background  |  special events  |  programme+abstracts+info  |  booking  |  location+travel details

Fiftieth Anniversary celebration photos:

Fiftieth Anniversary Symposium presentations:

• Ronnie Cann, Ruth Kempson and Eleni Gregoromichelaki: Semantics and Pragmatics [download pdf]
• Caroline Heycock: Syntax [download pdf]
• John Harris: Phonetics and Phonology [download pdf]
• Nigel Vincent:The institutional status of linguistics in UK universities [download pdf]

The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain will be the fiftieth anniversary LAGB Meeting. The first LAGB Meeting was held at SOAS in London from 30th October to 1st November 1959. The Golden Jubilee Meeting will be held at the University of Edinburgh, from 6th to 9th September 2009. The local organisers will be Nikolas Gisborne, Patrick Honeybone, and Penelope Thompson. The Meeting will last for four days and will depart from the pattern of recent Meetings a little, in order to accommodate a celebration of our fiftieth anniversary. The special events at the Meeting are listed below.

For further details of the history of the LAGB, see: www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/lagbhist.htm

See also: Hudson, Richard (2009) 'A history of the LAGB: the first fifty years.' Journal of Linguistics 45, 1-30.

Venue
The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1583, as Scotland's (and Britain's) first civic university. The university's Central Area, where the Meeting will be held, is situated in Edinburgh's remarkable Old Town, a few minutes' walk from the Royal Mile. Edinburgh is the ancient capital of Scotland, and its Old Town and (18th century) New Town form a large UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university's Department of Linguistics and English Language (within the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences) is the current home for most linguists at the university, continuing traditions which were formalised in 1948, when Angus McIntosh was appointed to a Chair of English Language and General Linguistics, one of the first Chairs of Linguistics in Britain.

1. The Association has invited members of the UK linguistics scene to speak on the past 50 years of developments in key aspects of linguistics, and look forward to the future. These talks will be given as part of a Fiftieth Anniversary Symposium on the afternoon and evening of Sunday 6th September. The speakers are, in order of speaking:

• Ruth Kempson (King's College London), speaking on developments in Semantics and Pragmatics
• Caroline Heycock (University of Edinburgh), speaking on Syntax and Morphology
• John Harris (University College London), speaking on Phonetics and Phonology
• Nigel Vincent (University of Manchester), speaking on the institutional status of linguistics in UK universities
• Dick Hudson (University College London), speaking on the history of the LAGB

2. Following on from the Symposium, there will be a Golden Jubilee Dinner on the evening of 6th September. Past presidents of the LAGB and founder and honorary LAGB members have been invited to attend the dinner.

3. The Journal of Linguistics, the LAGB's journal (published for the Association by Cambridge University Press), is marking its 45th volume in 2009, and this will also be celebrated as part of this year’s Meeting, at a wine reception sponsored by Cambridge University Press. The editors of JL will be happy to answer questions about the Journal throughout the conference and one or more of the editors will be available for discussion on Tuesday 8th September from 2.00-4.00 pm, in a designated 'office hour'.

4. There will be a Language Tutorial on Scottish Gaelic, by David Adger (Queen Mary, University of London).

• the slides for the tutorial are available here: [part 1] [part 2].

5. There will be a session organised by the LAGB's Education Committee with the title "Typology for schools." Those involved in the event include Anna Siewierska & Dik Bakker (University of Lancaster & University of Amsterdam, speaking on syntax) and Greville G. Corbett (University of Surrey, speaking on inflectional categories), each presenting topics and materials that might be used in schools. For further details see the Education Committee’s website: www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/ec/ecsessions.htm

6. There will be a session aimed at Postgraduates on Teaching in Linguistics, organised by the LAGB's Student Committee and supported by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. This will be held on Monday 7th September and will feature Klaus Abels (University College London), Kersti Börjars (University of Manchester), Patrick Honeybone (University of Edinburgh) and Willem Hollmann (Lancaster University). Other events specifically for Postgraduates will also be organised on the 7th September by the Student Committee, including an evening get-together.

