ASAL37

The Arabic Linguistics Society together with the Long Island University’s Department of Speech Language Pathology, in collaboration with CUNY Graduate Center/Lehman College, and NYU, are pleased to announce the 37th Arabic Linguistics Symposium. This event will be held at Long Island University, Brooklyn in Library Learning Center 124 from February 23-25, 2024. For more information about the conference please visit the conference website:

https://liu.edu/37th-annual-symposium-on-arabic-linguistics

 

ASAL36

ASAL36 was held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on March 24-26, 2023. For more information about ASAL36, please visit the conference website: The 36th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics | ASAL 36 at UMass Amherst

ASAL35

ASAL35 was held in person at Georgetown University on March 25-27, 2022. Special thanks to Ahmad Alqassas (Georgetown University) for hosting the conference.

ALS new home

During this break from our usual conference activities, the ALS board was able to renew the status of the organization as nonprofit and move its existence from Utah to Wisconsin, a process that was long and complicated, and required legal assistance. The Organization could no longer exist in Utah since the person who had acted as the local agent, Dil Parkinson, is retired.

Board members and elections

The terms of three board members are up and at least two of these board members are not planning on running for reelection. All ALS members are eligible to run for elections and serve on the board and we encourage everyone to get involved. If you like to nominate yourself or another member, please do so by contacting us at: arabiclinguisticssociety@gmail.com. We plan to run the elections right after our conference in March 2022.

Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics (PAL)

PAL33 edited by Atiqa Hachimi and Abdel-khalig Ali (University of Toronto) is currently being reviewed by the series editors before final approval. PAL34 edited by Mahmoud Azaz (University of Arizona) is now ready to be sent to the series editors as well.

ASAL35

Due to the Pandemic and the uncertainties about travel, and because Georgetown University cancelled all large events in 2021 for safety reasons, ALS and the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown announce the postponement of ASAL35 until 2022. The next call for papers will be in summer 2021.

ASAL34

ASAL34 was held at the University of Arizona from February 28 to March 1, 2020. The board would like to express special thanks to Mahmoud Azaz for organizing this year’s symposium. The program featured thirty paper presentations and seven poster presentations. This year’s plenary keynote speakers were: Mohamed Embarki (University of Franche-Comté), Besançon, France; Rania Habib (Syracuse University); Samira Farwaneh (University of Arizona); and Ahmad Alqassas (Georgetown University). This year’s big surprise was the appearance of Professor Noam Chomsky on Saturday February 29 to address the conference participants. It was one of the highlights of the conference. The other highlight was the announcement of the best student abstract awards. This year’s winners were: Iman Albadar (Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University & University of Delaware) for her paper entitled: ‘Are Arabic Listeners ‘Stress Deaf’ to their Own L2 Pronunciation?’, Laura R. Faircloth (University of Texas at Austin) for her paper entitled: ‘Models of Root Co-Occurrence Restrictions and Their Implications for Arabic Phonology’, Karen McNeil (Georgetown University) for her paper entitled: ‘When the Leak Becomes a Flood: Destabilizing Diglossia in Tunisia’, and Mohammed Abuhaib (Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University & University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) for his paper entitled: ‘Notes on Najdi Arabic Scope Taking’.

ASAL33

ASAL33 was held at the University of Toronto on April 5-7, 2019. It was the first time that the conference was held in Canada. We are grateful to the organizers Atiqa Hachimi and Abdel Kahlig Ali for all their hard word. The program featured twenty seven paper presentations and seven poster presentations. There were three plenary keynote speakers namely: Enam Al-Wer (University of Essex), Hamid Ouali (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), and Islam Youssef (University of South-Eastern Norway). 

ASAL32

ASAL32 was held at Arizona Sate University on February 23-25, 2018. The conference was very successful with a rich program. This year’s keynote speakers were: Kristen Brustad (University of Texas), Reem Khamis-Dakwar (Adelphi University), and Usama Soltan (Middlebury College). Future Symposia are as follows:

  • ASAL33, 2019 will be held at the University of Toronto, Canada and will be organized by Atiqa Hachimi and Abdel-Khalig Ali. 
  • ASAL34, 2020 will be back in Arizona and this time at the University of Arizona and will be organized by Mahmoud Azaz.
  • ASAL35, 2021 will be held at Georgetown University and will be organized by Ahmad Alqassas.
  • ASAL36, 2022 will be held at Florida State University and will be organized by Zafer Lababidi.

