1st Call for Papers

Venue: Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia

Dates: 11-14 July 2024 (Thursday morning to Sunday noon)

The Language, Culture, and Mind (LCM) conference series provides an interdisciplinary and international forum for dialogue and exchange in and between biological, cognitive, social, and cultural perspectives in theoretical and empirical studies of language and communication. As has long been recognized, no single discipline or methodology is sufficient to capture all the dimensions of language as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, which lies at the heart of what it is to be human.

The theme of this jubilee LCM conference, the 10th in the series which will take place 20 years after the first LCM, is ‘Celebrating Linguistic and Cultural Diversity’.

We invite contributions in any area of interest to the LCM community from scholars and scientists in anthropology, biology, education, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, semiotics, semantics, discourse analysis, cognitive sciences, and neurosciences who wish both to impart their insights and findings, and to learn from other disciplines.

Keynote Speakers: TBA

Topics include but are not limited to:

New vistas in multicultural neurolinguistics / cultural neuroscience
Language and brain development in multilingual environments
Intercultural communication in multicultural settings
Biocultural language science, evolution and the post-human imagination
Language, culture and emotion
Language and communication disorders in multicultural contexts
Language contact, literacies and hybridization in the global digital universe
Language, identity and ageing minds
Linguistic discrimination, culture wars and the politics of language and culture
Language in ‘post-truth’ discourses, infodemics, conspiracy theories and propaganda
Preservation and revitalization of endangered languages and cultures
Indigenous minority perspectives on language, culture, mind and identity
Language, cultural and identity heritages of mixed-race individuals
Machine learning, text analysis and Large Language Models
Linguistic landscapes in multicultural environments

The format of the conference is hybrid. We will meet in Brno in person and we will also organize accessible online sessions for scholars who for different reasons find traveling difficult. The plenary and roundtable slots will be 1 hour long (a 45-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute discussion and 5 minutes for room change); the general session slots will be 30 minutes long (20 minutes for presentation followed by a 5-minute discussion and 5 minutes for room change). There will also be structured poster sessions. Each contributor may submit a maximum of two abstracts as an author (a solo-authored abstract and a co-authored abstract, or two co-authored abstracts).

Theme session proposals should include: the session title, the name and affiliation of the theme session organizer, an introduction of around 300 words (excluding examples and references) explaining the theme, as well as a list of the authors and titles of the individual papers. A theme session may consist of four to six papers, plus an introduction by the convenors and a discussion in the last slot.

Important dates:

15 October 2023: Publication of 1st circular

30 November 2023: Deadline for theme session proposals

15 December 2024: Notification of acceptance for theme session proposals, publication of 2nd circular

15 February 2024: Deadline for abstract submissions

15 March 2024: Notification of acceptance, early-bird registration starts

30 April 2024: Early-bird registration ends

31 May 2024: Registration closes

LCM10 features:

Roundtable: Language, Culture, and Mind 20 years on and visions of the future
Emerging Research Scholars’ Workshop
A 2-week summer school immediately following the conference, organized by local colleagues in cooperation with Masaryk University’s International Office (info to follow in 2nd circular).

Mark LCM-10 in your calendar!

Local organizing team:

Wei-lun Lu (Chair), Šárka Havlíčková Kysová, Petra Hebedová, Richard Holaj, Jakub Jehlička, Vojtěch Juřík, Naděžda Kudrnáčová, Jiří Matela, Jana Pelclová, Svitlana Shurma

For inquiries and submission of theme session proposals, please contact the local organizing team at LCM2024@phil.muni.cz.

International Committee:

Carmen M. Bretones Callejas (University of Almería, Spain), Barbara Fultner (Denison University, USA), Beatriz Macías Gómez-Estern (Pablo de Olavide University, Spain), Juana Teresa Guerra De La Torre (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Spain), John A. Lucy, (University of Chicago, USA), Ana Moreno-Núñez (Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain), Aliyah Morgenstern (Sorbonne Nouvelle University, France), Esther Pascual (Shanghai International Studies University, China), Vera da Silva Sinha (University of York, UK), Chris Sinha (University of East Anglia, UK), Tian Zhen (Shanghai International Studies University, China), Arie Verhagen (University of Leiden, Netherlands)

Scientific Committee: TBA