What's New?

1. SSLW 2013 will be held October 17-21, 2013 at Shandong University, Jinan, China. The Call for Proposals is now available online. Proposal deadline will be June 1, 2013, and the notification of acceptance will be sent out by around July 15, 2013.

2. Photos from the 2012 Symposium (SSLW 2012) are now available on Flickr.

3. The 12th Symposium on Second Language Writing (SSLW 2013) will be held in early October 2013 at Shandong University, Jinan, China.

4. The 11th Symposium on Second Language Writing (SSLW 2012) will be held September 6-8, 2012, at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. The theme will be "Graduate Study in Second Language Writing." (The dates have been changed from October due to schedule conflict with Purdue football.) For more information, please visit: http://sslw.asu.edu/2012/

5. The 2011 Symposium on Second Language Writing held June 9-11, 2011, in Taipei, Taiwan, was a great success. For details, please visit: http://sslw.asu.edu/2011/.

6.Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing, an edited collection based on the 2006 Symposium, is now available from Parlor Press.

7. Photos from past Symposia are available at flickr.com.

SSLWList Mailing List

The SSLWLIST Mailing List is a distribution list which will bring you updates on the Symposium on Second Language Writing. To subscribe, unscribe, view previous posts, or update your information, please follow this link.

About the Symposium

The Symposium on Second Language Writing (SSLW) is an annual international conference that brings together teachers and researchers who work with second- and foreign-language writers to discuss important issues in the field of second language writing.

The SSLW began in 1998 at Purdue University as a way of facilitating the advancement of knowledge in the field of L2 writing and to build a sense of community among those who are involved in L2 writing research and instruction. The first Symposium featured sixteen internationally recognized experts in the field, who addressed issues in theory, research, instruction, assessment, politics, and articulation with other disciplines. 

In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the participants and many requests from people who were not able to attend the first gathering, the Symposium became a regular event. Purdue University has continued to serve as the institutional home, but due to a large number of requests from other countries, the Symposium began to reach out to the world by holding its first meeting outside the United States in 2007.

Symposium Themes:

1998: Symposium on Second Language Writing

Purdue University, USA, September 25-26, 1998

2000: Contexts of Second Language Writing

Purdue University, USA, September 15-16, 2000

2002: Constructing Knowledge: Approaches to Inquiry in Second Language Writing

Purdue University, USA, October 11-12, 2002

2004: Second Language Writing Instruction in Context(s): The Effects of Institutional Policies and Politics

Purdue University, USA, September 30-October 2, 2004

2006: Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing

Purdue University, USA, June 8-10, 2006

2007: Second Language Writing in the Pacific Rim

Nagoya Gakuin University, Japan, September 15-17, 2007

2008: Foreign Language Writing Instruction: Principles and Practices

Purdue University, USA, June 5-7, 2008

2009: The Future of Second Language Writing

Arizona State University, USA, November 5-7, 2009

2010: Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries

University of Murcia, Spain, May 20-22, 2010

2011: Writing for Scholarly Publication: Beyond "Publish or Perish"

National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan, June 9-11, 2011

2012: Graduate Study in Second Language Writing

Purdue University, USA, September 6-8, 2012

Future Locations (Tentative):

2013: Shandong University, Jinan, China, October 2013.

2014: Arizona State University, USA, Dates TBD

2015: Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, Dates TBD

2016: TBD

Learn More