Information about updates and changes regarding the conference will be posted here.
Monday, November 26th 2012
Thanks, pictures and thanks!
Today, more than a week has passed since the curtain fell on a very successful ÖSKL 2012. Of course there is still much to do concering the collection, editing and publication of conference proceedings (presenters, stay tuned for more and concrete information on that in the next few days) and also, eventually, passing on the torch to the organisational team of ÖSKL 2013 (provided that some volunteers will emerge and take up the mantle of course so that there will in fact be an ÖSKL 2013).
In the meantime, however, we would like to thank each and everyone of you for contributing to the smashing success that this conference has been! We really feel like academic experiences have been gathered, connections have been made and ideas have travelled and spread in the most beneficial ways imagninable, which is of course a joint achievement of everyone who participated in this event.
In order to provide you with the visual aids to help you reminisce about the conference, we uploaded all the pictures taken by our two conference photographers, Marion and Anahita, to a dropbox account: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/<wbr>2c1x8basnryobrr/ZBRVXaL--B We thought about editing and selecting, but then again, even blurrier pictures might have captured a moment that is of particular significance to someone, so we just uploaded the whole bunch. Thank you again for everything and enjoy!
Thursday, October 25th 2012
Conference T-shirts! (order until 1st of November)
In response to popular demand (or rather one inspiring request), we have decided to print conference t-shirts for the ÖSKL 2012. This is not because we have gone corporate and want to earn money via merchandise, oh no! We just think they are fun to wear, lasting keepsakes, and, thanks to our in-team-designer, look really great! Approximations of the design concept can be found below (there are more colors available than you find there) - have a look and see if you agree!
The t-shirts are all 100% cotton, which has been bought under the international fair-trade agreement and was made into stylishly cut T-shirts using renewable energy sources and environment-friendly dye only.
Depending on how many t-shirts we order, they will cost 17€ a piece or less. Since we don’t charge an entrance or publication fee, we unfortunately have no budget whatsoever to give everyone a shirt for free, as much as we would love to. We don’t earn any money from the t-shirts either though, and will give them to you at exactly the price we receive them for from the printers. If you order a shirt you will receive it on payment at check-in on Saturday morning.
If you would like to have one, please check out the design previews and cuts (ladies' or men's) and send us the following details of your order by Thursday, November the 1st
cut - ladies’ or men’s
size - small, medium, large or x-large (exact length and width given in cm in the attachments)
color of t-shirt - black, white, grey, red, dark green, light green, dark blue, blue, purple, orange or yellow
color of print - black or white
amount - one shirt, two shirts, three shirts,… :-)
Looking forward to seeing you all in the latest linguistic fashion!
Tuesday, October 23rd 2012
Conference programme and chairs (volunteers wanted!)
The moment you have all been waiting for is finally here: we proudly present the programme for ÖSKL 2012, to be downloaded from our homepage at http://oeskl2012.univie.ac.at/en/programme/
Our carefully arranged programme
We have tried to take all requests that we have received into account and arrange presentations according to topics as best we could. This has been done in the interest of optimizing the conference experience from an audience perspective, which, after all, is the one that will be relevant to most of you for most of the time. Please note that this makes it very difficult for us to allow for additional alterations at this point and we hope that all presenters will make it work. If there should be any mistakes or typos regarding your name or the title of your presentation, please let us know.
Social programme
As you will see from the programme, there are several social events scheduled in addition to the presentations. The informal get-together on Friday the 16th will start at 6PM and take place in Café Merkur (see the map on our homepage http://oeskl2012.univie.ac.at/en/arrival/). It is open to everyone (presenters and listeners alike) and late-comers are also welcome to join us as they see fit. If you are planning on attending the get-together, please let us know (if you have not already done so) so that we can make appropriate reservations. On Saturday evening, we are planning an excursion to the Christmas Market "Spittelberg", which opens that weekend and is a typically Austrian culture treat. On Sunday morning, there will be the option of participating in a tour through the city center guided by one of the conference organisors. Alternatively, for those of you who live in Vienna and/or prefer to start their final conference day in a more lazy manner, there will be the option of a joint breakfast at Weltcafé (see also the map on our homepage), which is literally around the corner from the conference location. (Although there will be a snack-and-drinks buffet at the conference, unfortunately, since this is "only" a students conference, it's pay-your-own everywhere else.)
Do you have what it takes to chair a discussion?
Since the organisational team of ÖSKL 2012 is comprised of only a limited number of people, we do not count experts on every topic cluster at the conference among our ranks. In the interest of topically productive, lively and well-moderated discussions therefore, we would be grateful if any of you would feel up to the job of chairing any block of presentations (apart from the one including your own presentation). This would entail introcuding each presenter, keeping track of presentation (20 min) and discussion time (10 min), moderating the Q&A/discussion session after each presentation (in German or English depending on the respective presentation) and maybe having one or two simple questions ready for this to get the discussion going, if necessary. Obviously, we will require only a limited number of chairs, but if you would be interested in this, just write to us and tell us which block(s) you would feel up to chairing.
A students' conference for studence - attendance for lecturers/teachers: yes or no?
As you all know the ÖSKL 2012 is a conference organized exclusively by and for students of linguistics. This also means that in the past, lecturers and university level teachers of linguistics have been excluded from participation in the conference in order to achieve a relaxing atmosphere for students to make first steps in academic discourse without the feeling of being judged or graded by university staff. While, on the whole, we think that this is a good idea and want to respect the ÖSKL tradition, some of the lecturers at the Department of English, where the conference will take place, have expressed there interest, support and enthusiasm in and for this event. Although they equally respect that this is a students' project, they have professed interest in attending or partially attending the conference as part of the audience. Now, we, as students at the department, know the lecturers in question and know them to be very friendly and student-supportive people; and if we decide that their attendance is acceptable, we would tell them expressly that the discourse among students is at the foreground in this event and that they can only attend under the condition that they conduct themselves as equals and collegues to the rest of us. However, if their presence at the conference would make any of you feel uncomfortable, please let us know and we will continue to uphold the traditional ÖSKL policy of "no teachers allowed".
That's it for now.
Thank you for reading all the way through here and for your support!
Looking forward to seeing you all at the conference!
Friday, October 19th 2012
Accommodation
With the conference date coming closer and closer it is time to think (if you have not already done so) about your accommodation in Vienna for the duration of the conference. Although we cannot provide any financial aid for participants in the conference, we are happy to assist you in any other way regarding accommodation. Here you find our information sheet about accommodation possibilities (hostels and useful websites) as well as information about the possibility of private accommodation ("couchsurfing") with other conference participants who live in Vienna.
Friday, October 5th 2012
How long will it take us to evaluate abstracts?
Since we have no idea how many applications we will receive in the days directly leading up to the deadline, it is pretty hard to estimate how long it will take us to look through them and put together the finalized conference program. We aim at getting it all done (or at least the evaluation part) on the 15th of October and send out all letters of acceptance/rejection by the 16th (one whole month before the first day of the conference). Should we actually be swamped by hundreds and hundreds of submissions, however, it may take longer. In any case, we know about the time pressure regarding travelling plans and so, we will try all humanly possible to let everyone know by 18th of October at the very latest.
PS: If you are planning to submit an abstract for our conference, we would strongly advise that you do it some days before submission closes. This way, if some formal discrepancies stand in the way of your acceptance, we would still have time to let you know and allow you to make the necessary adjustments.
