34.3214, Calls: Epistemicity and Dialogue: How is Knowing Negotiated in Conversation?
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LINGUIST List: Vol-34-3214. Mon Oct 30 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 34.3214, Calls: Epistemicity and Dialogue: How is Knowing Negotiated in Conversation?
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Date: 30-Oct-2023
From: Karolina Grzech [karolina.grzech at uv.es]
Subject: Epistemicity and Dialogue: How is Knowing Negotiated in Conversation?
Full Title: Epistemicity and dialogue: how is knowing negotiated in
conversation?
Date: 21-Aug-2024 - 24-Aug-2024
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact Person: Henrik Bergqvist
Meeting Email: henrik.bergqvist at gu.se
Web Site: https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2024/
Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics
Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2023
Meeting Description:
This workshop continues where the SLE2023 workshop, “Expanding the
boundaries of epistemicity” (WS2) left off. That is, the starting
point is that evidentials and other forms of epistemic marking are
deictic in nature and that their analysis requires a focus on the
context of use and the relation between propositions and speech-act
participants. If the representation and attribution of knowledge is
approached in this way, then primary data to support analyses of
epistemic marking should come from dialogical exchanges in everyday
conversation.
An illustration of what a dialogically grounded analysis of epistemic
marking can look like is this brief exchange between two Kogi speakers
(Arwako, Colombia), participating in the “Shape Classifier Task”
(Seifart 2003). The speakers use “engagement” prefixes to negotiate
the identification of an item in the task:
D: ezwa ama kẽyakẽyá-gatse naldatshak
zumẽya tũ-gatse
one uhm edged-seem be.but star
look-seem
‘One, uhm, with edges but it looks like a star.’
M: kẽyakẽyá-gatse naldatshak zumẽya
tũ-gatse
edged-seem be.but star
look-seem
‘One with edges but it looks like a star.’
meilde sha-hangu-kú, zumẽya
tũ-gatse?
which.one ADDR.ASYM-think-1SG star
look-seem
‘Which one may it be (lit: I think)? It looks like a star?’
D: hai hẽ nzha
ni-hangu-kú hai kẽyakẽyá-gatse hai
DEM DEM SPKR.SYM.be SPKR.SYM-think-1SG DEM
edged-seem DEM
‘Here, it's this one, I think [gestures with lips]. Here, the
one with the edges, here.'
(kog_170826_sct3-2; Knuchel 2019)
The director (D) offers a description of an item represented in a
photograph that the director, but not the matcher (M) has access to.
In front of them both, all available items are laid out on a table.
The matcher responds by repeating the director’s utterance before
going on to ponder which item on the table corresponds to the
description. The phrase shahangwakú literally means ‘I think’, but the
prefix sha- signals that the speaker lacks knowledge and expects the
addressee to know and act as epistemic authority (cf. Bergqvist 2016).
In the next utterance, which contains the resonating phrase nihangwakú
(also ‘I think’), the director assumes epistemic authority (ni-) when
pointing out what they think is the right item. At the same time, the
speaker signals that the addressee is prompted to agree with the
speaker’s assessment, given that the item on the table is (physically)
accessible to them both.
This exchange shows how knowledge is negotiated in the dialogical
exchange. The speech-act participants’ respective perspectives are
asserted even in the face of uncertainty, given that the director and
the matcher are collaborating to identify the right item. The
resonating use of engagement prefixes and the propositional
formulations of the exchange exemplify how stance-taking and the
negotiation of knowledge includes reference to previous utterances.
While the perceptual and cognitive prerequisites constitute a
background for this exchange, they are not part of the meaning of the
forms. Nor is the level of commitment, implied by the assignment of
epistemic authority.
The workshop aims to explore approaches to analyzing epistemicity in
dialogic interaction. Our aim is to learn more about how this can be
done, using data from different languages and different
empirically-driven approaches. Possible theoretical frameworks
include, but are not limited to, “dialogical syntax” and stance (Du
Bois 2007; 2014), “epistemic status and stance” (Heritage 2012),
“Territories of Information” (Kamio 1997), and, more generally the
pragmatics of evidentials (e.g. Mushin 2013; Bergqvist & Grzech 2023).
Broader approaches to the analysis of natural linguistic data such as
Conversation Analysis (e.g. Schegloff 2007) or Interactional
Linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 2017) are also relevant to this
task.
Call for Papers:
We invite proposals from researchers who are working with first-hand
data containing dialogical exchanges and with an interest in
epistemicity in language. We are aiming for a workshop where we can
meet to discuss data-sets and proposed analyses as a group with shared
interests in epistemic marking, but with different experiences of
working with our respective languages. Therefore, we envisage the
workshop as a series of short data sessions, each one led by the
person presenting their data, but open to contributions/suggestions
from other participants. This means that proposals are not required to
be finished talks in the sense of presenting a result based on an
established hypothesis. However, as per SLE guidelines, the abstracts
should state the research question(s), method of analysis, and the
(expected) results.
Preliminary abstracts of up to 300 words should to be submitted by
November 15th. To submit your abstract, please send it to Henrik
Bergqvist (henrik.bergqvist at gu.se).
A more detailed description of the workshop can be found here:
https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2024/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023
/10/Epistemicity-and-dialogue.pdf
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