Conference on Sociolinguistic Variation and Language Processing; March 31 through April 2, 2016; Blacksburg, Virginia

语言的差异沿着各种社会维度，如地区，年龄，种族，性别，教育，正式和情绪。其结果是，当我们说话时，我们不仅在表达想法，而且在传达有关我们身份和立场的信息。当我们听的时候，我们不仅处理语音流的语言内容，而且还处理关于我们在听谁的信息。最近的研究表明，语言和社会内容在言语产生和感知的认知表征和机制中是相互依赖的：我们会根据社会背景自动改变我们产生和解释语言内容的方式，反之亦然。例如，如果听众认为说话者是女性，他们会听到“s”和“sh”之间的模棱两可的声音，就像“shod”一样，但如果他们认为说话者是男性，他们会听到“sod”;如果说话者说“running”而不是“runnin”，听众会认为说话者更有教养;如果说话者是亚洲人，而不是白色人，听众会更难理解英语;说话者根据他们最近听到的演讲和谈话的主题来改变他们的发音。更好地理解社会信息和语言信息之间的相互联系不仅可以为我们的语言认知理论提供信息，而且还可以改善工业和教育中的跨文化交流以及以计算机为媒介的交流。 该奖项将支持在弗吉尼亚理工大学（2016年3月31日至4月2日）举行的社会语言学变化和语言处理会议。该会议将提供一个场所，来自各种背景的领先研究人员将会面，分享社会和语言处理交叉点的前沿工作，并讨论这项工作对语言认知和改善沟通的影响。 会议将集中讨论该领域发展的五个关键领域：社会语言学理论，认知理论，社会语音学，社会句法学以及该领域工作的应用。会议组织者将促进研究生和本科生的参与。 组织者还将通过开发一个网站来传播会议（以及更广泛的这一调查领域）的主要结果，强调对改善沟通和跨文化理解的影响，从而促进公众参与。

Language varies along a variety of social dimensions, such as region, age, ethnicity, gender, education, formality, and mood. The result is that when we talk, we are not only expressing ideas, but also conveying information about our identity and stances. And when we listen, we not only process the linguistic content of the speech stream, but also information about who we are listening to. Recent work has suggested that linguistic and social content are fundamentally interdependent in the cognitive representations and mechanisms involved in speech production and perception: we automatically change the way we produce and interpret linguistic content depending on the social context, and vice versa. For example, listeners will hear the same ambiguous sound between "s" and "sh" as "shod" if they think the speaker is female, but "sod" if they think the speaker is male; listeners will rate speakers as more educated if they say "running" instead of "runnin"; listeners will have more trouble understanding English that is paired with an Asian vs. a White face; and speakers change their pronunciation depending on recent speech they heard, and the topic of conversation. Developing a better understanding of the interconnections between social and linguistic information not only informs our theories of language cognition, but can also lead to improvements in cross-cultural communication in industry and education, and computer-mediated communication. This award will support a conference devoted to Sociolinguistic Variation and Language Processing to take place at Virginia Tech (March 31 - April 2, 2016). The conference will provide a venue where leading researchers from a variety of backgrounds will meet to share cutting-edge work at the intersection of social and linguistic processing, and discuss the implications of this work for linguistic cognition and improving communication. The conference will focus on five key areas of development in the field: sociolinguistic theory, cognitive theory, socio-phonetics, socio-syntax, and the applications of work in this area. The conference organizers will promote participation by graduate and undergraduate students. Organizers will also foster public engagement by developing a website to disseminate key findings from the conference (as well as from this area of enquiry more generally), highlighting the implications for improving communication and cross-cultural understanding.