28.3048, Calls: Pragmatics/Germany

Thu Jul 13 17:25:52 UTC 2017

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-3048. Thu Jul 13 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.3048, Calls: Pragmatics/Germany

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

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Sarah Robinson <srobinson at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 13:25:46
From: Anastasia Meermann [a.meermann at slavistik.uni-muenchen.de]
Subject: Pragmaticalization: Language Change between Text and Grammar

Full Title: Pragmaticalization: Language Change between Text and Grammar 

Date: 19-Jan-2018 - 20-Jan-2018
Location: Munich, Germany 
Contact Person: Elena Graf
Meeting Email: pragmaticalization at slavistik.uni-muenchen.de

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics 

Call Deadline: 03-Aug-2017 

Meeting Description:

Pragmaticalization is generally seen in the linguistic literature as the
process of language change concerning the discursive level of language and
resulting in the development of pragmatic functions by linguistic units which
once carried lexical or grammatical meaning.

No consensus has coalesced around the status and the (cognitive) mechanisms of
pragmaticalization (cf. Erman/Kotsinas 1993, Wischer 2000, Günthner/Mutz
2004, Auer/Günthner 2005, Mroczynski 2012: 85- 124, Heine 2013,
Degand/Evers-Vermeul 2015). In general, it concerns linguistic units (words
and expressions or simplicials and established constructions or set phrases),
that develop towards a pragmeme, i.e. units whose meaning unfolds primarily
through their use in situative contexts of communication. The pragmaticalized
units encode so-called procedural information (Nicolle 2011: 406f.). Their
pragmatic functions, thereby, encompass the speaker’s expression of his/her
various emotive, volitional, and cognitive attitudes; they are also linked,
e.g., to meta-commented speech, the steering of discourse, a text structuring
function (which means the expansion of their scope beyond the sentence
boundaries), and the marking of politeness.

At this conference, the process of pragmaticalization is to be seen in
relationship to the “classical” concept of grammaticalization (cf. Lehmann
1995 [1982]), which describes the movement of a lexical unit towards the
grammatical core area of language, i.e. the emergence of grammemes (cf. the
so-called “cline of grammaticality”: “content item > grammatical word > clitic
> inflectional affix”, Hopper/Traugott 2003: 7; cf. Lehmann 2004: 168-169).

What happens, however, in connection with the phenomenon of
pragmaticalization? Can pragmaticalization be seen as a discrete process of
language change, or should it, rather, be placed at the “margins” of
grammaticalization? Traugott (1982, 1995, 2010, et al.) understands the
development of units used to structure verbal communication as
grammaticalization and speaks of “subjectivation” or “intersubjectivation”
within grammaticalization. Might pragmaticalization, therefore, also be
definable as a “grammaticalization of discursive functions” (cf. Diewald 2011)
within the discursive province of a more broadly construed conception of
grammar (cf. Heine et al. 2013, cf. also ‘grammaticalization as reduction’ vs.
‘grammaticalization as expansion’, Traugott/Trousdale 2013: 32, 105-112)? Or
can pragmaticalization perhaps be elucidated within a framework of
“de-”grammaticalization, e.g. the movement of a unit on the continuum of the
so-called linear-syntagmatic autonomy of linguistic signs (cf. Plungjan 42012:
22) from a pole of weakly autonomous forms up to a (proto)typical pragmeme
equipped with its own illocutionary force, or perhaps even being able to
constitute an indirect speech act?

Contributions on Slavic languages are particularly desired, in addition to
pragmaticalization/grammaticalization research more generally.

The following issues could be discussed at the conference:
- pragmaticalization and grammaticalization – two sides of the same coin?
- parameters, mechanisms, and factors of pragmaticalization
- pragmaticalization and lexicalization
- the role of implicature and presupposition in pragmaticalization
- pragmaticalization and prosody
- pragmaticalization and the development of discourse markers, politeness
markers, routine formulae,
forms of address, interjections, particles (diachronic as well as synchronic)
- pragmaticalization and language contact
- pragmaticalization and gender
- pragmaticalization and construction grammar
- pragmaticalization and ‘patterns’ in linguistic usage
- digitalization of pragmaticalized units

Additional themes on pragmaticalization are also welcome.

Call for Papers:

Those interested should submit an abstract (PDF or Word format) of about 300
words by 3 August 2017 to the following address:

pragmaticalization at slavistik.uni-muenchen.de

Notification of acceptance: by mid-August 2017

Those interested should submit an abstract (PDF or Word format) of about 300
words by 3 August 2017 to the following address:

pragmaticalization at slavistik.uni-muenchen.de

Notification of acceptance: by mid-August 2017

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

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

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-28-3048	
----------------------------------------------------------