30.3130, Calls: Gen Ling, Ling & Literature, Ling Theories, Philosophy of Lang, Semantics/Germany

Thu Aug 15 05:01:55 UTC 2019

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3130. Thu Aug 15 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.3130, Calls: Gen Ling, Ling & Literature, Ling Theories, Philosophy of Lang, Semantics/Germany

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Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2019 01:00:25
From: Natascha Elxnath [natascha.elxnath at uni-tuebingen.de]
Subject: Metaphor and Ambiguity Analysis

Full Title: Metaphor and Ambiguity Analysis 
Short Title: MAmbA 

Date: 24-Apr-2020 - 25-Apr-2020
Location: Tübingen, Germany 
Contact Person: Sarah Metzger
Meeting Email: ambiguitaet at uni-tuebingen.de

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Ling & Literature; Linguistic Theories; Philosophy of Language; Semantics 

Call Deadline: 31-Dec-2019 

Meeting Description:

The workshop is organized by the RTG ''Ambiguity - Production and
Perception''.

There is a long tradition of discussing metaphors in cognitive linguistics
that has offered valuable insights into the cognitive mapping process
underlying metaphorical language (e.g. Lakoff & Johnson 1980). However,
cognitive linguists have put less emphasis on a formal semantic modelling and
the integration into theories of compositional semantics. Neither did formal
semantic approaches try to include metaphors into their analyses, exclusively
focusing on literal meaning. In recent years, first attempts have been made by
formal semanticists to model metaphors, or to include them into formal
analyses (e.g. Asher & Lascarides 2001; Pustejovsky & Rumshisky 2010; Spalek
2012, 2015; McNally & Spalek 2017). The intended workshop is settled within
that framework.

Call for Papers:

At the center of the workshop are questions concerning the link between
metaphor and ambiguity:

(1) Ich muss raus, ich kann hier nicht atmen.
[I need to get out of here, I can’t breathe in here.]
(Tamara Bach: Marsmädchen, DWDS-Corpus)
a. The speaker suffers from dyspnea. (literal reading)
b. The speaker feels confined. (metaphorical reading)

The sentence in (1) is ambiguous between a literal and a metaphorical reading:
What triggers the metaphorical reading in this case? Apparently, the meaning
of the verb atmen (‘to breathe’) is adjusted. But why does the verb receive a
different meaning? We assume that there must be some kind of metaphorical
conflict.

This workshop is concerned with the different types of conflicts that lead to
metaphorical readings. We hypothesize that a thorough investigation of the
underlying conflicts sheds light upon larger questions metaphor research has
been struggling with: how to model the ambiguity of metaphors from a formal
semantic point of view, and how to properly distinguish between metaphorical
and literal readings.

We invite contributions from various linguistic fields, as well as from
philosophy, literary studies, rhetoric, theology and other language-related
fields.

The workshop is especially concerned with (but not restricted to) the
following questions:

- What types of conflicts trigger metaphorical readings?
- How can we model the ambiguity of metaphors from a formal semantic point of
view?
- How can we distinguish between metaphorical and literal readings? Are there
distinct (metaphorical and literal) readings at all, or can we rather speak of
a continuum?
- What aspects studied in other fields should be included into a formal
analysis of metaphor? (e.g. How can we combine a formal analysis with
aesthetic and rhetorical functions?)
- In how far can other fields profit from a formal semantic analysis of
metaphor?

The workshop will be held in English. Submissions should be in the form of
extended abstracts of up to 500 words plus references. 
Please send an anonymous pdf-document to ambiguitaet at uni-tuebingen.de. 
Submissions will be selected for either a talk or a poster presentation.

Confirmed Invited Speakers:

Louise McNally (Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona)
Michele Prandi (Università di Genova)
Irene Rapp (Universität Tübingen) and Stefan Engelberg (IDS Mannheim)
Sabine Schulte im Walde (Universität Stuttgart)

Select Bibliography:

- Asher, Nicholas, and Alex Lascarides (2001): Metaphor in discourse. In:
Pierrette Bouillon und Frederica Busa (eds.): The Language of Word Meaning.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 262-287.
- Bach, Tamara: Marsmädchen, Hamburg: Friedrich Oetinger 2003, S. 3. Aus dem
Kernkorpus des Digitalen Wörterbuchs der deutschen Sprache. 
- Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson (1980): Metaphors We Live by. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
- McNally, Louise, and Alexandra Anna Spalek (2017): 'Figurative' uses of verb
meaning and grammar. Talk given at the conference The Building Blocks and
Mortar of Meaning II, Tuebingen, 3 November 2017.
- Pustejovsky, James, and Anna Rumshisky (2010): Mechanisms of sense
extensions in verbs. In: Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (ed.): A Way with Words:
Recent Advances in Lexical Theory and Analysis. A Festschrift for Patrick
Hanks. Kampala: Menha Publishers. 67-88. 
- Spalek, Alexandra Anna (2012). Putting order into the literal and figurative
uses of verbs. ‘romper’ as a case study. Borealis 1/2, 140-167.
- Spalek, Alexandra Annna (2015). Spanish change of state verbs in composition
with atypical theme arguments: Clarifying the meaning shifts. Lingua 157,
36-53.

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