27.4539, Calls: Cog Sci, Gen Ling, Ling & Lit, Neuroling, Philosophy of Lang/Greece

Mon Nov 7 19:51:27 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-4539. Mon Nov 07 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.4539, Calls: Cog Sci, Gen Ling, Ling & Lit, Neuroling, Philosophy of Lang/Greece

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté,
                                   Michael Czerniakowski)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
                       Fund Drive 2016
                   25 years of LINGUIST List!
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Kenneth Steimel <ken at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2016 14:51:19
From: Tim Wharton [t.wharton at brighton.ac.uk]
Subject: Beyond Meaning

Full Title: Beyond Meaning 
Short Title: BM2017 

Date: 13-Sep-2017 - 15-Sep-2017
Location: Athens, Greece 
Contact Person: Conference Organiser
Meeting Email: beyondmeaning at icloud.com
Web Site: http://beyondmeaning.netai.net/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; General Linguistics; Ling & Literature; Neurolinguistics; Philosophy of Language 

Call Deadline: 01-Apr-2017 

Meeting Description:

Verbal activity involves a massive amount of inferential reconstruction, the
results of which are sometimes too nebulous to be paraphrased in
propositional, conceptual terms. Language use, both in ordinary conversation
and in literary works, generates and conveys 'impressions' of various kinds
that cannot be explained in terms of the notion of ‘meaning’, classically
construed. This conference aims at exploring these phenomena – the territory
beyond meaning, which is pervasive in linguistic (and non-linguistic)
interpretation. The conference has a focus on cognitive science and we
therefore particularly welcome submissions from scholars in linguistics,
pragmatics, philosophy, literary studies, cognitive psychology etc. However,
submissions are welcome from researchers working in any relevant field of
study.

Keynote Speakers:

Greg CURRIE
University of York

Nigel FABB
University of Strathclyde

Patrizia LOMBARDO
University of Geneva

Deirdre WILSON
University College London

Call for Papers:

The interpretation of language, whether in acts of ordinary communication or
in works of literature or poetry, involves a massive amount of inferential
reconstruction. It is generally presumed that since inference operates over
propositions, what is reconstructed is propositional: in Gricean terminology,
a speaker ‘meansNN that p’. But this cannot always be the case. Sometimes,
what a speaker intends to convey is too nebulous to be paraphrased in
propositional, conceptual terms at all – it is ‘descriptively ineffable’. And
a good deal of what is conveyed in communicative acts is quite vague. What a
hearer is often able to infer is a weakly implicated, or an array of weakly
implicated, impressions: aesthetic experience, emotions or attitudes. Sperber
and Wilson (2015) point out that linguists, philosophers and pragmatists have
tended to focus their attention on cases that congregate in the top left
corner of a square formed by a continuum between showing and meaning and
another between determinate and indeterminate meaning. The ineffable, vague
aspects of communication, despite that fact that they are crucial to our
understanding of language use, have largely been ignored.

The aim of this conference is to encourage exploration of the territory beyond
meaning. How might the descriptive ineffability of expressives, interjections,
perspectival interpretations of tenses, intensifiers, figures etc. be
accommodated within a more general theory of language use? How might we
account for the communication of non-propositional phenomena such as moods,
emotions and impressions? Do pauses, creative metaphors, unknown words in L2
and other ‘pointers’ to ‘conceptual regions’ (Carston 2002) communicate
concepts? More broadly, what type of cognitive response do these phenomena
trigger if not conceptual-propositional?

The answers to these questions will also have a range of implications for our
understanding of types of language use that pursue aims which are not,
strictly speaking, communicative: literature and poetry, for example. It could
be argued that poetic and literary theorists have fallen into the same trap as
linguists. They have traditionally treated literary texts as objects that are
designed to be interpreted through the achievement of effects at a conceptual
level. But these objects surely involve different kinds of effect: perceptual,
emotional and perhaps others... Moreover, the answers will have implications
for how we understand other types of human activities - such as art at large -
which involve the instantiation of effects that go ‘beyond meaning’. To ask of
an artwork ‘What does it mean?’ might simply be the wrong question: literature
and art are about more than mere conceptualizing. It might even be the wrong
question to ask of ordinary conversation.

The Beyond Meaning conference will bring together scholars from linguistics,
cognitive psychology, philosophy/aesthetics and the study of literature and
art. We aim to broaden the current machinery and scope of pragmatics and
cognitive science and perhaps lead to a reconsideration of the notion of
meaning itself.

Paper submission and important dates:

Submissions are invited in English in the following format: one 500 word (max)
abstract (excluding references).

Submissions must be uploaded on the Easychair platform exclusively by
following this link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bm2017

Abstracts submission deadline: April 1, 2017.  
Notifications to authors will be sent by June 1, 2017.
Preliminary programme will be available by June 30, 2017
Final programme will be available by July 30, 2017
Registration: Early bird: by July 30, 2017; Final deadline: August 15, 2017.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
                       Fund Drive 2016
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
            http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

        Thank you very much for your support of LINGUIST!

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-27-4539	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.org/