The International Symposium on Chinese Language and Discourse is a biennial symposium that advances the exchange of scholarship in discourse functional studies of the Chinese language, emphasizing an empirical orientation and encompassing such fields as discourse and grammar, variation and change, language contact, language and society, language and culture, and language and social interaction.
The third symposium will be held at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. The working language of the symposium will be English.
Abstracts are invited for oral presentations (25 minutes, plus 5 minutes for discussion) to showcase latest advancements in broadly-defined discourse functional studies of the Chinese language. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
 Corpora and Chinese language studies
 Language variation, change and development
 Language acquisition
 Language contact and diversity
 Language and interaction
 Language and society
 Language and culture
 Language and cognition
An abstract of no more than 500 but no fewer than 300 words in English should be submitted to: roundtable@bbk.ac.uk
. Please also include (i) author(s)’ name(s); (ii) affiliation; and (iii) email address.
Deadline for submission of abstracts: Friday 10 th January, 2014
Notification of acceptance: February, 2014
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Keynote speakers:
Rint Sybesma (University of Leiden, The Netherlands)
Richard Xiao (University of Lancaster, UK)
Boping Yuan (University of Cambridge, UK)
There will be a Round Table on the teaching and learning of Chinese in the era of Globalization on Wednesday 11 th June, 2014.
Invited Speakers for the Round Table (further contributors will be confirmed shortly):
Katherine Carruthers (Institute of Education, University of London, UK)
Don Starr (University of Durham, UK)
Chun Zhang (University of Aarhus, Denmark)
Zhu Hua (Convenor, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK)
Journal: Chinese Language and Discourse (ISSN 1877-7031 | E-ISSN 1877-
8798), Benjamins ( http://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/cld/main ).
Executive Editor Hongyin Tao; Co-Editors: K.K. Luke, and Li Wei
Book series: Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse (ISSN 1879-5382),
Benjamins ( http://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/scld/main ). Executive Editor
Hongyin Tao; Co-Editors: K.K. Luke, and Li Wei
Birkbeck College is located at the heart of Bloomsbury, a historical and fashionable area in the centre of London where numerous cultural, educational and health institutions are located. The British Museum is next to Birkbeck buildings, and Oxford
Street is within walking distance. It is accessible by several underground lines, with a direct line to Heathrow airport. There are abundant hotels and restaurants in the neighbourhood.
Participants are asked to book their own accommodation, as the university does not have accommodation during term time. There will be a registration fee to cover lunches, tea/coffee, and the delegate’s pack.
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