1^st Chemnitz/Dresden Corpus Linguistics &
Digital Humanities Conference

 July 8^th, 2016

Technische Universität Chemnitz
English Language and Linguistics
Prof. Dr. Josef Schmied

Technische Universität Dresden
Dresden Center for Digital Linguistics
Prof. Dr. Joachim Scharloth

In July 2016, Chemnitz and Dresden linguists join forces and present their research colloquium together: Dresden Germanistik has established a tradition of Corpus Linguistics & Digital Humanities conferences, whereas Chemnitz Anglistik has had their own Language & Culture conferences in the local conference centre, in Heizhaus. This year, both research groups will open their discussions for all BA/MA and PhD students who use digital linguistics and humanities methodologies in the widest sense.

We encourage not only big data projects, but any modern research methodology from a simple on-line questionnaire to a complex eye-tracking experiment, from a qualitative comparison of group-specific usage in twitter to a quantitative comparison of newspapers, from a key-word-in-context analysis of academic writing patterns to a multivariate sociophonetic study using PRAAT.  

The conference will provide a forum for discussion on “digital” methodologies in a wide sense, as indicated in this short exposé above. We encourage students from non-linguistic disciplines in particular to use corpus linguistic and digital humanities methodologies to pursue their own research areas from neighbouring disciplines, like political science, economics, literature and psychology. Conference languages are English and German.

The aim of this intensive conference is to allow presenters to develop their ideas openly, so that their peers, other students and a few invited friendly experts, will advise them how to finish their projects successfully and to inspire non-presenters to follow their methodological model and to use modern technologies to answer old questions with new data? This forum is also the appropriate place for “dress rehearsals” for bigger conferences (some Chemnitz students have secured their place at the ESSE conference in August in Galway already).

If you would like to participate, send a 300-500 word abstract (in English or German) to either Joachim Scharloth or Josef Schmied by June 1^st (acceptance by June 21^st). Usually, we would like to have 15-minute presentations with equally long discussions, but we are open; we also welcome conference posters and strongly encourage open discussions in the tea/coffee breaks and over the buffet lunch. There is no conference fee, but you have to bring your enthusiasm for discussion and your openness to learn from everybody in a conducive intercultural atmosphere, we hope.

Go for it – it is good for you.