28.2175, Calls: Cog Sci, Disc Analysis, Gen Ling, Psycholing, Typology/Italy
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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-2175. Tue May 09 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 28.2175, Calls: Cog Sci, Disc Analysis, Gen Ling, Psycholing, Typology/Italy
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Date: Tue, 09 May 2017 13:55:46
From: Caterina Mauri [caterina.mauri at unibo.it]
Subject: Building Categories in Interaction: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Categorization
Full Title: Building Categories in Interaction: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Categorization
Date: 19-Oct-2017 - 20-Oct-2017
Location: Bologna, Italy
Contact Person: Caterina Mauri
Meeting Email: workshop.categorization at gmail.com
Web Site: http://categorization.weebly.com/
Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Discourse Analysis; General Linguistics; Psycholinguistics; Typology
Call Deadline: 10-Jun-2017
Meeting Description:
Background: categorization theories
In the second half of the 20th century several path-breaking studies in
cognitive sciences radically changed our view of categories and
categorization. Eleanor Rosch's seminal works on cognitive psychology (1973,
1975) provided a crucial contribution to a theory of categories with the
introduction of key notions such as prototype and basic level. This revolution
also provided the main tenets of the cognitive-functional approach in
linguistics, based on the notion that language is embodied and integrated
within other human cognitive abilities (Langacker 1987; Lakoff 1987).
More recently, works by Barsalou (Barsalou 1983, 1991, 2003, 2010) have
introduced an important divide between natural (or common) categories on the
one hand and ad hoc categories on the other. The first roughly correspond to
traditional categories, i.e. context independent intuitions, while the latter
respond to the need to categorize reality under particular contextual
circumstances and for a specific purpose.
The existing literature on categorization, however, seems to consider
linguistic phenomena to the extent that language reflects categorization and
provides strategies (mainly lexical ones) to name categories. According to
Croft and Cruse (2004), each time we refer to some concept through a given
word, we actively and cooperatively construe the reference of that word by
tailoring it up for the particular context. Also, according to Wilson and
Carston (2007), words are used as hints towards ad hoc concepts, that is,
narrowed or broadened interpretations of the lexical semantics, based on
context relevance.
Our focus: the construction and communication of categories in linguistic
interaction
Is naming the only way in which language works as a categorization tool? The
great amount of spoken data nowadays available allows us to check the received
theories on categorization against real data on language interaction. We are
now in the position to ask ourselves how categories are referred to by
speakers interacting in conversation, and even more crucially to what extent
categories are shared, negotiated, co-constructed by speakers.
The naming of categories may indeed be the aim of an interaction, not
necessarily a starting point. What we observe in spoken data is that the use
of a lexical category label (i.e. a word, or a short phrase), though adapted
to context, is frequently not enough, and speakers recur to exemplification,
reformulation, and further strategies to check for the hearer's cooperation
towards categorization.
Linguistic interaction allows us to observe both:
i) Competing strategies for category naming: simple words, established and
nonce complex words (compounds, derivatives), multiword expressions, phrases;
ii) Strategies that guide speakers through a top-down and bottom-up process of
category co-construction, that is, a shared complex activity of formulation,
reformulation, exemplification, negotiation, abstraction and reference,
expressed by: list constructions, general extenders, exemplifiers, similative
constructions, negative periphrases, reduplication, etc.
Moreover, data on linguistic interaction offer a privileged vantage point on
the actual role played by context in determining the speaker's choice of a
specific naming strategy (e.g. a compound) as opposed to a more procedural
strategy (e.g. a list of examples), and in guiding the hearer's
interpretation.
Plenary Speakers:
Lawrence Barsalou (University of Glasgow) - TBA
William Croft (University of New Mexico)- Linguistic categories as exemplar
lineages
John Du Bois (University of Santa Barbara) - Engaging Categories:
Interactional Dynamics of the Stance-Built Object
Full details of the workshop: categorization.weebly.com
Call for Papers:
The international workshop on ''Building categories in Interaction.
Multidisciplinary approaches to categorization'' will be held in Bologna,
Italy (19-20 October 2017).
Abstracts should be submitted to workshop.categorization at gmail.com by the 10
of June 2017. Notification of acceptance will be given by the 30 June 2017.
Abstracts should be anonymous and contain between 400 and 500 words (exclusive
of references). They should state research questions, approach, method, data
and (expected) results.
We aim to broaden our understanding of language as a tool for categorization
in linguistic interaction, by investigating how language-specific grammatical
resources are exploited in conversation to name and create locally meaningful
categories, with special attention to how this process is rooted in the
real‑time dimension (see the discussion of temporality in Auer 2009; Günthner
and Deppermann 2015; Du Bois 2014; Hopper 2011 inter al.).
Since categorization is thought of as a dynamic process in which participants
are actively involved, we aim at understanding what linguistic and possibly
multi-modal resources are exploited and what are the pragmatic and
conversational effects obtained. In this view, the divide between fully
grammatical(ized) strategies encoding reference to a category and more fluid
discursive strategies is ideal rather than factual, since grammar is regarded
as the outcome of entrenchment of discursive patterns (cf. Auer and Pfänder
2011).
We aim to look at data coming from different languages, examined from
complementary perspectives, integrating cognitive and discourse studies,
typology and conversational analysis. We further aim to compare linguistic
evidence with experimental evidence, obtained in psychological and
psycholinguistic research, to verify the psychological reality of the
mechanisms observed in language.
We therefore invite contributions focusing on how speakers in interaction name
categories, co-construe them, interpret and negotiate their meaning according
to context. We accept contributions adopting different perspectives
(linguistic typology, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive
linguistics, conversation analysis, …). Empirical works will receive special
attention, but also more theory-oriented contributions will be regarded as
eligible.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of relevant linguistic phenomena:
- The use of associative and similative plurals in linguistic interaction
- Word formation (compounding, derivation) as strategies to name
context-dependent categories
- Reformulation and exemplification strategies
- Reduplication and echo-constructions
- Lexical search and approximation
- List constructions
- The competition between the above-mentioned strategies
A non-exhaustive list of possible topics includes:
- The cognitive and pragmatic functions of the above-mentioned constructions
- The role of shared context and shared knowledge in building categories in
discourse
- Emerging (co-)constructions for building categories in discourse
- Dialogic syntax and resonance
- On line processing and its role in building reference to categories
- Differences (and similarities) in the processing of different strategies
(e.g. listing vs. naming)
- Experimental evidence for how categories are elaborated and construed by
speakers
- Cross-linguistic and diachronic variation concerning the above-mentioned
strategies
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