clinical psychology, cognitive and developmental psychology, folklore, anthropology, sociology and history. The primary focus of GURT 2008 is the linguistic study of narrative, especially as it has developed within discourse analysis and sociolinguistics. As our theme suggests, however, studying the language of narrative can take us far afield to other concerns: the construction of self and identity; the differences among spoken, written and computer-mediated discourse; the role that small and big (e.g. life) stories play in everyday social interactions; the contribution of narrative to social status, roles and meanings within institutional settings as varied as therapeutic and medical encounters, education, politics, media, marketing and public relations. Thus GURT 2008 will be a forum for building interconnections among language, narrative and social life.

Organizers
Anna De Fina (Italian)
Deborah Schiffrin (Linguistics)

Georgetown Linguistics Society 2007 Conference: Language and Globalization, March 30-April 1, 2007 (Graduate student conference)

GLS 2007, Language and Globalization: Policy, Education and Media, will explore the interaction between language and the processes of globalization.

GLS 2007 is a conference run by the graduate students in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. The conference will include three days of oral and poster presentations by students as well as invited plenary addresses and panel discussions by established scholars. More information about the conference can be found at http://www.glsconf.com.

Call for Papers Deadline: Decemeber 1, 2006
Conference dates: March 30-April 1, 2007

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT)
2007: March 8-11, 2007.  "Little Words".  The conference will focus on research on the role of "little words"- items such as clitics, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, discourse particles, auxiliary/light verbs, prepositions, etc.- that make up the skeletal "glue that modulates the semantic and syntactic relations between more lexical items.  Research in all aspects of "little words" that include their phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse function, historical development, variation, and acquisition (by children or adults) is welcomed.  The keynote speakers include Professors Jonathan David Bobaljik (UConn), Thomas Cravens (University of Wisconsin-Madison(), Katherine Demuth (Brown University), Kai von Fintel (MIT), and Claire Lefebvre (Universite du Quebec a Montreal).  The co-organizers are Professors Ronald P. Leow and Hector Campos (Department of Spanish and Portuguese) and Donna Lardiere (Department of Linguistics).  Monitor GULINGUIST for the announcement of the 2007 conference website and to learn about opportunities to participate. 

Transcending Boundaries: Jewish Languages, Identities and Cultures
Sunday, February 18

The Symposium will examine how Jews have been making and remaking identities and cultures through language and other symbolic media over time, across place and within genres. For Jews, relationships among language, identity and culture have been reshaped, and have been reshaping one another, for thousands of years. Each one of these different facets of Jewish life has been woven and rewoven together over time and across the many different places where Jews have lived (from ancient Israel, the wide ranging Diaspora in Europe, Asia and the Americas, to modern Israel). Likewise, Jewish representations of selfhood, nation and culture appear within a wide variety of genres ranging from religious texts to oral story telling, oral history, fiction, drama and music, each of which provides different formal and performance options for weaving language together with identity and culture.

To RSVP for the Keynote Event
To RSVP for the Conference

For Information:
202-687-4245
cjcinfo@georgetown.edu

9:00:     Coffee and light breakfast

9:30:     Welcome

9:45:    Introduction: Jacques Berlinerblau (Georgetown University)
Deborah Schiffrin (Georgetown University) and Elana Shohamy (Tel Aviv University)
“I Talk, Therefore I Am: Jewishness as a Linguistic Enterprise,” Lewis Glinert (Dartmouth University)

10:30:  Panel:  Speaking Jewish in the United States
“Jewish American English,” Sarah Bunin Benor (Hebrew Union College)
“Who am I? Language and Identity of Third Wave Russian Émigrés in the United States”, David Andrews (Georgetown University)
“Learning and Using Hebrew in the United States,” Jonathan Paradise (University of Minnesota)

Moderator: Elana Shohamy

12:00: Lunch    

1:00:  Panel:  Performing Jewish Languages, Identities and Cultures
“Ladino: Performance, Survival and Resurgence," Gloria Ascher (Tufts University)
“Yiddish as Performance Art”, Jeffrey Shandler (Rutgers University)
“Language and Immediacy in the Hebrew Cinematic Lens,” Eric Zakim (University of Maryland)

Moderator: Jacques Berlinerblau (Georgetown University)

2:45:    Panel: Performing Memory (I)
Ari Roth (Artistic Director; Theater J, Washington D.C.)
Henry Greenspan (Psychologist and Playwright, University of Michigan);

Moderator: Deborah Schiffrin (Georgetown University)

3:45:      Coffee Break

4:15:    Panel:  Speaking Jewish in Israel
“Interpreting 'Jewish' Languages in Israel Today: Language Policy in Israel,” Elana Shohamy (Tel-Aviv University)
“Language Policies and Practices of Palestinian Arabs in Israel”, Uri Horesh (Georgetown University)
“Judeo Arabic in Israel and Elsewhere”, Benjamin  Hary (Emory University)

Moderator: John Myhill (University of Haifa)


6:00: Dinner
Featuring Klezmer music

8:00 Keynote Event: A Conversation with Cynthia Ozick
Jacques Berlinerblau (Georgetown University)

Monday, February 19
9:00:  Panel:  Jewish Languages, Past and Present
“Language Loyalty and Language choice; Yiddish and Hebrew in the Aftermath of the Holocaust”, Miriam Isaacs (University of Maryland)
“Broken Hearts, Broken Homes: The Holocaust and Its Languages", Alan Rosen (Yad Vashem)
“Old Languages in New Stories: Code-switching in Retellings of Holocaust Oral Histories”, Deborah Schiffrin (Georgetown University)

Moderator: Deborah Tannen (Georgetown University)

10:30:  Discussion

11:00:    Coffee Break

11:30:  Panel: Performing Memory (II)
“Voicing my Father: Bringing my Jewish Identity to the Stage”, Deborah Tannen (Georgetown University)
“Voicing Anne Frank: Adaptation and Appropriation in a New Telling of Her Story”,  Derek Goldman (Georgetown University) 

Moderator: Miriam Isaccs (University of Maryland)

1:00:    Closing Remarks:
Elana Shohamy (Tel Aviv University) and Deborah Schiffrin (Georgetown University)


* Sponsored by the Program for Jewish Civilization, The Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, and the National Resource Center on the Middle East

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 2006: March 3-5, 2006

Georgetown Linguistics Society 2005 Conference: The Language and Identity Tapestry, February 18 -20, 2005

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 2005: March 10-13, 2005

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 2004: March 26-28, 2004

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 2003: February 15-17, 2003

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 2002: March 7-9, 2002

East Coast Organization of Language Testers:
March 9, 2002 at Georgetown University
March 10, 2002 at Center for Applied Linguistics

2001 Georgetown Summer Bilingual Institute
June 29-30, 2001

Hispanic Linguistics Symposium October 1999