[Lingtyp] CfP: Encoding perception across languages (Workshop Proposal, SLE 2024)

[Tatiana Nikitina]

Dear colleagues,

We are planning to submit a workshop proposal for the next SLE conference
(University of Helsinki, August 21-24, 2024; see the meeting website:
https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2024/) and would like to invite all
interested participants to send us their 300-word abstracts before November
6. I am including the workshop description below.

Kind regards,
Tatiana Nikitina,
on behalf of the workshop conveners


**Workshop description**

Languages differ in the way they encode sensory perception and in how
systematically they do it for particular senses (San Roque et al. 2015;
Majid et al. 2018). Some encode perception mode through dedicated means for
the grammatical expression of information source, known as ‘evidentiality’
markers (Aikhenvald 2004), while others adhere to lexical strategies or
employ ‘depictive’ devices such as onomatopoeias and ideophones associated
with specific sensory meaning (Dingemanse 2011, 2012; Dingemanse & Majid
2012). Perceptual meanings are also sometimes expressed by demonstratives,
e.g. Dyirbal ngala- ‘not visible; either audible or remembered’ (Evans &
Wilkins 2000: 583), or by specialized morphemes, e.g. the Tundra Nenets
odorative suffix xal’a-yə- ‘smell of fish’ [< xal’a ‘fish’] (Nikolaeva
2014: 47; also Sutrop 2001). This list of expression types associated with
perceptual experience is hardly exhaustive and yet awaits a comprehensive
typological investigation that would shed light on what strategies are
universal or at least crosslinguistically common and which, on the
contrary, are rare.

As pointed out repeatedly in the anthropological literature, “sensory
perception is a cultural, as well as a physical act” (Classen 1997: 401).
Prominence of some senses in particular languages is often explained with
reference to cultural peculiarities (Majid & Levinson 2011; Levinson &
Majid 2014; Majid 2015). Limited eye contact is the norm in some aboriginal
communities, leading to a greater prominence of hearing (Evans & Wilkins
2000; Aikhenvald & Storch 2013). According to Majid et al. (2018), speakers
from hunter-gatherer communities exhibit higher codability of smell than
non-hunter-gatherers, while sound receives higher codability in communities
with specialist musicians. Ecological and genetic factors are discussed in
connection with more complex classifications of odors in some cultures
(Majid 2021). Prominence of auditory perception is also observed in
narratives from cultures with developed singing traditions. For instance,
in West African folklore, the story is commonly structured around a song
serving as a driving force behind the events in the narrative, consistent
with recurring reference to hearing in texts (Teptiuk & Nikitina 2023).

The availability of different strategies for encoding perception mode has
not been systematically explored. A vast amount of typological literature
(Chafe & Nichols 1986; Johanson & Utas 2000; Aikhenvald & Dixon 2003;
Aikhenvald 2004, 2018; among many others) focuses on how information source
and perception modes are expressed with grammatical means. Even though such
studies cover a variety of languages, they tend to leave lexical
expressions out of discussion. In turn, studies focusing on semantic
extensions of perception verbs meaning ‘see’ and ‘hear’ (Viberg 1984;
Sweetser 1990; Evans & Wilkins 2000; San Roque et al. 2015) and ideophones
depicting sensory imagery (Dingemanse & Majid 2012) provide accounts of how
languages organize the semantic space of perceptual experience but do not
consider developments in the evidential system beyond these categories. In
addition, studies examining the lexical and grammatical reflexes of
perception have mostly focused on the basic five senses, ignoring no less
prominent senses such as balance and perceiving internal neurological and
muscle states. Exploring the full range of human perception in relation to
language opens up new perspectives on well-attested pragmaticalization
paths from external perception to internal states (e.g. from SEEING to
BELIEVING) and potentially implicates grammar beyond evidentiality, such as
modality. This workshop aims to bridge the gap between these various
strands of research by addressing these and several further questions that
have not as yet been confronted.

One of the issues that remain unexplored is the interaction of lexical and
grammatical evidentials with other strategies associated with sensory
perception. To our knowledge, no attempt has been made to test whether the
availability of grammatical evidentials or ideophones associated with a
particular sense correlates with an overall prominence of reference to the
corresponding sense in discourse. Such investigations could help explain
the exceptionality of languages with complex systems of grammatical
evidentials or ideophones, and the consequences of having such systems on
cognition. Furthermore, they help elaborate the description of evidential
systems in the light of other expressions associated with perceptual
experience.

We also need a comprehensive understanding of what happens in languages
with poly-/heterosemy of perception verbs. Do these languages encode
various senses as often as languages with a variety of verbs? Do they avoid
referring to some senses or encode them with other strategies? Do
perception verbs in such languages acquire more meanings in the cognitive
domain compared to languages without the poly-/heterosemy?