• the programme for this session on Teaching in Linguistics is available here.

Research Postgraduate students could attend the two 'education' sessions (5 and 6) as a training event, as both are on the same day. If students would like this to count towards formalised skills training, the LAGB can provide an attendance certificate, stating the events and hours involved. Contact the LAGB President for further details.

The programme for the LAGB 2009 Meeting is available here.

The abstract booklet is available here.


Data projection and numbers for handouts
There are currently (26th August) 145 people registered for the conference, although not everyone will be here every day. There are three parallel sessions for most of the conference, so 50 handouts is probably a fair number to work with. Some talks will doubtless have more in the audience, however, and some will have more.

A data projector will be available in all rooms. A computer should also be available, but you are advised to bring your own laptop, to minimise the danger of problems. There will be no technicians available to help if you have a problem with data projection. If you would like to use a data projector in your talk, you should be sure to try it out beforehand, during a break.


Copying in Edinburgh
If you need to copy handouts while in Edinburgh, we recommend that you use Copycat on Marshall Street, just a few metres from the Dugald Stewart Building.

Contact and travel details

A dedicated email address for the LAGB 2009 organisers has been set up. If you have any queries, please email lagb2009@ling.ed.ac.uk.


Meeting location
The Meeting's events will be held in a number of buildings in the University of Edinburgh's Central Area, all within a few hundred metres of each other. Everything will be signposted during the conference, and a programme describing where all events are taking place will be included in the pack that you get at registration.

• The Fiftieth Anniversary Golden Jubilee Symposium on Sunday 6th September will be held in the Playfair Library at Old College (although the wine reception will be held in the Dugald Stewart Building). Old College is here.
• The talks on 7th-9th September (along with the publishers' display and coffee breaks) will be held in the Dugald Stewart Building, which is the home of the Department of Linguistics and English Language. The Dugald Stewart Building is here, just off Bristo Square.
• The lunches will be in other venues nearby: on the 7th the lunch will be held in the EUSA Teviot building on Bristo Square and, on the 8th and 9th, the lunches will be held in the Informatics Forum. Details will be given in your participants' pack.

Registration
Registration will open at 11.30 on 6th September, and will be open throughout the 6th September and the mornings on the 7th, 8th and 9th. On the 6th, the registration desk will be at Old College, where the Golden Jubilee Symposium will be held. On the 7th, 8th and 9th, the registration desk will be at the main entrance of the Dugald Stewart Building. See above for the location of these two buildings, and see the advice here for tips on how to find them.


Accommodation
Those of you who have booked accommodation through this LAGB2009 website, have booked single ensuite bed and breakfast accommodation at Pollock Halls, just south of the Meeting's venue. A few of you have agreed special accommodation arrangements with us - if this applies to you, we will contact you individually.

• Check-in is from 2pm, and the reception at Pollock Halls is available 24 hours, so you can check in at any time after 2pm. Many of you may thus want to bring your luggage to the conference venue during the day, and only go to the accommodation in the afternoon or evening. This will be easy to accommodate, as there will be plenty of space to store luggage during the talks.
• Look here for advice on how to find Pollock Halls.

Travel details
Edinburgh is well connected to national and international travel networks, and the University is easily accessible from anywhere in the city. The Meeting venues are within walking distance of the train station and all the city centre shops and restaurants.

• Further details of how to get to Edinburgh, and to and from the accommodation and the Meeting venues are available here. Please read this information if you don't know where any of the buildings are!

Booking

Update 26th August: It is no longer possible to book accommodation through this website, and we can no longer guarantee to be able to provide meals. You will now need to contact us in person to book to attend the conference:  lagb2009@ling.ed.ac.uk.

The prices are:
Sunday conference fee: £10.00
Sunday Golden Jubilee celebration dinner: £25.00

Monday conference fee: £15.00
Monday Lunch: £8.00

Tuesday conference fee: £15.00
Tuesday lunch: £8.00

Wednesday conference fee: £15.00
Wednesday lunch: £8.00

Late fee (now due on all bookings): £15.00

Details of some options for non-LAGB provided accommodation are available here.

---