BAAL 2018 will be held at York St John University in York, UK. After celebrating half a century of BAAL in 2017, our theme—Taking Risks in Applied Linguistics—will make the 2018 meeting a testing ground for new ways of pursuing our research and improving our practice. Our global community is facing unsettling times, and language use is at the heart of many of the challenges we face. Such challenges include: new and renewed areas of social inequality; political, social and economic instabilities; language learning and teaching-related concerns; and legislative changes which affect the rights of certain groups. The 2018 meeting will be a forum for bold thinking to address these challenges. We hope the conference theme will encourage innovative proposals for papers, posters, and colloquia. We will provide some alternative session types too, so that delegates can present and get feedback on unfinished but original lines of thought and untested but promising new approaches to research and practice. New work on old ideas is also very welcome, to ensure that our collective disciplinary wisdom isn’t lost. Equally, we want to hear about work from outside our disciplinary borders, and indeed, outside of academia altogether.

The BAAL 2018 conference is hosted by LIdIA (Language and Identities in InterAction), an interdisciplinary research unit based in the School of Languages and Linguistics. York St John University is located in the centre of York. Rich in ancient history and famous for its wealth of visitor attractions, York is a flourishing city, just two hours by train from London and Edinburgh. The campus is easily accessible by car and rail. The University is a 16-minute walk or a short taxi ride from the train station. The nearest major airports are Leeds Bradford Airport (30 miles) or Manchester Airport (85 miles). Getting from Leeds Bradford Airport to York is easiest by taxi. There is a direct train from Manchester Airport.

PLENARY SPEAKERS:                      

Annelies Kusters – Heriot-Watt University

Erez Levon – Queen Mary University of London

Anne Pauwels – SOAS University of London

Bill VanPatten – Michigan State University (Pit Corder lecture)

BAAL EC INVITED COLLOQUIA:                                  

To be confirmed

CONFERENCE ORGANISERS:       

Professor Chris Hall and Dr Rachel Wicaksono, School of Languages and Linguistics, York St John University

Conference Support: contact events@baal2018.org.uk  

Conference webpage: www.baal2018.org.uk  

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Abstracts are welcome in any area of Applied Linguistics, should be interesting and innovative in some way, and should be of scholarly and academically good quality and indicate clearly objectives, method(s), and results where appropriate. Abstracts which address the conference theme will be particularly welcome.

DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: 31 March 2018

Maximum abstract length: 300 words

To submit your abstract please use Oxford Abstracts (https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/281/submission)

If you haven’t used this system before please register first.   All submissions must be submitted on-line, if you have any queries please contact events@baal2018.org.uk or call 01904 702165.

ABSTRACT TYPE:

Indicate the type of abstract that you are submitting during the submission process: individual presentation for parallel sessions or a SIG track, poster, or colloquium.

Individual presentation for the parallel sessions

Individual papers have 25 minutes: 20 for the presentation, 5 for questions.

Individual presentation for a Special Interest Group (SIG) track

If you believe your paper is of interest to a SIG track, you may want to submit it to one of the SIG tracks (all individuals, whether or not officially SIG members, are eligible). The SIG may then wish to include your paper in a track at the annual meeting. Submitting your abstract to a SIG track may or may not lead to your paper being included in a SIG track and has no impact on abstract acceptance to the conference. BAAL has thirteen Special Interest Groups. They are: (1) Corpus Linguistics; (2) Health and Science Communication; (3) Intercultural Communication; (4) Language, Gender and Sexuality; (5) Language and New media; (6) Language in Africa; (7) Language Learning and Teaching; (8) Language Policy; (9) Linguistic Ethnography; (10) Linguistics and Knowledge about Language in Education; (11) Professional, Academic and Work-based Literacies (PAWBL); (12) Testing, Evaluation and Assessment; (13) Vocabulary Studies.

Proposed colloquium

We invite colloquia on particular themes which have relevance to the conference. Colloquia have half a day and a minimum of four papers. Colloquia proposers should plan their half day in four slots, in step with the individual paper slots. If they wish to have a larger number of papers, they may fit two papers into what would normally be a single slot. Colloquia papers should cohere. The order of the papers should not be changed after acceptance. An abstract for the colloquium introduction is required along with abstracts for each paper within the colloquium (300 words per abstract).

Poster

We strongly encourage the submission of abstracts for posters. We aim to raise the profile of posters at our conference since we value them as equal to other forms of presentation, and we believe that they tend to receive more feedback than individual papers. All posters will be listed in the book of abstracts, and there will be a dedicated area and time slot for discussion of poster presentations. There will also be a £50 prize for best poster displayed at the conference. There are two types of poster presentation types to choose from:

  • Traditional paper poster or
  • Screen poster – this new electronic format enables presenters to include animation and sound, giving the presentation a dynamic, multi-modal flavour. This can be in in the form of a max. 1-minute PowerPoint self-running presentation, Autoplay Prezi, or video. Screens will be available for this type of display.  

Lightning talk

New for BAAL 2018, in keeping with our theme, we propose to run sessions of ‘lightning talks’, giving the opportunity to take risks both in terms of content and mode of dissemination. A 5-minute lightning talk for BAAL will give the speaker the chance to propose a bold solution to an applied linguistics issue or to offer a snappy summary of an innovative or risky project or concept. This type of talk is strictly limited to a maximum of 5 minutes and 7 slides (containing minimal information) although you are welcome to distribute additional handouts at the start of the session. Each lightning talk session will end with a 10-15 minute question and answer panel with presenters. Further guidance on lightning talks is available here: https://www.unicef.org/knowledge-exchange/files/Lightning_Talks_production.pdf.

SCHOLARSHIPS:

During the abstract submission process, you will be asked to indicate whether you want to apply for a scholarship. If so, we will send the scholarship application forms to you by email. Each candidate will also be required to provide two full references plus a list of other conferences they have attended and any other grants/scholarships that they have received for their studies.

BAAL offers 4-5 full conference scholarships (for students or early career researchers, with the latter defined as being within 2 years of PhD completion). Monies from a special ring-fenced fund, contributed by donors, will pay for the additional ‘Chris Brumfit scholarship’ for up to £1,000, which is usually targeted at delegates from outside Britain who would not otherwise have funds to do so to attend the BAAL Annual Meeting.

The scholarships will help towards the cost of the conference fee, onsite accommodation for the duration of the conference (where accommodation is graded, the fund will only cover the cost of the cheapest option) and within UK travel (for student/ ECR scholarship), subject to fair use (e.g. no first class travels/ taxi journeys).

ALL PRESENTERS HAVE TO BE BAAL MEMBERS BY THE TIME THEY REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE.