Formats

Can I present online? 

No. Barring unforeseen circumstances, this year NWAV returns to all in person. The reason for a lack of a hybrid option is logistics and expense. It would require more equipment and volunteers than having an all in-person event. We need to keep our costs low and—given that we are all volunteers—our workloads manageable.   

Can I present a poster? 

Yes. We have found poster sessions to be quite stimulating in many conferences including NWAVs. During the poster session, there will be no scheduled talks. Posters will allow, we believe, a great format for presentations in the “Project Launch” category in addition to completed studies. 

Speaking of Project Launch, what is it? 

Project Launch allows researchers (particularly but non only students) to present work that is not yet complete or even just in the planning stages. It allows you to have an opportunity to share their ideas to a large number of experts. We think placing Project Launch works in the Poster Session will stimulate a give and take and allow attendees to pick and choose which new projects interest them. Not least, it will allow attendees to help shape research that will, hopefully, be presented at NWAV52! 

What’s this about 10 minute presentations? 

The short length was an innovation in NWAV50. It seems to have been mostly well-received, so we are continuing with it this year. The default will remain 10 minutes with 20 minutes for those who reviewers believe to be difficult to present in the 10-minutes. The selection of different lengths is consequently about what works best for the abstract, not a reflection of perceived quality. 

Registration

How did you determine registration fees? 

Setting conference fees is partially guesswork that has to balance covering conference costs with maintaining affordability. Because CUNY is and underfunded public university, we do not have any institutional cushion for overruns such as occurred last year at NWAV50. We are, nevertheless, able to maintain the basic fee structure from last year because holding the event at the college facilities as opposed to a hotel is much more economical. We thank the Queens College administration for their support in this matter.  

The innovation this year is a two-tiered pricing system based on location of your institution. If you work somewhere outside of high income countries, there can be insuperable financial barriers to attend conferences in North America. Basic fairness is, therefore, reason enough for us to reduce those barriers, but also fitting with our theme, we also want to encourage he multilingualism such scholars often bring.  

I’m unsure of which type of registration ticket to buy.  

If you are in doubt, feel free to ask us at nwav51@qc.cuny.edu .  

My abstract was accepted for presentation. How can I get an official letter saying so, for funding or visa purposes? 

We will happily supply such a letter for you. Just send a request to nwav51@qc.cuny.edu. 

Abstract Review

Who’s doing the reviews? 

Each abstract will be reviewed by 3 qualified reviewers. These reviewers are largely based on previous NWAVs with new additions from NWAV50. In case of widely divergent ratings, we will do a fourth review. 

Are only traditional quantitative variationist studies accepted? 

In organizing this NWAV, we want to see presentations from all paradigms exploring language variation. We are building on the work of recent conferences in encouraging presentation of abstracts of qualitative studies related to language variation. In addition, this year we will be including work on syntactic and phonological theory based on variation to make this year’s NWAV a space of dialog and learning among all researchers on language variation.