From Sound to Gesture (S2G)
Communication as speech, prosody, gestures and signs

Understanding how human communication works requires investigating the complex relations between abstract representations of both sounds and gestures and their concrete realizations. The study of both spoken and signed language can provide a key to understanding the fascinating connections between human sounds, gestures and language.

The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars interested in the relationships between different modalities (acoustic, visual) and between different levels within the same modality (e.g., phonology-phonetics, verbal-nonverbal, prosodic-segmental, etc.).

Karen Emmorey (San Diego State University)
Marianne Gullberg (University of Lund)
Pilar Prieto (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)
Wendy Sandler (University of Haifa)

Contact person: Antonio Baroni (s2g.conferencegmail.com)

The first 'Sound to Gesture' (S2G) conference welcomes abstracts on the following topics:

- Prosody
- Spoken language phonology/phonetics
- Non-verbal communication/gestures
- Sign language phonology/phonetics

In particular, we encourage the submission of papers dealing with the relationship between two (or more) of the proposed topics, e.g.:

- Spoken and sign language phonology: Is there only one, modality-independent phonology, or is there one phonology for each modality? Is there evidence for the existence of phonological primitives common to both modalities?
- Linguistic and non-linguistic signs: How are non-verbal gestures integrated in sign language? How are these distinguished from linguistic signs?
- Prosody and sign language: What are the prosodic units of sign language? Are they organized in a similar way as prosodic units in speech?
- Suprasegmental and segmental phonology: What are relationships between the two levels? What are the best theoretical approaches and why?
- Prosody and language: How is prosody used to convey linguistic and non-linguistic meanings in L1 and/or L2? What are the best theoretical models to describe it?
- Prosody and gestures: What is the relation between speakers' intonation, prosody and gestures? How are language-specific prosody and gestures used in second language communication?
- Speech and gestures: Wow are gestures and language connected? What is the relation between language-specific/universal gestures and language? How can gestures be employed effectively to communicate with people who speak a different language?

We invite submissions of anonymous abstracts (max 1000 words, Times New Roman, 12pt, PDF or DOC format) to be uploaded through Easy Abstract: http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/s2g2014.

Important Dates:

Abstract submission deadline: 16 February 2014
Acceptance notification: 10 March 2014
Conference: 21-23 May 2014

Scientific Committee:

Maria Grazia Busà
Antonio Baroni
Laura Vanelli
Motoko Ueyama