ABSTRACT Auburn University plans to host a conference on Language Variety in the south, a follow-up to one held in 1981 at the University of South Carolina. The Auburn conference will meet April 1-3, 1993, in conjunction with Spring SECOL (Southeastern Conference on Linguistics). It will provide a forum for scholars in a variety of disciplines, from widely separated parts of this country and from other countries, who would otherwise not be able to meet conveniently. Among the goals of the conference are too encourage collaboration across disciplines, to promote discussion among junior and senior scholars of ongoing research projects, to expose recent Ph.D.'s and advanced graduate students to recent research in Southern American English, and to foster an exchange between researchers and local community members. Sociolinguists, dialect geographers, lexicographers, historians, literary scholars, and educators will share their research on language variety in the Southern United States. Each day will focus on a different theme: Thursday on Materials and Methods; Friday on Language Contact, Conflict, and Controversy; and Saturday on Discourse and Dialect Diversity. Keynote addresses, panels, and paper sessions have been structured so as to advance knowledge through presentation of new data, to encourage exploration of methodological issues, and to provide opportunities for debate over controversial themes. The impact of the conference will extend well beyond the region. Through satellite transmission, videotaping, and a volume of proceedings, conference activities will be made accessible to an audience much wider than that in attendance.