ASAL31

The 31st Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (ASAL31) was held at the University of Oklahoma on March 30-April 1, 2017. The program featured three keynote Speakers: Youssef Haddad from the University of Florida, Nancy Hall from California State University, and Keith Walters from Portland State University. At the Annual business meeting, reports on the finances of ALS, the status of the Perspective on Arabic Linguistics (PAL) volumes, and the future symposia, were shared with the members. Regarding the finances, the number of members declined slightly compared to the year before. As for the different PAL volumes, PAL29 was in its final stages, the review of the papers submitted for PAL30 was underway, and the call for papers for PAL31 went out in April. For the future symposia, ASAL32 will be held at Arizona State University on February 23-25, 2018, and ASAL33 will be held at the University of Toronto in 2019. At the meeting, a statement about the travel ban was shared with the members and was posted on the Facebook page of ALS. The last item that was shared with the members is a proposal to amend article 5 of the ALS bylaws which adds language about how to deal with situations when a nominated candidate is running for election uncontested.

ASAL30

The 30th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (ASAL30) was held at Stony Brook University (SUNY) in Stony Brook, New York from March 31-April 3, 2016. ASAL30 was held concurrently with the 46th Annual Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) and with a joint Workshop on Arabic and Romance Linguistics (Sunday, April 3, 2016). The conference was well attended. Besides the regular number of paper presentations, this year there was also a poster session which featured thirteen posters. The conference also featured three keynote speakers for the main session and three keynote speakers for the Workshop on Arabic and Romance Languages. The keynote speakers for the main session were: Atiqa Hachimi (University of Toronto), Ghada Khattab (Newcastle University), and John McCarthy (University of Massachusetts at Amherst). The keynote speakers for the workshop were Robert Hoberman (Stony Brook University), Laura Minervini (University of Naples), and Lotfi Sayahi (SUNY Albany).

ALS leadership

After thirty years of serving the Arabic Linguistics Society in different capacities including as the Executive Director from 2012 to 2016, Professor Mushira Eid stepped down and will continue serving on the Executive Board as ex officio for 2016-2017 before she retires for good. Hamid Ouali was elected by the board to serve as the new Executive Director for a six-year term. Usama Soltan was also reelected as a member of the board for another term.

Amel Khlafaoui (University of Oklahoma) is the newest elected member to the Executive Board.

30th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics

The Arabic Linguistics Society together with the Stony Brook University’s Department of Linguistics are pleased to announce the 30th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (ASAL) to be held at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York March 31-April 3, 2016. The 30th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics will be held concurrently with the 46th Annual Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) and with a joint Workshop on Arabic and Romance Linguistics (Sunday, April 3, 2016).

Keynote Speakers, Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (ASAL):

  • Atiqa Hachimi, University of Toronto
  • Ghada Khattab, Newcastle University
  • John McCarthy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
  • Usama Soltan, Middlebury College
  • Keynote Speaker, Workshop on Arabic and Romance Languages (WARL):
  • Robert Hoberman, Stony Brook University
  • Laura Minervini, University of Naples
  • Lotfi Sayahi, SUNY Albany

For more information, please visit the conference website:
http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/asal/

29th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics

The 29th ASAL was held at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 9-11, 2015. The conference featured 27 presentations including three presentations by the three keynote speakers: Reem Bassiouney (American University of Cairo), Stuart Davis (Indiana University) and Perter Hallman (University of Vienna).

Two New Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Volumes

We are happy to announce the publication of two Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics volumes:

  1. Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIV-XXV: Papers from the annual symposia on Arabic Linguistics. Texas, 2010 and Arizona, 2011. Edited by Samira Farwaneh and Hamid Ouali. 2014. xiii, 229 pp.
  2. Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVI: Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic Linguistics. New York, 2012. Edited by Reem Khamis-Dakwar and Karen Froud. 2014. vi, 304 pp.

These now appear under the series “Studies in Arabic Linguistics” and are both are available from John Benjamins.

Elections 2014

This year and for the first time, the Arabic Linguistics Society has run its election to the Executive Board online. We’re proud to report that 67.5% of the members participated in the vote. We’re also happy to announce that Stuart Davis (Professor of Linguistics, Indiana University) was elected to the Board and Hamid Ouali (Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) was re-elected for another term. Welcome to both!

