Keynote Speaker

Prof. Leonidas V. Tzonis
Hellenic American University, Nashua, NH, USA & Athens, Greece

Dr. Leonidas Tzonis is Professor of Finance and the Chief Financial Officer at Hellenic American University. He also leads executive and vocational training programs at the Hellenic American Union. Dr. Tzonis holds a Ph.D. from the Newcastle Business School, UK , an M.Sc. in Finance and Investment, a PG Certificate in Higher Education from the University of Durham, and a B.Sc. in Economics and Business Finance from Brunel University. He was a full-time member of the Business School Faculty at Durham University, a visiting lecturer at the Singapore Institute of Management, and a distance learning tutor for SOAS (University of London). As a consultant he works with firms in Greece, Northern Africa and Central Asia. He is a founding member and sits on the Board of Directors of International Educational Consulting Ltd.

Prof. Dr. Sergey Avrutin
Department of Modern Languages, Utrecht University, Netherland

Dr. Sergey Avrutin is a Professor of Comparative Pycholinguistics at the Department of Modern Languages. From 2000 to 2005 he was the program leader of the NWO-sponsored PIONEER research program Comparative Psycholinguistics. His research focuses on normal child language development and language impairment (aphasia) with special emphasis on the syntax-discourse interface and the application of information theory to the analyses of errors in child and aphasic speech as well as special registers (e.g. newspaper headlines, TV commentators, etc.) Among other things, he is a member of the editorial board of Language Acquisition, Journal of Neurolinguistics and has edited a special issue of Brain and Language.

Speech Title: What Journalists, Children and Individuals with Brain Damage Have in Common: An Information-theoretic View on Lexical Omissions

Abstract: All three populations mentioned in the title of this abstract exhibit a peculiar property of their linguistic expressions: they omit - optionally - functional categories, such as articles, tense, auxiliary verbs etc. While this fact is well known about small children (e.g. "Tractor go on floor"), or individuals with aphasia (e.g. "Cinderella shoe drop"), it is less often noticed (and investigated) in the writings of journalists. Yet, omission of functional categories, most notably articles, is a conspicuous feature of newspaper headlines in many (not all) languages, for example: ROBBER STEAL REAR COIN. While the similarity may appear accidental and superficial, a closer investigation reveals regularities behind lexical omissions in all three populations. In my talk, I present a summary of several studies conducted in collaboration with Joke De Lange and Petra Schumacher that range from database analyses to EEG investigation of newspaper headlines in several languages. The model that I present finds its roots in Claude Shannon's Information Theory and explains the observed similarities in terms of information-theoretic notions of entropy of the lexical storage and the channel capacity.

Plenary Speaker

Prof. Dr. Tatiana Ivushkina
English Department No. 3 at MGIMO, Moscow, Russia

Tatiana Ivushkina is a Professor at Moscow State Institute of Foreign Affairs (MGIMO-University), Russia. She got her Candidate degree (PhD) in Philology from Moscow State University for the thesis "Stylization in Modern English Literature Speech Portrayals"and Doctoral degree (advanced PhD) from Moscow State University for the thesis «Socio-linguistic Aspects of English Speech Development (in speech portrayals of the upper classes of Great Britain in the 19-20th c. English Literature)».

Her research interests are social linguistics, stylistics, stylization in speech portrayals, upper-class speech, English & American literature and culture, innovative methods of teaching and intercultural communication. She is an executive secretary and editor of the journal "Philology at MGIMO" and author of articles in refereed journals and international conference proceedings.

Prof. Spyros Spyrou
Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

Spyros Spyrou, is a Professor of Finance at the Department of Accounting & Finance, Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB). He is currently the Director of the MSc in Accounting and Finance Programmes, and in the past he has served as a member of the University Senate, as a member of the Deanery, as a Deputy Rector, as the Head of the Department of Accounting & Finance, at the Managing Committee for various Postgraduate courses (MSc in Shipping, Finance, & Management, MBA International, MSc in Accounting & Finance), and as the Erasmus Program coordinator for the Department of Accounting & Finance. In previous administrative posts he has served as the Admissions Tutor for Postgraduate Courses and member of the IT Committee at the University of Durham (Department of Economics & Finance, 1999-2001) and MA Programme Leader and Postgraduate Admissions Committee at Middlesex University Business School (School of Economics) (1997-1999). He has been appointed as a Lecturer at Athens University of Economics & Business in 2001. Before that he was a Lecturer at the University of Durham (UK, 1999-2001) and Middlesex University Business School (UK, 1997-1999). He holds a PhD in Finance from Brunel University (UK) in 1997, an MSc in Business Finance from Brunel University (1993), and a BSc in Economics from the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (1990).

His research interests are in the area of asset pricing and investor behaviour. He has published in refereed academic journals such as: Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Financial Stability, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, European Financial Management, Journal of Futures Markets, International Review of Financial Analysis, The Manchester School, among others. Research papers have also been presented in numerous international conferences such as the Financial Engineering & Banking Society, European Finance Association, European Financial Management Association, Multinational Finance Society, Money Macro and Finance, British Accounting Association, etc. He is also the author of two books ("Money & Capital Markets" (LA: Greek) and "Introduction to Behavioural Finance" (LA: Greek)), and has published articles in professional journals and newspapers.

His teaching portfolio includes a large number of postgraduate modules (Money & Capital Markets, Financial Engineering, Security Investment Analysis, Portfolio Management, Behavioral Finance, Risk Management & Derivatives) and undergraduate modules (Money & Capital Markets, Investments, Security Valuation and Portfolio Management, International Finance, Derivative Markets), taught at the University of Durham, at Middlesex University Business School, and at Athens University of Economics & Business.