The Norwegian Summer Institute on Language and Mind, 2017

We are delighted to announce the Norwegian Summer Institute on Language
and Mind, a summer course in linguistics and philosophy in Norway, with
lectures from international experts, including some of the most distinguished figures in linguistics and philosophy.  The theme for the institute in 2017 is 'Cognition and Computation’.

Classes are free and we have funding for some travel and accommodation
bursaries.


Description of the summer institute:
The primary aim of the institute is to bring graduate students (MA-level and
doctoral researchers) up to date with developments in the intersection of work
on language and mind by presenting classes with leading researchers in the
relevant fields. These will include linguists open to philosophical issues, and
philosophers focused on linguistics and the cognitive sciences.

Theme for the institute in 2017: Cognition and Computation:
The notion of a “computational/representational” account of the mind is
fundamental to work in cognitive science and linguistics. The institute will focus
on such an account in three different areas: linguistic variation and its
acquisition, perception and mental representation, and computational
explanations in general in linguistics and cognitive science. A goal will be to try
to make clear just whether the component terms, “computation” and
“representation,” mean the same thing in the three areas.

Specific issues will include: How do children learn languages and how can this be
modelled in computational terms in such a way that it also accommodates
variation between languages? Does computation involve a commitment to
actual processes in the brain and to symbols actually representing things; and if
so, what “things”? What do findings in psycholinguistics and the psychology of
perception tell us about the nature of computation? In what ways are the
processes, representations and represented things “psychologically real”?

The teaching:
Classes are from Tuesday – Saturday and then Monday – Friday.

The first day will have introductory lectures to get everyone up to speed with
the relevant parts of linguistics, philosophy and psychology.
For the rest of the course, days will include two-hour classes on each of the
three "strands" (see below). Each class will consist, roughly, of an hour of lecture
followed by an hour of discussion.

There will also be some round-table discussion sessions, where we will discuss
issues across the strands, guided by student questions.

Lectures:

Linguistic variation and its acquisition:
Topics to include: syntactic theory and linguistic variation; acquisition and
sentence processing mechanisms, Bayesian approaches to language acquisition,
ways to incorporate variation into models of acquisition and processing.

Perception and mental representation:
Topics to include: How do we gain knowledge about the world from our sensory
systems? Bayesian modeling of perception, vision as computation

Computational explanations in linguistics and cognitive science:
Topics to include: grammar and psychological reality, parsing, the alleged
resurrection of the theory of derivational complexity, the role of heuristics in
mental computation, and foundational questions about
representational/computational theories of cognition

Financial:
The classes at the summer institute are free for all registered participants.
Participants are responsible for their own travel and accommodation expenses.

We have funding for some travel and accommodation bursaries. All summer
institute participants who are current PhD students at institutions affiliated with
the Norwegian Graduate Researcher School in Linguistics and Philology will be
able to receive bursaries.
In addition, we have some bursaries for other students, which will be assigned
competitively.

How to apply:
Applications are now closed.

Special note for University of Oslo MA students:

MA students in IFIKK and ILN can still enroll in the summer institute and get course credits for attending and writing an essay. Please email us if you want to know the details.

Organisers:
Senior lecturer Nicholas Allott, University of Oslo
Professor Carsten Hansen, University of Oslo
Professor Terje Lohndal, NTNU & UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Professor Georges Rey, University of Maryland at College Park

Supporting institutions:
CSMN, University of Oslo; Norwegian Graduate Researcher School in Linguistics
and Philology; IFIKK, University of Oslo; University of Maryland at College Park

Websites: http://folk.uio.no/nicholea/summerinstitute/