SyWAL2020: 4th Symposium on West African Languages University of Naples "L'Orientale" Naples, Italy, September 23-25, 2020

The Symposium on West African Languages (SyWAL) is a biennial international conference meant to serve as a forum to discuss all aspects of studies on African languages spoken in West Africa and West African languages used elsewhere.

The first edition of the Symposium (SyWAL2014) was hosted in Naples by Dipartimento di Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo, Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”, the second edition (SyWAL2016) was held at the Institut für Afrikawissenschaften, Universität Wien, and the the third edition (SyWAL2018) was organized in Poland by Katedra Języków i Kultur Afryki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. The 4^th Symposium on West African Languages (SyWAL2020) ‘Uniformity, Variability, Diversity’ will take place at the Dipartimento di Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo, Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”, on 23-25 September 2020.

We invite paper proposals related (but not limited) to the following research areas: language description, language documentation, typology and comparative linguistics, sociolinguistics, contact phenomena, cultural linguistics, computational linguistics, gestures and sign languages, discursive variants, language registers, and orature/literature studies. Although proposals that resonate with the SyWAL2020 theme ‘Uniformity, Variability, Diversity’ will be especially welcome, proposals may be on any topic relevant to the Symposium.

Participants are encouraged – but not required – to present papers related to the topics of the following panels (click on the panel title to see the description):

# 1 – Structural properties and cultural values of phraseologisms in West African languages
# 2 – Gender in West African languages
# 3 – Uniformity, variability and diversity in the syntax of serial verb constructions
# 4 – Exploring the logophoric continuum

The working language of the Symposium is English.

Submission Guidelines

We invite abstract submissions of full paper proposals (20 minutes + 10-minute discussion). Abstracts must be anonymous, are submitted in English, and their length should not exceed 400 words (excluding references). Abstracts will contain the following data: 1) title of the paper, 2) body of the abstract, and 3) 5 keywords. If you are submitting to a specific panel, indicate the name of the panel after the title. Please use 12 pt Times New Roman font (UNICODE), single line spacing and set margins to 2.5 cm (left, right, top, bottom).

Abstract should be submitted by 15 April 2020 in doc(x) format using the EasyAbs system at:http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/sywal2020

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference.

Important dates
Deadline for abstract submissions: 15^th of April, 2020
Notification of acceptance: 31^st of May, 2020

Committees

Program Committee

• Gian Claudio Batic (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
• Abdourahmane Diallo (Goethe University Frankfurt)
• Nina Pawlak (University of Warsaw)
• Anne Storch (University of Cologne)
• Georg Ziegelmeyer (University of Vienna)

Organizing committee

• Gian Claudio Batic (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
• Aurore Montébran (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to sywal2020@unior.it