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Conferences

The Society has supported the past six International Columbia School Conferences on the Interaction of Linguistic Form and Meaning with Human Behavior. The most recent was the Tenth International Columbia School Conference, which took place in October 2010 at the Rutgers University Continuing Studies Conference Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It featured the invited speakers, Flora Klein-Andreu from Stony Brook University and Andrea Tyler from Georgetown University.

The Ninth International Columbia School Conference, was co-sponsored by and held at the School of Education of The City College of New York. The keynote speakers were Prof. Elizabeth C. Traugott of Stanford University, and Prof. Yishai Tobin of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The Eighth International Columbia School Conference was held in 2004 at The City College of New York. The keynote speaker was Prof. Betty Birner of Northern Illinois University. Also co-sponsored by the School of Education at CCNY, this conference featured a special session on linguistics in education.

The Seventh International Columbia School Conference was held in 2002 at Columbia University and co-sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages. Keynote speakers were Melissa Bowerman, Joan Bybee, and Alan Huffman. The Fifth and Sixth Conferences were held at Rutgers University in 1997 and 1999, respectively.

Earlier conferences were held at Columbia University (1989), the University of Virginia (1991), and Rutgers University (1993, 1995).

Seminars

Since its inception, the Society has sponsored numerous seminars devoted to a range of linguistic topics, both theoretical and applied, welcoming projects at every level of development, from the defining of a problem to the fine-tuning of a write-up. The seminars carry on a tradition established in the 1960s in the Linguistics Department at Columbia University for the preparation of master’s theses and doctoral dissertations under the guidance of Professor William Diver. They now typically take place on Friday mornings at Columbia University.

A series of special seminars began in 2006 and has featured speakers including Ellen Contini-Morava (University of Virginia), Robert S. Kirsner (UCLA), Nancy Stern (The City College of New York), and Zhuo Jing-Schmidt (University of Cologne).

For more information, please send e-mail to the seminar coordinator at the following address:

seminars(AT)csling.org, where (AT) represents '@'

Institutes

The Society has sponsored four intensive summer Institutes for the Study of Form, Meaning, and Human Behavior in Language. The first, in June 1996, was held at the City College of New York. Its activities included three standing seminars: one on the Foundations of Linguistics and the Grammar of English, led by Alan Huffman; another on Phonology, led by Joseph Davis; and one on Columbia School as Radical Functionalism, led by Ricardo Otheguy. There were also daily seminars on ongoing research projects. The Institute was supported in part by a generous grant from the estate of William Diver, obtained from his heirs and facilitated by the executors of his academic estate.

The Second Institute was held in June and July 1998 at Kean University. It featured courses on: Introduction to Columbia School Linguistics, by Joseph Davis; Historical Linguistics, by Alan Huffman; and Applied Linguistics, by Betsy Rodriguez-Bachiller. There were also presentations and seminars on a variety of topics by: Ellen Contini-Morava, Barbara Goldberg, Robert Kirsner, Ricardo Otheguy, Wallis Reid, Nancy Stern, and Yishai Tobin.

The Third Institute, held on June 17-27, 2002, again at City College, concentrated on linguistics in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. It included an intensive course on Linguistics and the Grammar of English, co-taught by Alan Huffman and Joseph Davis, as well as seminars on relevant topics by: Charlene Crupi, Richard Epstein, Wendy Gavis, Ricardo Otheguy, and Nancy Stern. This institute was co-sponsored by the City College School of Education.

The Fourth Institute, held June 26 to July 1, 2005, took the form of a writing retreat in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, with free time for writing and informal interaction as well as more formal seminar slots for each participant.

The Fifth Institute was held January 18-21, 2010 at The City College of New York, organized jointly by Alan Huffman and Joseph Davis. Wallis Reid, Betsy Rodriguez-Bachiller, and Nancy Stern served as faculty. Participants worked in-depth with authentic texts on several grammatical systems of English.

Electronic Discussion List

The Columbia School Linguistic Society maintains an electronic discussion list, CSLing, that facilitates scholarly discussion by email. For more information or to subscribe, please send a message by email to Betsy Rodríguez-Bachiller:

betsyrb(AT)kean.edu, where (AT) represents '@'