Call for papers – New Ways of Analysing Variation Asia Pacific 8 (Singapore, 4-7 Aug 2025)

The theme of NWAV-AP8 is “Asia Pacific: Always Variable, Always Changing”. This is a celebration of the linguistic diversity and constant evolution of the languages of the multilingual-multicultural Asia Pacific contexts. In this 8th meeting, we would like to bring the focus to issues of diversity and inclusivity in the larger context of interactionism, wherein lies the intricate symbiotic relationship of individual and community social behaviours and meaning-making. We particularly invite submissions on language variation and change that align with the theme of the conference, and welcome work from all areas of variationist inquiry focused on the Asia Pacific contexts.

NWAV-AP8 will be an in-person only conference. We invite abstract submissions for posters, talks, and special sessions. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches to variation in all areas of language are welcomed.

We draw on NWAV’s tradition of encouraging ‘project launch’ submissions – presenting a project in its early stages in order to get feedback from the NWAV AP community. Please note, however, that works featuring findings from completed research will be prioritised for talks, so in the event of an abundance of high-quality abstracts indicating findings from completed research, quality ‘project launch’ submissions may be accepted only for posters.

Keynote speakers:
Emeritus Professor Dr. Edgar W. Schneider, University of Regensburg
Professor James N. Stanford, Dartmouth College
Associate Professor Mie Hiramoto, National University of Singapore
Assistant Professor Pavadee Saisuwan, Chulalongkorn University

Submission guidelines:
Abstracts for all submissions should be anonymous, should not exceed 350 words, and must fit within a page.
Authors also have the option to include a reference list, glossed/transcribed examples, tables and/or images; these do not count toward the word limit, but should fit within the second page.
Author names should not appear anywhere on abstracts.
An author may submit at most one first-authored and one non first-authored abstract.
All first/main authors have to be registered participants of the conference.
All submissions will be anonymously reviewed and considered for both presentation formats (poster and talk).
Posters will be part of a 2-hour poster session.
Unless it is part of a special session (see below), each talk will be 20 minutes long, with a 5-minute Q&A period.
Abstracts for talks that will be part of Special Sessions should also be individually submitted via Microsoft CMT.

Additional information for Special Sessions
A special session should include 3 – 4 talks across a total duration of 1.5 hours. Special session Chairs are welcomed to propose a structure that works best for the proposed session.
Chairs of Special Sessions should send a separate email to Jasper Sim (jasper.sim@nie.edu.sg) providing the following:
A session title
A 150-word introduction to the theme and talks of that proposed session
Names of authors in that proposed session + abstract titles of their talks + their submission IDs

All abstracts should be submitted through Microsoft CMT (link below). Abstract submission will open on 9 October 2024. The deadline for all submissions is 1 February 2025 (Extended!). Authors will be notified of decisions between 10 to 14 March 2025.

For any enquiries, contact us at https://www.ntu.edu.sg/nie/new-ways-of-analysing-variation-asia-pacific-8-singapore/contact-us

Submit an abstract at https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/AP8NWAV2025