ATTW Bulletin

Because this year's conference coincides with the XVII European Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) in Aarhus, Denmark, the CPTSC theme embraces the opportunity to investigate the language of technical and scientific communication and its role in global and local practices. As an effort to coordinate with LSP, we see this year as an excellent chance to cross linguistic, institutional, and disciplinary borders while maintaining a focus on programmatic issues. We encourage submissions that yield new ideas pertaining to language in technical communication that could possibly provide a foundation upon which to build programmatic connections and partnerships.

About the CPTSC Conference

The CPTSC conference emphasizes discussion of programmatic issues. The audience includes people from new, as well as established, programs and anyone with programmatic interests in technical and scientific communication. We welcome participants - administrators, faculty, and graduate students - from university, community college, or secondary levels, as well as representatives of industry. All CPTSC sessions will be conducted in English. Possible topics relating to the 2009 theme include, but are not limited to, the following:

opportunities for international collaboration discourse and collaboration
natural language interfaces
translation of content between natural languages
language and accessibility
international language emphases in technical and scientific communication curricula
computer code as language
plain language in technical and scientific communication curricula
methods of assessing language development
visual language/the language of new media

Two Kinds of Presentations are Invited

Two kinds of presentation options are available at the CPTSC Annual Conference:

Position Papers involve five-minute presentations on programmatic issues (rather than reports of specialized research or presentations of particular teaching strategies) in order to generate discussion. The format does not allow for slide show presentations.

Proceedings, published after the conference, often include expanded versions of the position papers. The Proceedings will only include those papers presented at the meeting

Poster Presentations involve making a poster and preparing a five-minute presentation on programmatic issues.

Sample Proposals & Guidelines

Sample proposals/abstracts for last year's CPTSC conference are available from the conference website so interested individuals might review them in preparation for creating their own proposals for the 2009 CPTSC Conference.

Proposals for both Position Papers and Poster Presentations must explicitly note how the presenters will address both programmatic issues and the conference theme.

Submission Information

Submit proposals as .rtf files emailed to CPTSC2009@gmail.com. Be sure to use the words "CPTSC 2009 Conference Proposal” in the subject line of the email message. Proposals are due by 5:00pm, Eastern Standard Time, March 27, 2009.

For program questions, e-mail Program Chairs Stuart Blythe and Julie Dyke Ford at CPTSC2009@gmail.com.

For conference information, visit the preliminary conference website at
http://www.cptsc.org/annual.html

About the Conference Site

Located in Denmark's second-largest city, Aarhus University's School of Business is home to the programs in business, technical, and scientific communication in various languages, including English. The school is at the forefront in research of knowledge communication. While hosting the CPTSC conference, the school will simultaneously host the European Symposium on Language for Specific Purposes. (Specific purposes include technical and scientific communication.) The decision to have the two conferences coincide is deliberate, with a view to cross-fertilization as participants can attend both. For more on the University of Aarhus, visit http://www.au.dk/en. For more on the town of Aarhus, go to http://www.visitaarhus.com/.