The 2008 GALANA conference (Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition - North America) will bring together researchers, ranging from graduate students to senior scientists, who are asking biological questions about language acquisition: What exactly are the contributions of human biology to the process by which a child acquires her native language? Or to the process by which an adult acquires a foreign language? In the case of the child, the extremely high rate of success suggests that biology provides considerable guidance. Yet, languages still differ from one another in important ways. What are the choices that the child has to make?
The special theme of the 2008 meeting will be 'Language Acquisition and Cross-linguistic Variation'. The field of language acquisition is now well positioned to address a foundational question in linguistic theory: Are the points of cross-linguistic variation a "deep" domain of scientific inquiry, one where we can expect to discover richly explanatory generalizations? Language acquisition provides a valuable (and underutilized) testing ground for theories of cross-linguistic variation, because theories of grammatical variation across the worlds' languages are simultaneously theories of the "hypothesis space" for a child acquiring her native language.
Broader impact of GALANA 2008 will be felt in at least four areas. First, the conference will make a major contribution to doctoral training in linguistics and language acquisition, by providing a forum for doctoral students to present their research projects (either as papers or as posters), to receive feedback from major international scholars, and to network with one another. Second, the provision of high-quality ASL interpreting will ensure that the conference includes the contributions of Deaf students and faculty. Third, the GALANA 2008 proceedings volume is an important venue for scholarly communication about the latest research findings, and will reach a broader audience than the conference itself. Fourth, and perhaps most interestingly, the special session on Language Acquisition and Cross-linguistic Variation aims to have a significant impact on the way research, both theoretical and acquisitional, is practiced in the years to come.
