Call for papers - Experimental and Theoretical Advances in Prosody (ETAP4)

The 4th Experimental and Theoretical Advances in Prosody (ETAP4) conference will be held from October 11-13, 2018, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Amherst, Massachusetts. This conference focuses on questions about the production, interpretation, and characterization of speech prosody, bringing together researchers in linguistics, psychology, and computer science.

The theme of ETAP4 is “Sociolectal and dialectal variability in prosody.” As in many language fields, studies of prosody have focused on majority languages and dialects and on speakers who hold power in social structures. The goal of ETAP4 is to help diversify prosody research in terms of the languages and dialects being investigated, as well as the social structures that influence prosodic variation. The conference will bring together prosody researchers and researchers exploring the role of sociological variation in prosody, with a focus on understudied dialects and endangered languages, and individual differences based on gender and sexuality. Invited speakers will (i) raise what questions and areas they think would benefit from prosodic research, (ii) teach prosody researchers what they need to know to do research in these areas, and (iii) share insights from their experience engaging with the public around issues of understudied and endangered languages, linguistic bias, and intersectionality in science.

A satellite workshop on African-American English prosody will be held on October 10, 2018 to bring together participants to contribute common data sets and discuss the development of shared data resources and methodological considerations such as challenges in prosodic transcription. For updates on this workshop, subscribe to the e-mail list here: https://list.umass.edu/mailman/listinfo/etap4-aae/

We invite submission of abstracts describing work related to the conference theme as well as topics in prosody more generally from diverse approaches, including fieldwork, experiments, computational modeling, theoretical analyses, etc. These topics include:

• Phonology and phonetics of prosody

• Cognitive processing and modelling of prosody

• Tone and intonation

• Acquisition of prosody

• Interfaces with syntax, semantics, pragmatics

• Prosody in natural language processing

In addition to talks from invited speakers, there will be additional talks, and two poster sessions.

Abstracts for talks and posters must be submitted in a pdf format. Your abstract must include the submission’s title at the top, and must not include authors’ names and affiliations, or any identifying information (i.e., “In Liberman & Pierrehumbert (1984), we showed...“). Abstracts should be submitted in letter format (8.5" x 11" - not A4), with 1-inch margins on all sides, and in Arial 11 point font. The abstract itself (text) may be no longer than one page; a second page containing additional figures, tables, other graphics and/or references may be included.

To get updates on the conference, subscribe to the e-mail list here: https://list.umass.edu/mailman/listinfo/etap4

EXTENDED Submission deadline: May 14, 2018, 11:59 PM AoE (anywhere on earth).