[Lingtyp] Workshop on larger discourse units in (spoken) language, Paris, March 21-22, 2024

[Sonja Riesberg]

*Call for Papers: Workshop on larger discourse units in (spoken) 
language, Paris, March 21-22, 2024*
**
The choice of grammatical forms and constructions used for event 
descriptions, such as voice, differential case marking, or the 
realization of argument expressions, can be influenced by many different 
factors. One such factor is the internal organization of a text into 
what we call here “(larger) discourse units”.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a number of works on the internal 
structure of discourse have been published (cf. Chafe 1980, Longacre 
1979, van Dijk 1981) that investigate the syntax and semantics of 
so-called “paragraphs” or “episodes” in spoken and written language, 
i.e. units characterized as “coherent sequences of sentences of a 
discourse, linguistically marked for beginning and/or end, and further 
defined in terms of some kind of 'thematic unity' – for instance, in 
terms of identical participants, time, location or global event or 
action” (van Dijk 1981: 177). While in written language, discourse units 
are usually signalled graphically, in oral or signed speech such units 
are much less easily recognizable.

The workshop is based on a collaboration between the projects 
“Morphosyntax in Discourse” of the LABEX /Empirical Foundations in 
Language /in Paris (https://en.labex-efl.fr/) and “Prominence-related 
structures in symmetrical voice systems and Papuan languages” of the 
Collaborative Research Centre /Prominence in Language/ in Cologne 
(https://sfb1252.uni-koeln.de/en/ <https://sfb1252.uni-koeln.de/en/>). 
We hope to discover operationalizable methods for identifying larger 
discourse units with the help of semantic, lexical, grammatical and/or 
prosodic cues both in well-studied and in more recently documented 
languages. We are particularly interested in cues that so far have not 
been considered as being discourse boundary related such as differential 
case marking, specific voice constructions, etc. The workshop is meant 
as an opportunity for researchers from different theoretical backgrounds 
and with an expertise on typologically distinct languages to make 
further progress in the analysis of discourse data.

We invite abstracts (max. 500 words plus abbreviation and reference 
list) on topics including but not restricted to the following:

  * cues for unit boundaries
  * cues for cohesion within a unit
  * discourse units in different text genres
  * units in monologic vs. dialogic discourse
  * discourse structuring in spoken vs. written language
  * the role of reported speech for discourse structure
  * …

For more information, see attachment.

*Keynote speakers: *
Jakob Egetenmeyer (Universität zu Köln)
Tatiana Nikitina (CNRS, Paris)

**
*Dates: *
End of submissions: January 20^th , 2024
Notification of acceptance: February 2^nd , 2024
Workshop dates: March 21^st -22^nd , 2024


*Scientific Committee: *
Isabelle Bril
Katharina Haude
Nikolaus P. Himmelmann
Sonja Riesberg
Fahime Same


Best wishes
Sonja

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