INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON IMITATION AND CONVERGENCE IN SPEECH (ISICS 2012)

Aix-en-Provence, France, 3-5 September 2012

mail: isics2012@lpl-aix.fr
website: spim.risc.cnrs.fr/ISICS.htm

OVERVIEW

In the course of a conversational interaction, the behavior of each talker often tends to become more similar to that of the conversational partner. Such convergence effects have been shown to manifest themselves under many different forms, which include posture, body movements, facial expressions, and speech. Imitative speech behavior is a phenomenon that may be actively exploited by talkers to facilitate their conversational exchange.  It occurs, by definition, within a social interaction, but has consequences for language that extend much beyond the temporal limits of that interaction. It has been suggested that imitation plays an important role in speech development and may also form one of the key mechanisms that underlie the emergence and evolution of human languages. The behavioral tendency shown by humans to imitate others may be connected at the brain level with the presence of mirror neurons, whose discovery has raised important issues about the role that these neurons may fulfill in many different domains, from sensorimotor integration to the understanding of others' behavior.

The focus of this international symposium will be the fast-growing body of research on convergence phenomena between speakers in speech. The symposium will also aim to assess current research on the brain and cognitive underpinnings of imitative behavior. Our main goal will be to bring together researchers with a large variety of scientific backgrounds (linguistics, speech sciences, psycholinguistics, experimental sociolinguistics, neurosciences, cognitive sciences) with a view to improving our understanding of the role of imitation in the production, comprehension and acquisition of spoken language.

The symposium is organized by the laboratoire Parole et Langage, CNRS and Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France (www.lpl.univ-aix.fr). It will be chaired by Noël Nguyen (LPL) and Marc Sato (GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble), and will be held in the Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences Humaines.

INVITED SPEAKERS

. Luciano Fadiga, University of Ferrara, Italy
. Maëva Garnier, GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble, France
. Simon Garrod, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
. Beatrice Szczepek Reed, University of York, United Kingdom

CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers are invited on the topics covered by the symposium. Abstracts not exceeding 2 pages must be submitted electronically and in pdf format by 15 April 2012. They will be selected by the Scientific Committee on the basis of their scientific merit and relevance to the symposium. Notifications of acceptance/rejection will be sent to the authors by 31 May 2012.

IMPORTANT DATES

. 15 April 2012: Abstract submission deadline
. 31 May 2012: Notification of acceptance / rejection
. 30 June 2012: Early registration deadline

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

. Patti Adank, University of Manchester, UK
. Martine Adda-Decker, laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie, Paris, France
. Gérard Bailly, GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble, France
. Roxane Bertrand, laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-en-Provence, France
. Ann Bradlow, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA
. Jennifer Cole, Department of Linguistics, Urbana-Champaign, USA
. Mariapaola D’Imperio, laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-en-Provence, France
. Laura Dilley, Department of Psychology and Linguistics, Michigan State University, USA
. Sophie Dufour, laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-en-Provence, France
. Carol Fowler, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, USA
. Jonathan Harrington, University of Munich, Germany
. Jennifer Hay, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
. Julia Hirschberg, Columbia University, New York, USA
. Holger Mitterer, Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
. Lorenza Mondada, laboratoire ICAR, Lyon, France
. Kuniko Nielsen, Oakland University, Rochester, USA
. Noël Nguyen, laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-en-Provence, France
. Martin Pickering, University of Edinburgh, UK
. Marc Sato, GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble, France
. Jean-Luc Schwartz, GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble, France
. Véronique Traverso, laboratoire ICAR, Lyon, France
. Sophie Wauquier, Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis, France