About
A truly global summer/winter school on language acquisition
A survey of diversity in leading language acquisition journals revealed that only 2% of the 7,000+ languages of the world are represented. With a long-term aim of empowering researchers everywhere to contribute to this literature, we organized the First Truly Global /L+/ International Summer / Winter School on Language Acquisition (/L+/) in 2021. /L+/ was a free 5-day virtual school that facilitated the interchange of expertise among early career researchers about all levels of language development in monolingual and multilingual contexts.
We asked for volunteers through the LangVIEW consortium resulting in a diverse organization team from under-represented areas: Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Central and South America. To promote inclusivity, we (1) employed asynchronous and synchronous elements across three time zones; (2) provided closed captions for lectures and international sign interpretation for live sessions; (3) issued a code of conduct. For each time zone, an algorithm selected 120 participants (80% from traditionally under-represented regions) and 61 countries were represented. More information about the outcomes of the first edition can be found in this paper.
Although much remains to be done to promote inclusivity in linguistic research, we hope our school will contribute to empowering researchers to investigate and publish on language acquisition in their home languages.
(Adapted from: Aravena-Bravo et al., 2023)
A cross-university collaboration
Full list of organizers
Aireen Barrios Arnuco (De La Salle University, Philippines)
Alejandra Raisman (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico)
Alejandra Sadaniowski (Universidad Católica de las Misiones, Argentina)
Alma Luz Rodriguez Lazaro (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico)
Alvin Wei Ming Tan (Stanford University, U.S.A.)
Amanda Cristina Freitas (University of Campinas, Brazil)
Andrew Ssemata (Makerere University, Uganda)
Belén Troncoso-Acosta (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile)
Bhuvana Narasimhan (University of Colorado Boulder, U.S.A.)
Bolanle Elizabeth Arokoyo (University of Ilorin, Nigeria)
Caroline Hendy (Australian National University, Australia)
Caroline Rowland (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands)
Chamarrita Farkas Klein (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile)
Cecilia Rojas-Nieto (Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas (UNAM) Mexico)
Daniel Pereira Alves (Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil)
Don Louie De Castro (University of the Philippines Manila)
Elisabetta Latorre (University of Trento, Italy)
Eva Huber (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Fei Ting Woon (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
Hiromasa Kotera (University of Potsdam, Germany)
Janina Vargas (Universidad del País Vasco, Spain)
Jens Roeser (Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom)
Lahari Chatterjee (University of Potsdam, Germany)
Lawrence Mwangi Nduati (Aga Khan University, Kenya)
Lerato Sefoloshe (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)
Leticia Schiavon Kolberg (Université Paris Cité, France)
Line Kippe (University of Douala, Cameroon)
Lloeden Lois Cabacungan (University of the Philippines Manila)
Lorena Molina-Arcia (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), México )
Magdalena Krysztofiak (University of Warsaw, Poland)
Marc Hullebus (University of Potsdam, Germany)
Michelle White (University of Oslo, Norway; Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
Nancy Estévez Pérez (Cuban Neurosciences Center)
Naomi Havron (University of Haifa, Israel)
Natalia Arias Trejo (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico)
Natalia Gagarina (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Germany)
Natalie Boll-Avetisyan (University of Potsdam, Germany)
Nurtimhar Shahaji (Western Mindanao State University)
Paul Okyere Omane (University of Potsdam, Germany; Macquarie University, Australia)
Paulina Aravena-Bravo (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile)
Paulina Meza Rubio (Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Mexico)
Ramona Kunene-Nicolas (University of Witswatersrand, South Africa)
Rebecca Dufie Forson (University of Ghana, Ghana)
Rodolphe Prosper Mah (University of Douala, Cameroon)
Rodrigo Dal Ben (Ambrose University, Canada)
Ronel Laranjo (University of the Philippines Diliman)
Rowena Garcia (University of Potsdam, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands; University of the Philippines Manila)
Silvia Benavides-Varela (University of Padova, Italy)
Verónica García-Castro (Universidad de Costa Rica)
Wendy Amoako (University of Alberta, Canada)
Funding
The L+ Summer/Winter School is co-funded by the University of Potsdam (KoUP Cooperation Funding) and University of Padua (“Shaping a World-class University - Seed funding for Digitalization & Innovation”).
