19.1975, Calls: Philosophy of Language/Poland; Anthropological Ling/France

Sun Jun 22 19:04:06 UTC 2008

LINGUIST List: Vol-19-1975. Sun Jun 22 2008. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 19.1975, Calls: Philosophy of Language/Poland; Anthropological Ling/France

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1)
Date: 20-Jun-2008
From: Piotr Stalmaszczyk < piotrst at uni.lodz.pl >
Subject: Philosophy of Language and Linguistics 

2)
Date: 20-Jun-2008
From: Pierre Frath < pierre.frath at univ-reims.fr >
Subject: The 2nd Res per Nomen conference on reference

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:58:30
From: Piotr Stalmaszczyk [piotrst at uni.lodz.pl]
Subject: Philosophy of Language and Linguistics
E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=19-1975.html&submissionid=182382&topicid=3&msgnumber=1  

Full Title: Philosophy of Language and Linguistics 
Short Title: PhiLang2009 

Date: 14-May-2009 - 15-May-2009
Location: Lodz, Poland 
Contact Person: Piotr Stalmaszczyk
Meeting Email: philang2009 at uni.lodz.pl

Linguistic Field(s): Philosophy of Language 

Call Deadline: 31-Dec-2008 

Meeting Description:

The Department of English and General Linguistics at University of ?ód?
announces the first International Conference on Philosophy of Language and
Linguistics. The title of the Conference is deliberately ambiguous: we wish to
investigate the relation between 'philosophy of language' and 'linguistics', but
we also want to focus on 'philosophy of language' as opposed to 'philosophy of
linguistics'.  Are the two in opposition, or do they perhaps complement one
another? 

Call for Papers

The principal aim of our Conference is to bring together philosophers and
linguists; we would like the papers to address the following issues (the list is
not exhaustive):

- what are the new problems and issues in the philosophy of language in the 21st
century?
- have any traditional problems been successfully solved?
- how does research in linguistics influence the philosophy of language and
philosophy of linguistics?
- how does philosophy influence modern linguistics?

The following scholars have accepted our invitation to address the conference as
plenary speakers:

Prof. Eros Corazza (Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University)
Prof. Katarzyna Jaszczolt (Department of Linguistics, University of Cambridge)
Prof. Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (Department of English Language and Applied
Linguistics, University of ?ód?)
Prof. Michael Morris (Department of Philosophy, University of Sussex)
Prof. Jaroslav Peregrin (Department of Logic, Charles University, Prague)

A one-day seminar (in Polish) devoted to philosophy of language and linguistics
will follow the Conference.

Abstracts of papers of  max. 500 words should be forwarded by e-mail to 
philang2009 at uni.lodz.pl. Deadline for submission is 31 December 2008.
Presentations should last max. 30 minutes (including discussion and questions).
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 1 March 2009.

A volume of conference proceedings will be published with an international
publisher.

The conference fee is 200 EUR. It covers the cost of participation, conference
materials and conference dinner. 

Accommodation will be provided at the University of ?ód? Conference Center, 
Kopci?skiego 16/18. Single and double rooms are available. The cost of a single
room is 140 PLN, double 210 PLN, breakfast is included in the price.

Further information about accommodation and social program will appear in the
Second Circular, in September 2008.

Organizing committee: prof. dr hab. Piotr Stalmaszczyk, prof. dr hab. Krzysztof
Kosecki, dr Janusz Badio, Jerzy Gaszewski, Ryszard Rasi?ski.

-------------------------Message 2 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:58:37
From: Pierre Frath [pierre.frath at univ-reims.fr]
Subject: The 2nd Res per Nomen conference on reference
E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=19-1975.html&submissionid=182362&topicid=3&msgnumber=2 

Full Title: The 2nd Res per Nomen conference on reference 
Short Title: RES PER NOMEN 2 

Date: 28-May-2009 - 30-May-2009
Location: Reims, France 
Contact Person: Pierre Frath
Meeting Email: respernomen at res-per-nomen.org
Web Site: http://www.res-per-nomen.org 

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics 

Call Deadline: 11-Jan-2009 

Meeting Description:

The first Res per nomen conference was held in Reims (France)in May 2007. There
were participants from a dozen countries and they explored the relationship
between language and reality from a variety of standpoints, including classical,
medieval and post-modern philosophy, as well as phenomenology, cognitivism,
logicism, C.S. Peirce 's semiotics and L. Wittgenstein's philosophy. The papers
on philosophy tended to explore the question of reference, especially from a
non-logicist point of view. The papers on linguistics tended to deal with
naming, particularly in relation to the understanding of phraseological problems
and their occurrence in electronic corpora.

Res per nomen 2 intends to pursue these topics further. Most linguistic theories
suppose reality can be described in terms of logic or psychology and language is
then usually seen as the encoding and decoding of that reality. This produces an
internalist and individual view on language where words makes sense because
things are endowed with existence, either physical or mental. We understand each
other because of the constraints that the world imposes on us, perhaps via
genetical universals. Language as a social object is then clearly a secondary
preoccupation and depends on arguably Platonic and metaphysical conjectures.

However, it is possible to think about language differently. Instead of
concentrating on the relationship between language and concept or language and
reality we could see names and the naming process (dénomination in French, from
Latin denominatio) as the central object of linguistic study. According to this
view, the existence of 'something is not available to our consciousness unless
it is named. It follows that things are not named discursively at the end of a
process of encoding: rather they are given to us from the start with the
linguistic signs that name them. Reference and denomination, the topics of the
first Res per nomen conference, are inextricably linked, and language is then
quite naturally an externalist and communal object. Our mutual understanding can
then be explained in anthropological terms in the same way as other features of
our collective being, altogether avoiding dubious metaphysical hypotheses about
how the mind constructs utterances from deeper levels, the existence of
universals and the logical nature of the universe. 

Call for Papers

The aim on this occasion is to explore more fully the relations between
denomination and reference, both from the point of view of philosophy and
linguistics. The denomination of feelings and perception could for example be
studied to see how languages name such entities,commonly thought-of as
'pre-existing', how they are made real for us through denominations. The
discussion could rest on Wittgenstein's private language argument, comparative
language study, text and corpus analysis, brain-imaging analysis, and so on.

It should also be possible to examine the extent of denominations in discourse,
with phreaseological units as intermediate structures between the lexicon and
the sentence. This distinction between denomination and discourse can lead us
quite naturally to explore the possibility of a grammar without rules. How can
we explain how sentences are put together if we refuse to acknowledge formal
constraints? There again, philosophy, the neurosciences, comparative language
studies and corpus analysis may help. Specialists in Natural Language Processing
could also be interested: if NLP software is not very satisfying, it may be
because the fundamental assumptions on which they rest are too metaphysical. It
might be fruitful to explore other possiblities.

Any point of view is welcome, including critical ones, provided they address the
topic of the conference.

For practical details, see website http://www.res-per-nomen.org

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