mfm - 28th Manchester Phonology Meeting

The 28th
Manchester Phonology Meeting

With a special session entitled

Second Language Phonology and Phonological Theory

featuring Ellen Broselow, Charles Chang and Ellen Simon

Thursday 28th - Saturday 30th May 2020

Held in Manchester, England.

Organised through a collaboration of phonologists at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Manchester and elsewhere.

For information about the mfm and its history and background, see the mfm homepage.

There will also be a separately-organised Fringe Workshop on Wednesday 27th May entitled

Moraic vs. X-Slot Syllabification: The Debate

organised by Bjoern Koehnlein and Shanti Ulfsbjorninn.

background || call for papers || special session || organisers

Background

We are pleased to announce the initial plans for our Twenty-Eighth Manchester Phonology Meeting (28mfm). The mfm is the UK's annual phonology conference, with an international set of organisers. It is held in late May every year in Manchester (central in the UK, and with excellent international transport connections). The meeting has become a key conference for phonologists from all over the world, where anyone who declares themselves to be interested in phonology can submit an abstract on anything phonological in any phonological framework. In an informal atmosphere, we discuss a broad range of topics, including the phonological description of languages, issues in phonological theory, aspects of phonological acquisition and implications of phonological change.

The conference will be located just south of the city centre and will be easily accessible by public transport or on foot. Last year, the conference costs (including general conference costs, coffee and biscuits, midday and evening meals, but not accommodation) was GBP 190.00, with a reduction to GBP 95.00 for students and unwaged participants. We expect to charge comparable but maybe somewhat higher fees this year.

If you would like to get a feeling for the conference series, you could take a look at the website for last year's 27mfm, and at the mfm homepage, which includes lots of information about the mfm conference series.

Advice on how best to travel to Manchester and on where to stay will be posted on this website in due course.

Call for papers

There is no obligatory conference theme for the 28mfm - abstracts can be submitted on anything phonological.

Abstracts should be uploaded to the 28mfm's page on the the Linguist List's EasyAbstracts site by or on 9th January 2020. The precise deadline, as implemented by EasyAbstracts, is as follows: 11.59pm US Eastern Standard Time on 9th January.

The website for uploading abstracts is here: http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/28mfm.

Please submit your abstract in pdf format, with fonts embedded (if necessary, we can accept Word or txt files, but please send pdf if possible).

Abstracts should be no longer than one side of A4 (or 'American letter'), with 2.5cm or one inch margins, single-spaced, with a font size no smaller than 12, and with normal character spacing. All examples and references in the abstract should be included on the one single page, but it is enough, when referring to previous work, to cite "Author (Date)" in the body of the abstract - you do not need to give the full reference at the end of the abstract. Please DO NOT submit an abstract if it goes over one page for any reason - it will be rejected. Remember also that, if you abstract is accepted, you will need to submit a version with your name and email address, and this will still need to only take up one page - please bear this in mind and leave space for this when finalising your abstract.

Your abstract should be anonymous. You will be asked to submit a version with your name and affiliation on it if your abstract is selected for presentation. Please make sure that you do not use your name in the filename for your abstract, and please erase any details which might identify you in the file that you submit.

If you need to use a phonetic font in your abstract, please either embed it in a pdf file, or use the Doulos SIL font, which can be downloaded for free from this site: http://software.sil.org/doulos/.

You may opt to present your work either as a talk or a poster or as a poster only. These are the only two categories available. The category 'either talk or poster' is the default, and if you opt for this we will assume that you would rather present your work as a talk - we will award a talk slot to the abstracts in this category which we judge likely to offer the best programme. The poster sessions have always been a great success at mfms and we give them a high profile. Some work is best presented as a poster, so you may specify that you would only like to be considered for a poster.

No-one may submit more than one single-authored abstract, as this allows more people to take part in the conference. You may submit one single-authored abstract and one jointly-authored abstract (or two jointly-authored abstracts), but it is unlikely that anyone will be offered two opportunities to speak.

If you need any unusual technical equipment for a talk, you will need to let the organisers know if your abstract is selected for presentation. We will do our best to provide it, but this cannot be guaranteed. We expect to provide data projection facilities (but there will be no technical support for this).

All abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by four members of the organising committee and advisory board. You can read about the abstract selection process here. If you cannot send your abstract in the way set out above, for whatever reason, please email patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk and we'll arrange another way of abstract submission.

If you would like to see which kinds of abstracts have been successful in the past, you could consult last year's abstract booklet, available here. Short abstracts are rarely successful as they typically do not include enough information to judge their worth. A good abstract indicates what the data and/or problem or issue is clearly and does not just promise an analysis, but sets out what it is.

We aim to finalise the programme, and to contact abstract-senders during February and we will contact all those who have sent abstracts as soon as the decisions have been made. We are sorry, but we cannot make any decisions more quickly than this. We will contact you as soon as we know.

Special session

A special themed session is being organised for Friday 29th May by members of the organising committee and the advisory board. This will feature invited speakers, as listed below, and will allow for open discussion when contributions from the audience will be very welcome.

Second Language Phonology and Phonological Theory

How do two (or more than two) phonologies interact if they exist in the same mind? Or don't they interact - is each language's phonology kept separate in the grammar? Is there a fundamental difference in these issues if a speaker acquires a second language as a child or as an adult? Can two phonologies ever have equal dominance for a speaker? In what ways, precisely, can an L1 influence an L2? And what happens in language attrition, when an L2 influences an L1? How can the answers to questions like these inform our theories of phonology in general? These are some of the questions that we hope our invited speakers will address in this special session.

Invited speakers

Ellen Broselow (Stony Brook University)

Charles Chang (Boston University)

Ellen Simon (Ghent University)

Organisers

Organising Committee
The first named is the convenor and main organiser - if you have any queries about the conference, feel free to get in touch (patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk).

Patrick Honeybone (University of Edinburgh)
Ricardo Bermudez-Otero (University of Manchester)
Patrycja Strycharczuk (University of Manchester)