***Apologies for cross-posting. Please distribute to those who may be
interested***

Call-for-participation:

Masterclass: LANGUAGE EVOLUTION: COMPUTATIONAL MODELS FOR EMPIRICAL DATA

Date: 21 June 2007
Venue: Hotel Mercure, Noordwijk, the Netherlands
Organisers: Bart de Boer and Paul Vogt
URL: http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~paulv/masterclass.html

In the past 15 years an increasing number of computational studies have
been used to investigate the origins and evolution of language. Aim of
such studies is to gain more insights into the mechanisms and
pre-conditions under which animal communication and human language could
have emerged in its present form. Much progress has been made in this
field, but unfortunately many studies fail to be appreciated by
researchers outside the computational disciplines (such as Artificial
Intelligence and Artificial Life), often because the models are too
abstract and/or have no direct link to what is empirically known about
human (or animal) communication.

Empirical (and theoretical) studies from other disciplines have been
around for a much longer period of time. And although languages do not
leave direct fossils and it is impossible to go back in time to observe
the origins of language, much can be inferred from our current day
empirical studies. For instance, we can observe non-human primate
communication for comparison, observe the emergence of new languages
such as Nicaraguan Sign Language, or investigate how children learn
language and speculate whether their development is a blue-print for
language evolution.

The masterclass will be presented by experts on both computer and
empirical studies on language evolution. The aim of the masterclass is
to present ways to bring both approaches closer to each other, such that
computer studies become more useful to the empirical scientist and
empirical studies become more useful to the computer scientist. Lectures
will be (co-)presented by the following researchers:

-Simon Kirby (Univ. of Edinburgh)
-Eors Szathmary (Collegium of Budapest)
-Bart de Boer (Univ. van Amsterdam)
-Tecumseh Fitch (Univ. of St.Andrews)
-Jason Noble (Univ. of Leeds)
-Klaus Zuberbuhler (Univ. of St.Andrews)
-Paul Vogt (Univ. van Tilburg)
-Elena Lieven (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig)
-Kenny Smith (Northumbria Univ.)
-Jaap Murre (Univ. van Amsterdam)
-Jelle Zuidema (Univ. van Amsterdam)
-Arie Verhagen (Univ. Leiden)
-Peter Ford Dominey (CNRS)
-Ivan Toni (FC Dondersinstituut)
-Jan Peter de Ruiter (Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen)
-James Minett (Chin. Univ. of Hong Kong)
-William Croft (Univ. of New Mexico)

The target audience consists of master's students, PhD student and
post-docs interested in interdisciplinary approaches to language
evolution. Note that the number of places is limited, so register early.

For registration and more information, consult
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~paulv/masterclass.html


Sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)