up vote 8 down vote favorite

Stack Exchange sponsors members from SE sites to attend conferences in that field. Since EL&U is a smaller SE community than some of our peers (although I would say, in some cases, of much higher quality), I think it would be a good idea to promote EL&U to other linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts, and conferences may be one way to help us increase the number of quality members. Does anyone know of any conferences that are specifically for the English language that SE might be willing to sponsor a member to?

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Could you be more specific about what type of conferences you think might be appropriate for an EL&U member's participation? For example, there is ISLE2 taking place in June. The topics at this conference are probably not what you had in mind, right? Or are they? – Kosmonaut Feb 20 '11 at 21:02
@Kosmonaut The type of conference that is ideal is the one that has people who would be interested in English.SE. ISLE2 might be a bit too in-depth in level—I think that we'd have to start asking and answering harder questions before they'd be interested in joining SE. I'm not sure if there even are conferences that fit for us (in fact, I think it's rather unlikely), but I wanted to see what the community knew of. – waiwai933♦ Feb 20 '11 at 22:38
OK, that is what I thought; I'd be interested to see if people come up with any ideas. If nothing comes of this now, it might be worth resurrecting this question from time to time. – Kosmonaut Feb 22 '11 at 14:36
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I see three different types of audiences that might be interested in EL&U: 1) linguists and research into English linguistics, 2) English educators at secondary and post-secondary level, and 3) ESL teachers. Of these, I think that (2) is actually the closest to the core purpose of the site. The question is if there are any conferences of that sort that would be interested in having us. – JSBձոգչ Apr 17 '11 at 18:19

3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

I suggest that the group we need to reach out to the most is actually teachers of English at the secondary and post-secondary level. English language education is basically what this site is for, plus as almost anyone who went through secondary school in the U.S. will tell you, English education in the U.S. is a disaster, particularly when it comes to grammar and basic linguistics, two of the things that this site excels in.

With that in mind, I quickly googled up a few options:

National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention

Conference on English Education

Asilomar

(These are all US-specific, but I have no idea whether conferences in other parts of the English-speaking world would be interested.)

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up vote 2 down vote

I made a quick google search to ignite the discussion, as I would like very much to see more expert coming to the site, so I could learn from them.

First, the International Society for the Linguistics of English organize a conference on June 17-21, 2011 at Boston University.

Second I found mention of the Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research (also known as CamLing). Until now, there is no information about the 2011 edition, and searching google about CamLing brings results about camping...

Finally I found a site listing conference on English Literature and Language. I wouldn't be able to found the good ones from the bad ones, so I will simply provide a link.

I hope it will help.

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I actually mentioned ISLE2 in my comment above. As it happens I am already participating in that conference, which was why I mentioned it. But ISLE2 goes quite deep into linguistic theory, and I am not sure where EL&U would fit in. There isn't really a "learn about/discuss English language-related resources" component to this conference. – Kosmonaut Mar 2 '11 at 16:40
up vote 2 down vote

Just wingin' 'em out there:

Teaching Grammar Conference (US)

Constellata - this seems like an especially appropriate possibility

JALT -- hey, I'll go to Japan...

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