The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Language Institute has announced its 2012-13 lecture series, "Language, Cognition and Sociality." The first lecture is Wednesday, Sept. 19, and all lectures are free and open to the public.
Invited lectures in the series will explore some fundamental questions regarding language acquisition and socialization:
- What could we learn from studies of bilinguals about the effect of language and culture on cognition?
- How do language and other semiotic resources work together in the manifestation of human sociality across languages and cultures?
- What are the implications of recent research conducted in anthropology, linguistics, psychology and sociology in terms of their impact upon the teaching and learning of an additional language?
The series, which intends to bridge scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, addresses these and other related questions.
Invited speakers, lecture titles, times and locations are:
What Can Conversation Tell us About ‘Negative Scope?’: Prosody, Grammar, Cognition, Fixedness, and Interaction
Sandra Thompson, University of California, Santa Barbara
Comments from Grant Armstrong, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Introduction by Cecilia Ford, Departments of English and Sociology
4 p.m., Wednesday, September 19, 2012
254 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
Learning Language in a MindBodyWorld: Alignment and Interaction in a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition
Dwight Atkinson, Purdue University
Comments from Margaret Hawkins, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Introduction by Junko Mori, Department of East Asian Languages and Literature and Language Institute
4 p.m., Wednesday, October 17, 2012
254 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
Distributed Cultural-Historical Dynamics and the Development of Semiotic Agility
Steven Thorne, Portland State University and University of Groningen
Comments from Heather Willis Allen, Department of French and Italian
Introduction by Jane Zuengler, Department of English
4 p.m., Thursday, March 7, 2013
254 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
The Co-Operative Organization of Human Action
Charles Goodwin, University of California, Los Angeles
Comments from Mitchell Nathan, Department of Educational Psychology
Introduction by Douglas Maynard, Department of Sociology
4 p.m., Thursday, April 11, 2013
254 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive