The 16th annual Lancaster Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference will be held on June 27, 2022. The theme is “New Perspectives in Linguistics: Innovation and Dynamics.” The conference is a great opportunity for postgraduate students (pursuing an MA or a PhD) to present their work to their peers in a supportive and inclusive space. For enquiries please email Maya Dewhurst, m.dewhurst1@lancaster.ac.uk,Conference website

MA and PhD students are invited to submit abstracts on linguistic research, in particular those that have used innovative methods. The following panels have been proposed and you may address your abstract to any one of these. If your abstract does not fit one, please submit it anyway; we are happy to consider abstracts on topics not listed below.

• Cognitive-Functional Linguistics and Typology

• Corpus and Computational Linguistics

• Discourse Studies

• Phonetics and Phonology

• Pragmatics and Literacy Studies

• TESOL and Language Pedagogy

Abstract submission deadline: Monday 11th April 2022: Link For Submission

Word limit for submissions: 300 words exl. references

Talks should be 20 minutes long, with 5 minutes allocated for Q&A (25 minute total time) in a PowerPoint format.

When submitting an abstract, you may choose to apply for a poster presentation or a longer talk. Upon acceptance, more information regarding poster dimensions and format will be provided.

Proposal Format

Abstracts should be submitted through the designated form. All submissions should include a title and a full abstract. Please note the following word limits for submissions:

Title: 20 Words

Abstract: 300 Words

Evaluation of Proposals

Upon receipt by the organising committee, all submitted abstracts will be stripped of identifying markers (name, university, etc.) and sent to a team of peer reviewers. When reviewing abstracts, the team will take into account the following:

• Suitability to conference theme
• Theoretical relevance
• Research design
• Direction of analysis/conclusions
• Structure and clarity

Sample Submission

Title: Writing practices across the lifespan: the transition from school to university

Abstract: Educational transitions have been described as significant life events involving self-redefinitions, the acquisition of new social roles and identities and decisions about future and education (Ecclestone, Biesta & Hughes, 2010). However, little is known about the role of writing in these transitional experiences, especially for marginalized groups in educational settings. Similarly, the development of writing abilities across contexts and throughout the lifespan has been scarcely explored (Bazerman, 2020; Bazerman, 2013; Naftzinger, 2020). By relying on a New literacy Studies perspective (Barton & Hamilton, 2012; Barton 2007; Gee, 2000; Papen, 2005) this study seeks to understand how students’ writing practices change and evolve during the transition from school to university and across different settings in everyday life. Such an understanding could help to promote well-informed policies to support students’ writing development across educational stages, specifically for groups traditionally excluded from higher education (Lillis, 2001). Based on a longitudinal design, this study follows a group of students from low-income backgrounds in Chile from their last year of school to their first year at university. During this transitional period, students will be asked to: 1) participate in “talking around text” interviews (Baker, 2018; Ivanic, 1998; Lillis, 2001), 2) submit a sample of writing pieces, and 3) complete a writing log. All these data will be analysed by using both a scheme code (Gaisler & Swarts, 2019) according to research questions and a constant comparison method to obtained emergent categories (Charmaz, 2013). In this presentation, initial results of this study will be introduced. With these findings, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of how students from less privileged backgrounds face a diverse range of writing practices as well as identify which meanings they attribute to them in the context of their daily lives and life projects.

Further Guidance

For further guidance on writing abstracts, Shungo Suzuki from LAEL at Lancaster University has kindly shared his experiences and advice here:

Shungo Suzuki

Publication Guidelines

Speakers will also be invited to submit their papers for publication in Papers from the Lancaster Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference. This is a peer-reviewed, open-access online publication featuring full papers from the annual Lancaster Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference. For previous years’ publications please visit the Papers from LAEL PG.