Subject: language acquisition and language breakdown

call for papers : language acquisition and language breakdown 1st language aquisition , sli & aphasics may 28-29 , 1999 utrecht university uil ots utrecht , the netherlands invited speakers harald clahsen ( university of essex ) stephen crain ( university of maryland , college park ) yosef grodzinsky ( tel aviv university ) herman kolk ( university of nijmegen ) christer platzack ( lund university ) call for papers over the last twenty years , a significant amount of research has been carried out in the fields of language acquisition and language impairment . with regard to the former , empirical and theoretical research projects have attempted to characterize children 's linguistic competence at various stages , and the development towards adult competence . in the field of language impairment , researchers have attempted to characterize the speech production and comprehension capacity of patients with specific linguistic disorders ( aphasic patients . ) the main goal of this research is to provide a picture of what part of the human language capacity is lost as a result of specific brain damage , and to characterize the patients ' linguistic knowledge or processing limitations in terms of a contemporary linguistic theory . a similar approach is characteristic of recent studies of children with specific language impairment ( sli ) . the question in this research is how to characterize , in linguistic terms , the deficit exhibited by this population . a comparison between the linguistic capacities of these populations has been a recurrent theme in many theoretical and experimental studies . are there interesting similarities between normally developing children , sli children and aphasics ? can the comparison between these populations tell researchers anything new about language acquisition or language breakdown ? what exactly is lost in aphasia - the knowledge of language or the capacity to implement this knowledge ? do normally developing children and sli children posses the relevant knowledge but are they unable to implement it ? if so , why ? or is their linguistic system different from the adult system ? what can the differences between impaired and unimpaired language development be attributed to ? the language acquisition and language breakdown conference , organized by the utrecht institute of linguistics in the framework of its language in use research program aims at bringing together researchers whose work focuses on the comparison of these populations . papers are invited for 30 - minute presentations ( plus 10 min for discussion ) . papers must focus on the comparison between the language capacities of any two or three of these populations : normally developing children , sli children , and people with aphasia . please send four copies of a two page anonymous abstract ( single space , including examples and references ) and one copy with your name and affiliation to : language acquisition and language breakdown utrecht university uil ots trans 10 nl-3512 jk utrecht the netherlands please include also a card with your name ( s ) , affiliation ( s ) , the title of your abstract , your e-mail ( s ) , mailing address and telephone number ( s ) . all materials must be received by february 1 , 1999 . decisions regarding acceptance / rejection will be announced by march 10 , 1999 . there is a possibility that students whose papers are accepted for presentation will be partially reimbursed for their travel expenses .
