Celebrating student success: PhD students organise successful international linguistics conference

The University of Edinburgh Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference (LELPGC), which is open to graduates from across the globe, is in its 29th year.

The Linguistics and English Language Postgraduate Conference (LELPGC) is an annual event hosted by the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. The event is open to students and recent graduates from all over the world and offers an opportunity to refine ideas and receive constructive criticism in a friendly and supportive environment.

The conference is student-led and was organised by seven PPLS PhD students, with logistical support from MSc students.

Conference aims

Since 2022, the newly structured LELPG Conference’s objective is to inspire academic development, professional engagement and to provide linguistics students and recent graduates from all over the world with an international platform to share their work.

Programme

The three-day events programme featured plenary talks from renowned linguistics academics including Professor Marc Alexander, University of Glasgow, and Professor Devyani Sharma, Queen Mary University of London, in addition to PPLS’ very own Professor Alice Turk, Professor Kenny Smith and Professor Caroline Heycock.

Alongside the talks were a series of workshops ranging from masterclasses on how to publish research to using R to manage linguistics data.

In the evenings, there were opportunities to unwind and network over a game of bowling and at the Speakers’ Dinner, which took place at the beautiful Caledonian hotel.

Conference successes

A brief overview of the conference’s successes:

Strong community engagement – many of the presenters were current PPLS students
Diverse audience - external delegates came from across the UK and overseas (including Germany, USA, Ireland)
PPLS funding - financial support from the Staff-Student Initiative Fund School was used to boost students’ profiles both locally and internationally
Careers support – a combination of casual and professional settings allowed attendees to familiarise themselves with various work and networking occasions, preparing them for life after graduation.

Prize winners

Congratulations to the following PPLS students for winning conference awards:

Nien-En Liu, Best Abstract Award
Danny Bate, Most Promising Research Award
Madeleine Ferris, Best Poster Award

School support

The committee would like to thank the following people for all their help:

A thousand thanks to Professor Bettelou Los, Professor Simon Kirby, Dr Chris Cummins and Dr Vicky Chondrogianni for the endless support given before and during the conference. Special thanks to our internal plenaries, workshop organizers, poster judges and PPLS staffs that were involved both directly and indirectly with the planning and organizing of the conference and socials.
Alice Marikan
Chair of LELPGC23

View the Conference’s Instagram page to see pictures from the event and keep your eye on their socials for information about LELPGC24!