Event

Language sciences and health

This annual meeting of minds brings the Cambridge Language Sciences research community together for an afternoon of talks and poster presentations, and provides an opportunity for informal networking. The theme of this year's Symposium is the link between research in language sciences and health, encompassing work in developmental psychology and the application of Natural Language Processing to public health data and to support humanitarian work. Registration opens 8 October.

Call for posters - open

Posters are not restricted to the conference theme and can be on any topic within language sciences. Posters previously presented at the June Language Sciences Symposium for early-careers researchers may also be submitted. Abstracts should be no longer than 400 words, excluding references, and be anonymised and in PDF format. Submissions should be made here:

https://form.jotformeu.com/slws2/symposium-abstracts-2018

Poster session organisers: Samantha Sie (slws2@hermes.cam.ac.uk) and Dong Ok Lim (Joyce), dol20@cam.ac.uk

Call closes 5 October

Programme

13.00-13.30   Registration; coffee

13.30- 14.30  Language acquisition, neural entrainment, phonology and dyslexia Prof. Usha Goswami (Centre for Neuroscience and Education, University of Cambridge)

Recent insights from auditory neuroscience provide a new perspective on how the brain encodes speech. Using these recent insights, I will provide an overview of key factors underpinning individual differences in children’s development of language and phonology, providing a context for exploring atypical linguistic development. 

14.30-15.00   Title t.b.c. Dr Johanna Riha, Project Lead on Somalia phase of 'Epidemics, Digital Media and Health Communications in Africa', Centre of Governance & Human Rights and  Africa's Voices Foundation

15.00-15.30   Poster slam 1 minute talks by the poster presenters

15.30-16.30   Poster exhibition; refreshments

16.30-17.00   Title t.b.c. Dr Maria Liakata (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Warwick)

17.00-18.00   Stability and change in child language Prof. Courtenay Norbury(Professor of Developmental Language & Communication Disorders, UCL) 

Longitudinal studies of child language development and disorder demonstrate both steady language growth yet remarkable stability in the rank order of language competencies, at least from about the age of 4. The extent to which growth and stability are influenced by other aspects of child development is a focus of the current study. In this talk I will present data from the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study (SCALES), a population study of language change and stability from school entry.

18.00-18.15   Award of the poster prize, offered by Cambridge University Press; Closing remarks

18.15-19.45   Drinks reception offered with the generous support of Cambridge University Press