=======================================================================
Announcement for the

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ON EMBODIED LANGUAGE GAMES AND CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR

http://www.alear.eu/events/cortona2009/Home.html

Cortona, Italy

29 August - 4 September 2009
========================================================================


Human natural languages are complex adaptive systems, forever emergent and
adapting to the needs of their communities. This insight is currently
revolutionizing many branches of linguistics and this summer school feels the
pulse of these exciting developments.
It brings together typologists and historical linguists studying language
variation and the emergence of new grammatical structure, evolutionary linguists
modeling the origins and evolution of language, cognitive linguists
investigating the cognitive foundations of language usage and learning, complex
systems researchers using methods from statistical physics to study the semiotic
dynamics of evolving languages, and computational linguists and AI researchers
carrying out experiments to achieve open-ended communication with autonomous
robots.
The summer school gives an overview of the state of the art in these various
subfields and compares results obtained from formal research, computer
simulations and robotic experiments with empirical observations how humans
invent and share language-like communication systems. It features a series of
lectures by top researchers in the field, ateliers and master classes providing
opportunities for hands-on experience in setting up and analyzing language game
experiments, and poster sessions where participants present their own work.


===========================
====== MAIN SPEAKERS ======
===========================
Jean-Christophe Baillie (ENSTA/GOSTAI Paris)
Nancy Chang (ICSI Berkeley)
Ewa Dabrowska (University of Sheffield)
Walter Daelemans (University of Antwerp)
Holger Diessel (University of Jena)
Dan Everett (Illinois State University)
Chrisantha Fernando (University of Sussex)
Antoni Gomila (UIB, Palma)
Bernd Heine (University of Cologne)
Manfred Hild (Humboldt University)
Laura Janda (University of Tromso)
Christa König (University of Cologne)
Tania Kuteva (University of Duesseldorf)
Maarten Lemmens (University of Lille)
Max Lungarella (University of Zurich)
Georgio Metta (IIT Genoa)
Toshio Ohori (University of Tokyo)
Luc Steels (Sony CSL Paris and University of Brussels)
Anatol Stefanowitsch (University of Bremen)

===========================
==== TUTORIAL SPEAKERS ====
===========================
Andrea Baronchelli (UPC Barcelona)
Tony Belpaeme (University of Plymouth)
Benjamin Bergen (University of Hawaii)
Pascal Constanza (University of Brussels)
Walter Daelemans (University of Antwerp)
Joachim De Beule (University of Brussels)
Joe Hilferty (University of Barcelona)
Javier Valenzuela (University of Murcia)
Remi van Trijp (Sony CSL Paris)


===========================
===== WHO CAN ATTEND ======
===========================
The school is open to all researchers with sufficient scientific and technical
background to actively participate in the lectures and ateliers. The number of
possible participants is limited and hence a selection procedure is necessary.
Acquaintance and mastery of symbolic programming, computational linguistics, and
artificial intelligence techniques is the ideal background for the ateliers.
Linguistic background is helpful for many lectures in the main school but not a
prerequisite. Participants who do not have computational background are assumed
to prepare themselves by prior study and for them the tutorial program preceding
the school is obligatory. The tutorial program is strongly encouraged also for
those who already have a computational background but are unfamiliar with
language game experiments.


===========================
== REGISTRATION ==
===========================
Registration is now open until April 15, 2009.
Check the web page for application details:
http://www.alear.eu/events/cortona2009/Home.html