Possible topics for talks include (but are not restricted to) the following:

• language contact and language attrition
• multiple causes of language change and variation: interaction between contact-induced and language-internal developments
• connections between contact linguistics and SLA
• receptive multilingualism
• cross-linguistic influence in heritage language acquisition
• cross-linguistic influence in translation: evidence from corpora, process research or history of translation
• interfaces between translation studies and contact linguistics: translation as a type of language contact
• possible parallels and interfaces between learner universals, language universals and translation universals

The invited speakers of the symposium are:

• Gaëtanelle Gilquin (Université catholique de Louvain): The interface of contact linguistics and SLA research in the context of World Englishes and learner language
• Svenja Kranich & Viktor Becher (Universität Hamburg): Translation as language contact: Language variation and change through translation
• Anna Verschik (Tallinna Ülikool): Language contacts, heritage languages and incomplete L1 acquisition: same or different

Abstract submission:

Please send your abstract (500 words maximum, excluding possible references) for either a section paper or a poster presentation to crossling@uef.fi by 1 October 2012. Abstracts will be evaluated by the members of the organizing team. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 1 November 2012. The book of abstracts will be published on the web pages of the symposium.

The abstracts should include the following information:
Name(s) of the author(s)
Title of presentation
Affiliation(s)
E-mail address(es)
Indication of whether you propose a section paper or a poster

The working language of the symposium is English.

Key dates:

• Deadline for abstract submission: 1 October, 2012
• Notification of acceptance: 1 November, 2012
• Symposium: February 28 February--1 March, 2013

Activities:

• Presentations by invited speakers
• Presentation by other participants (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion)
• Posters

The participation fee is 50 € or 30 € (students and PhD students).

Organizers:

The symposium is organized by CROSSLING, a young cross-disciplinary research network set up at the University of Eastern Finland. The network has received funding from the Kone foundation (http://www.koneensaatio.fi/en/). The researchers of CROSSLING combine different areas of research which deal with language contact: contact linguistics, second language acquisition research and translation studies, and they work with different languages and language pairs. For further information, see https://wiki.uef.fi/display/CROSSLING/CROSSLING.

The CROSSLING organizing team:
Helka Riionheimo (chair), Minna Haapio, Sanna Hillberg, Franka Kermer, Maria Kok, Leena Kolehmainen, Minna Kumpulainen,  Marjatta Lehtinen, Lea Meriläinen, Pirkko Muikku-Werner, Heli Paulasto, Esa Penttilä & Laura Piironen.

For all correspondence concerning the symposium, please contact crossling@uef.fi.