The Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM) is an annual general linguistics conference that continues the tradition of the Polish–English contrastive conferences started by Jacek Fisiak in 1970. The name "Poznań Linguistic Meeting" was adopted in 1997, when Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk took over as the Head of the Organising Committee. The Meetings are organised by the Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. Materials from past PLMs are archived here.

PLM2018

The 48th Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM2018) will be held on 13–15 September 2018 in Poznań. The leitmotif will be "Language and evolution: Issues and perspectives" . The ability to communicate using language is an evolved human trait. Therefore, research into language evolution can be understood to inform practically all fields of linguistics. In particular, we would like to reflect on the connections between language evolution and ontogenetic development of language and multilingualism, but all other perspectives are welcome.

PLM2018 has the honorary patronage of the Mayor of Poznań, Mr Jacek Jaśkowiak, and of the Rector of Adam Mickiewicz University, Prof. Andrzej Lesicki.

Keynote

• The keynote will be delivered by W. Tecumseh Fitch (University of Vienna), the author of, among others, The evolution of language (CUP 2010). The title will be: Language evolution: Biology meets culture.

Plenary events

• Daniel Everett (Bentley University): Homo erectus, symbols, and the origin of language [discussion of the research leading to his newest book, How language began; see also relevant media coverage, e.g. here, and a press release from Bentley U]
• Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State University): Natural/sexual selection: What's language (evolution) got to do with it?
• Geoff Schwartz (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań): Representing phonological evolution
   

Teach-in

• Przemysław Żywiczyński (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń): How research on language evolution contributes to linguistics
   

Other plenary events

As has become our tradition, there will be a dialogue and a debate on topics related to the leitmotif:

• Dialogue: W. Tecumseh Fitch and Daniel Everett
• Debate: W. Tecumseh Fitch, Ljiljana Progovac, Geoff Schwartz, Przemysław Żywiczyński, Piotr Gąsiorowski and Nikolaus Ritt [see video on YouTube]