Student conference on linguistics

The StuTS (for " Stu dentische T agung S prachwissenschaft"; in the logo also [ʃtʊ TS ] written) is an independently organized conference of predominantly German-speaking students of linguistic disciplines such as linguistics , German , Indo-European , African Studies , Romance Languages , Phonetics or Computational Linguistics , which each Semester takes place once. The Federal Student Union Conference for Linguistics takes place parallel to the StuTS . From the StuTS, the conference of computational linguistics students (TaCoS) and the linguistic conference for doctoral students (STaPs) emerged as offshoots .

The StuTS takes place every semester at a different university and is organized exclusively by the students there, often - but not always - by student representatives. Each StuTS begins on a Wednesday evening and ends on Sunday with the farewell brunch. The traditional dates continue to apply: in the summer semester the long weekend with the variable holiday of Ascension Day (beginning to end of May), in the winter semester the formerly long weekend with the holiday of penance and prayer (mid to end of November) - even if this is a holiday in Germany since 1995 it has only been a public holiday in Saxony .

The university usually provides the premises. The participants from other cities and countries finance their own journey - the journey is partly supported by the respective AStA or StuRa . In return, accommodation is practically always free of charge, mostly for students at the host university, but also in parish homes, gyms or youth hostels. The conference fee also includes breakfast on Thursday through Saturday.

The StuTS is an important opportunity for students to present their own linguistic theories and studies to a wider public outside of seminars without the pressure, peer review and the presence of luminaries at “real” scientific conferences. In addition to the scientific aspect, getting to know each other, having fun and visiting another city ( tourism ) are reasons why the conference has been taking place regularly for over 30 years.

In 2004 , as part of the DGfS annual conference, a support association was founded to help maintain the infrastructure and finance the conferences. The association was dissolved in 2015. In the meantime there is a somewhat more general-oriented “ Young Linguistics ” association.

history

The first StuTS took place in 1987 at the University of Hamburg . It was there, of all places , that the linguistics course was abolished only five years later: after the retirement of the former director of the institute, Els Oksaar , the Institute for General Linguistics and Indo-European Studies was closed, and the "General Linguistics" and "Indo-European Studies" courses were integrated into the previous Institute for Phonetics and could only be selected as a minor.

So far, the StuTS has taken place five times outside of Germany: 1992 in Graz ( Austria ), in spring 2006 in Bern ( Switzerland ) and in spring 2008 for the first time outside the German-speaking area, in Amsterdam ( Netherlands ), and for the first time not in Ascension week, but in the following week. In 2017 it took place in Zurich (Switzerland) and Nijmegen (Netherlands).

The 67th StuTS was held online for the first time in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic . The conference was organized by the organizers from Bayreuth , which was originally intended as the conference venue. The conference was free of charge for all participants. Lectures and a cultural supporting program were either held via video conference or made available directly as video, for example a digital city tour through Bayreuth. The following StuTS in Berlin should also take place online.