17.2763, Confs: Cognitive Science,Linguistic Theory,Pragmatics/Poland

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-2763. Tue Sep 26 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.2763, Confs: Cognitive Science,Linguistic Theory,Pragmatics/Poland

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1)
Date: 26-Sep-2006
From: Sukriye Ruhe < sukruh at metu.edu.tr >
Subject: Extensions of Vantage Theory: Points of View In Language 
Structure and Use
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26-Sep-2006
From: Sukriye Ruhe < sukruh at metu.edu.tr >
Subject: Extensions of Vantage Theory: Points of View In Language 
Structure and Use

Extensions of Vantage Theory: Points of View In Language Structure and Use
Short Title: 10th ICLC 2007: Vantage Theory

Date: 15-Jul-2007 - 20-Jul-2007
Location: Krakow, Poland
Contact: Adam Glaz
Contact Email: sukruh at metu.edu.tr

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Linguistic Theories; Pragmatics; 
Semantics

Meeting Description:

The session is devoted to linguistic applications of vantage theory
(VT; cf. http://klio.umcs.lublin.pl/~adglaz/vt.html), a cognition-
based model of(colour) categorization. VT has been shown to constitute
a valuable contribution to language studies. The present session will
be devoted to reviewing the VT-linguistics interface and, hopefully,
extending the application of VT onto previously unexplored areas. It
will also deal with more general issues addressed in the VT
literature, such as subjectivity of meaning, speaker agency and
linguistic relativity, as well as posing new questions in ways not
anticipated by the convener.

Theme Session at the 10th ICLC in Krakow, Poland (July 2007). Please
send abstracts (500 words max.) to Adam Glaz at
adam.glaz at umcs.lublin.pl before Nov 3, 2006.

The session is planned as a continuation and extension of an earlier
event at the 6th ICLC in Stockholm, 1999. That earlier session was
devoted to linguistic applications of vantage theory (VT), a
cognition-based model of (colour) categorization. It was convened and
chaired by VT's founder, the late Robert E. MacLaury, and the papers
delivered appeared in print in a special issue of Language Sciences
(vol. 24, nos. 5-6, 2002). VT was shown to constitute a valuable
contribution to language studies. The present session will be devoted
to reviewing the VT-linguistics interface and, hopefully, extending
the application of VT onto previously unexplored areas.

VT holds that people categorize by drawing an instinctive and
subconscious analogy to the way they orient themselves in spacetime. A
category is a sum of the vantages taken on it, i.e. arrangements of
fixed and mobile cognitive coordinates, a vantage being a point of
view. Fixed coordinates vary depending on the domain, mobile
coordinates are reciprocally balanced degrees of attention to
similarity and difference. Vantages and categories arise as quickly as
one can think and talk, the process playing a primary role in language
use. (More on VT at http://klio.umcs.lublin.pl/~adglaz/vt.html).

The participants are invited to (i) offer proposals for solving
problems at the VT-linguistics interface or (ii) address the more
general issues raised by Robert MacLaury in relation to language.  As
for (i), the list of questions includes but is by no means limited to
the following: -What problems arise while applying VT to language?
What modifications/adaptations of the theory are called for?

-Which areas of linguistics are especially open to analyses couched
within the VT tradition? Which ones pose more problems?

-How to best understand a vantage? What analogues does it have in
language? Can one provide clear and unambiguous linguistic examples of
the dominant and recessive vantages? Can one preserve the terminology?
What relationship between vantages can be thought of (hierarchies,
embedding, other)? How does the notion of vantage relate to that of
point of view?

-What other VT constructs figure as important in linguistic analyses?

-The more general level (ii) embraces at least three interrelated
issues, potential springboards for discussion:

-Subjectivity of meaning. To what extent is meaning ''given'' by
language units and to what does it emerge out of the subject's
interactions with theworld?

-Speaker agency. Within the bounds of their cognitive abilities
conceptualizers enjoy a considerable amount of leeway and are
unconstrained by language in any dramatic sense. But in what sense are
they, if at all? Where are the limits of the freedom?

-Linguistic relativity. VT stresses cultural and individual
differences between speakers. Do conceptualizations yield different
results because of the nature of the language spoken or regardless of
it?


It is hoped that the session will also pose new questions in ways not
anticipated by its convener.


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