The possibility of combining information from multiple modalities is
another understudied direction in the research on perceptual language. So
far, we only observe reports of individual cases in the literature (e.g.
ideophones in Siwu, cf. Dingemanse & Majid 2012). Linguistic expression of
synesthesia (Strik Lievers 2015) and mixture of modalities in perceptual
metaphors (Caballero & Paradis 2015, and references therein) is another
topic that would require more intra- and cross-linguistic attention.
Obviously, we need more descriptions of such phenomena to fully grasp how
the organization of senses happens linguistically, what variations and
mixtures of senses are attested, and whether perceptual language stays
within the boundaries of the five basic senses: sight, hearing, smell,
taste, and touch, or requires recalibration of typological labels and
inclusion of intermediate categories. The status of interoception, i.e.
sensitivity to inner physiological conditions, and proprioception, i.e.
sense of balance and body posture, in the typology of senses expressed
linguistically, is another topic that requires more scholarly attention.

Following previous attempts at crosslinguistic investigation of perceptual
language, this workshop aims to bring together scholars addressing topics
related to the linguistic expression of sensory perception. We invite
submissions based on data from previously underdescribed or poorly
documented languages, as well as typological studies. Also welcome are
submissions on major languages, provided that they are based on solid
empirical evidence (such as a quantitative comparison of styles or genres).
Topics include but are not limited to:

  -  the typology of perception expressions;

  -  semantic extensions/polysemy of perception verbs and perceptual
metaphors;

  -  universals and rara in the expression of sensory perception;

  -  perceptual language beyond the five senses and multimodal perceptual
expressions;

  -  methodological challenges and advances in research on perceptual
language;

  -  extralinguistic (ecological, genetical, cultural, stylistic, generic…)
factors behind the encoding of sensory perception.

Please send your provisional abstract of 300 words (excluding references)
to the workshop conveners by November 6. If the workshop is approved,
authors will be asked to submit 500-word abstracts by January 15, 2024.

*Conveners**:*

Denys Teptiuk (University of Tartu), *denys at ut.ee <denys at ut.ee>*

Stef Spronck (Utrecht University), *m.s.spronck at uu.nl <m.s.spronck at uu.nl>*

Tatiana Nikitina (CNRS-LaCiTO), *tatiana.nikitina at cnrs.fr
<tatiana.nikitina at cnrs.fr>*


*References*

Aikhenvald, A. Y. 2004. *Evidentiality*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Aikhenvald, A. Y. 2018. *The Oxford handbook of evidentiality. *Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Aikhenvald, A. Y., R. W. Dixon (eds.). 2003. *Studies in Evidentiality*.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Aikhenvald, A. Y. & A. Storch. 2013. Linguistic expression of perception
and cognition: A typological glimpse. In: AIkhenvald A. Y., A. Storch
(eds.), *Perception and cognition in language and culture*, 1–46. Leiden:
Brill.

Caballero, R. & C. Paradis. 2015. Making sense of sensory perceptions
across languages and cultures. *Functions of Language *22(1), 1–19.

Chafe, W. L. & J. Nichols (eds.). 1986. *Evidentiality: The linguistic
coding of epistemology. *Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Classen, C. 1997. Foundations for an anthropology of senses. *International
Social Science Journal *49(153), 401–412.

Dingemanse, M. 2011. *The meaning and use of ideophones in Siwu. *Nijmegen:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

Dingemanse, Mark. 2012. Advances in the cross-linguistic study of
ideophones. *Language and Linguistics Compass *6(10), 654–672.

Dingemanse, M. & A. Majid. 2012. The semantic structure of sensory
vocabulary in an African language. In: Miyake N., D. Peebles, R. P. Cooper
(eds.), *CogSci 2012: Proceedings of the 34**th** Annual Conference of the
Cognitive Science Society*, 300–305. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Evans, N. & D. Wilkins. 2000. In the mind’s ear: The semantic extensions of
perception verbs in Australian languages. *Language *76(3), 546–592.

Johanson, L., B. Utas (eds.). 2000. *Evidentials: Turkic, Iranian and
neighbouring languages*. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Majid, A. 2015. Cultural factors shape olfactory language. *Trends in
cognitive sciences *19(11), 629–630.

Majid, A. 2021. Human olfaction at the intersection of language, culture,
and biology. *Trends in Cognitive Sciences *25(2), 111–123.

Majid, A. & S. C. Levinson (eds.). 2011. The senses in language and
culture. [Special Issue]. *Senses and Society* 6(1).

Majid, A., et al. 2018. Differential coding of perception in the world’s
languages. *Psychological and Cognitive Sciences *45(115), 11369–11376.

Nikolaeva, I. 2014. *A grammar of Tundra Nenets. *Berlin & Boston: Walter
de Gruyter.

San Roque L., et al. 2015. Vision verbs dominate in conversation across
cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies. *Cognitive
Linguistics *26, 31–60.

Strik Lievers, F. 2015. Synaesthesia: A corpus-based study of cross-modal
directionality. *Functions of Language *22(1), 69–94.

Sutrop, U. 2001. Odorative denominal verbs in Samoyedic, Sámi, and in
German. *Congressus Nonus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum, Pars VI*,
271–279.

Sweetser, E. 1990. *From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural
aspects of semantic structure*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Teptiuk, D., T. Nikitina. 2023. Evidential strategies in narrative
discourse: a contrastive approach. Paper presented at the *56**th** Annual
Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea*, University of Athens.

Viberg, Å. 1984. The verbs of perception: A typological study. In:
Butterworth B., B. Comrie, Ö. Dahl, *Explanations for Language Universals*,
123–162. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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