The Third International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL 2012)

Nanjing, China, May 27-29, 2012

www.TAL2012.org

The Third International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL 2012) will be held in Nanjing, China during May 27-29, 2012. This will be a long-awaited event following TAL 2004 (Beijing, China) and TAL 2006 (La Rochelle, France). As a satellite meeting of Speech Prosody 2012 (to be held in Shanghai, China during May 22-25, 2012), TAL 2012 will be organized by Nanjing Normal University under the joint supports of the International Speech Communication Association (especially by SProSIG and SIG-CSLP), the International Phonetic Association, the Phonetic Association of China, the Chinese Information Processing Society of China, the Acoustical Society of China, and the Chinese Dialect Society.

The theme of TAL 2012 is ‘Tonal aspects across tone and non-tone languages.’ Following the heritage of the past two symposia, TAL 2012 will continue to focus on tone languages, covering studies of tones from phonetic, phonological, psychological, technological, and pathological points of view; but will also welcome studies on tonal aspects of non-tone languages and singing. In particular, this symposium emphasizes the relationship between phonology and phonetics of tones, the relationship between production and perception of tones, the modeling of tones, and the practical utilization of tonal information in spoken language processing. We will make it a great opportunity for linguists, phoneticians, psychologists, language educators, speech pathologists, and speech engineers from all over the world to get together to share and deepen our understanding of tones.

Nanjing, which literally means ‘South Capital,’ has a prominent status in China’s long history and glorious culture. It had been the capital of China during ten dynasties including early Ming Dynasty and the Republic of China. With its beautiful nature and a variety of traditional architectures and historical sights, Nanjing is one of China’s most attractive cities. The transportation to Nanjing is very convenient. There are direct international flights between Nanjing and some cities in Europe, USA and Asian countries. Also, it takes only about 80-90 minutes to travel by train between Nanjing and Shanghai, where the airline connections to almost all main cities in the world are available.

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers (up to 6 pages and written in English) on original research related to tonal aspects of languages, including but not limited to:

- Phonology and phonetics of tones

- Typology of tones and tone languages

- Tone production and perception

- Tone language acquisition and learning

- Evolution of tones and tone change

- Tone, accent, and intonation

- Tonal variation in continuous speech

- Modeling of tonal aspects of languages

- Speech processing for tone languages

- Tonal processing in speech recognition and synthesis

- Psychological and neural mechanisms of tones

- Pathology and therapy for tonal aspects of languages

- Speech corpus and annotation for tones

- Cross-linguistic study of tone languages and non-tone languages

- Tonal information in forensic phonetics

- Tone in singing and traditional operas

We are also calling for exhibits and financial supports. Donations from corporate, academic, government, and individual sponsors would be greatly appreciated. Your support brings you various benefits as stated in our website.

Important Dates

Special session proposal:            December 20, 2011

Submission of full papers:          February 15, 2012

Notification of acceptance:         March 15, 2012

Camera-ready paper due:           March 25, 2012

Early registration deadline:         March 31, 2012

General Chair: Wentao Gu (Professor, Nanjing Normal University, China)

Contact Email:            TAL2012nj@gmail.com