28th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics

  • The 28th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics was held at the University of Florida in Gainesville, March 13-15, 2014. The number of abstracts submitted for review was 69, of which only 23 were presented at the symposium. In addition, there were four keynote addresses by Lina Choueiri (American University of Beirut), Niloofar Haeri (Johns Hopkins University), Naima Boussofara (University of Texas), and Janet Watson (University of Leeds). The topics of the presentations varied and included studies in phonetics, phonology, syntax, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, pragmatics, and language acquisition.
  • The ALS Business Meeting was held on Friday, March 14, 2013 at lunch. Eighteen members, including members of the Executive Board, attended the meeting. The agenda for the meeting covered updates on upcoming symposia, announcements about ALS future plans including the possibility of an online journal for the Society, and input from attending members regarding future plans and direction of the Society.
  • Professor Janet WatsonPresentations at the symposium were very engaging and fun, but so were the coffee breaks. The reception that was held in the house of the Chair of Linguistics and the Dean of International Center at University of Florida left a wonderful impression on everyone. It gave all attendees a good feeling of a Florida home, as well as an importunity to chat with all friends and meet new people while enjoying a variety of Palestinian food.
  • The highlight of the symposium was Professor Janet Watson (University of Leeds) delivering her keynote address, “Phonation categories in Arabic and Modern South Arabian,” in a fabulous Dhofari style wedding dress, made of a new velvet-like fabric with silver embroidery. She explained Dhofari dresses are longer at the back than at the front, and tend to be loose in the body. Impressive mix of scholarship and fun!
  • We thank the University of Florida for allocating resources, financial and otherwise, that made this event possible. We especially thank The Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, the Office of Research, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the International Center, and the following departments: Languages Literatures and Cultures, Linguistics, Anthropology, Spanish and Portuguese. We also thank Smathers Libraries for providing such a wonderful venue to hold the symposium. Finally, we are indebted to the University of Florida faculty and staff who put together a superbly organized symposium. Most of all, we thank Youssef Haddad (Languages, Literatures, and Cultures) and Eric Potsdam (Linguistics) who served as symposium co-organizers representing the University of Florida.

Discount for members of the Arabic Linguistics Society

John Benjamins, publisher of Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics volumes, offers a discount of 30% on all volumes from the Studies in Arabic Linguistics series (and Perspectives of Arabic Linguistics volumes previously published in the CILT series) for members of Arabic Linguistics Society. The publisher would need to receive the membership list once a year, when it is renewed, so that they can use that to check for membership. The discount is only valid for orders placed directly with Benjamins in Amsterdam (so not through their U.S. office or warehouse), indicating at the time of ordering that it is an order with the membership discount, and only for private use (not for libraries or institutions).

All orders should be placed by the individual members directly at the John Benjamins office in Amsterdam (bookorder@benjamins.nl), clearly indicating the book that is being ordered, and that the order is with the ALS member discount.

27th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics

  • The 27th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics was held at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, February 28 – March 2, 2013. Thirty-three papers were presented at the symposium, including four keynote speeches. The number of abstracts submitted for review this year was unusually high, which is indeed good news for the Society. A total of 98 abstracts were received, of which 29 abstracts were presented at the symposium. In addition, there were four keynote speakers’ addresses. The topics of the presentations varied and included studies in phonology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics and variation, historical linguistics and linguistic change, as well as studies on interlanguage and language acquisition. The symposium also included a special session on Arabic in computer-mediated communication. The quality of the papers was quite impressive as was the attendance (approximately 62 registered in addition to drop-ins) and interaction among participants.
  • The ALS Business Meeting was held on Friday, March 2, 2013. Twenty-two members, including members of the Executive Board, attended the lunch meeting. The agenda for the meeting covered updates on upcoming symposia, announcements about ALS future plans, and input from attending members regarding future plans and direction of the Society.
  • Despite the full schedule, we still had fun during our scholarly discussions and our coffee breaks, and definitely during our social gathering at the beautiful Indiana University Art Museum, chatting with friends and colleagues and meeting new ones as well—this while surrounded by fascinating art pieces, listening to music by a live band (Salaam), and munching on delicious ethnic food.
  • We had plenty of food for body and mind! For that, we thank the Indiana University Center for the Study of the Middle East and its Department of Linguistics for allocating resources, financial and otherwise, that made this event possible. We’re also indebted to the Indiana University faculty and staff who put together a superbly organized symposium. Most of all, we thank Professor Stuart Davis of the Department of Linguistics, who served as symposium co-organizer representing Indiana University.