FLB home News resources for undergraduates graduates faculty staff graduate assistants flb business office flb graduate student services   staff directory FLB directories UIUC home old browsers August 26, 2005 2005-2006/002 UIUC to host international linguistics conference September 1-5 More than 80 scholars from over 20 countries will meet Sept. 1-5 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the 10th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences. Douglas A. Kibbee, professor of French and linguistics at the U. of I. and organizer of this year’s conference, explains that linguists study the history of language to understand the different research questions in the field. These questions include: How is language structured? What is the relationship between the study of language and other disciplines, such as neuroscience, literature or religion? How have historical forces changed the balance of approaches in the field? The conference is held every three years. This is the first time the U. of I. has hosted the event. “The University of Illinois has made a strong contribution both to the history of linguistics and to the history of the history of linguistics,” says Kibbee. He also points out that from 1910-1920 the U. of I. had on its faculty Leonard Bloomfield, one of the greatest linguists of all time. Bloomfield wrote two seminal books in the field, including his renowned Language (1933). Kibbee adds that the U. of I. also was among the first universities to offer courses in the history of linguistics, beginning in the mid-1960s. The conference is sponsored by Cultural Services of the Consulat Général de France in Chicago and several units within UIUC, including: the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the Office of International Programs and Studies; the Center for African Studies; the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; the Russian and Eastern European Center; the Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education; the Program for the Study of Religion; the departments of classics; Spanish, Italian and Portuguese; East Asian languages and cultures; French; linguistics; Slavic languages and literatures; and Germanic languages and literatures; and Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. For more about registration and the conference schedule, visit the conference website at: http://www.french.uiuc.edu/ICHOLS/ or contact Douglas A. Kibbee, UIUC Department of French, phone 217-333-2020, or e-mail dkibbee@uiuc.edu.