28.2131, Calls: Cog Sci, Gen Ling, Philosophy of Lang, Pragmatics/Denmark

Mon May 8 18:09:11 UTC 2017

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-2131. Mon May 08 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.2131, Calls: Cog Sci, Gen Ling, Philosophy of Lang, Pragmatics/Denmark

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Date: Mon, 08 May 2017 14:08:55
From: Marie-Theres Fester [marie.theres.fester at gmail.com]
Subject: LangEnact II - Meaning without Representation: Grounding Language in Sensorimotor Coordination

Full Title: LangEnact II - Meaning without Representation: Grounding Language in Sensorimotor Coordination 
Short Title: LangEnact II 

Date: 26-Sep-2017 - 27-Sep-2017
Location: Odense, Denmark 
Contact Person: Stephen Cowley
Meeting Email: chi at sdu.dk
Web Site: http://www.sdu.dk/en/om_sdu/institutter_centre/c_chi/langenact+ii 

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; General Linguistics; Philosophy of Language; Pragmatics 

Call Deadline: 21-May-2017 

Meeting Description:

Following the success of “Language and Enaction'' (Clermont-Ferrand, France,
1-3 June 2016), the Centre for Human Interactivity invites you to contribute
to LangEnact II. The second LangEnact conference is organized by an
international committee that includes Stephen Cowley and Sune Steffensen
(University of Southern Denmark), Didier Bottineau (Université Paris Nord),
Michaël Grégoire (Université Clermont Auvergne) and Alexander Kravchenko
(Baikal University of Economics & Law, Irkutsk, Russia). LangEnact II will
pursue foundational issues associated with its theme: Meaning without
Representation: Grounding Language in Sensorimotor Coordination. 

Challenging the view that language is constituted by words and rules, both
ecological and enactive work trace linguistic powers to sensorimotor
coordination. In so doing, two largely separate traditions have arisen in
different setting. On the one hand, French theories of ‘enunciation’ use the
embodiment of sub-morphemic patterns to link enactivism to the linguistics of
languages. On the other, those taking a distributed-ecological view of
cognition have traced language or, precisely, languaging to how human activity
is shaped by face-to-face coordination. Building on views of ''Language and
Enaction'' developed at LangEnact I, the 2017 conference aims to bring these
currents together. It will do so by tracing both languages and languaging to
how human bodies attune to a world of meaning that uses audible linguistic
soundscapes.

For now, we are pleased to announce following keynote speakers: 

Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi, Warsaw University and Polish Academy of Sciences
John Stewart, University of Compiègne, France

When we receive confirmations, we expect to add other keynotes to the list
(see the webpage).

Call for Papers: 

The deadline for paper submission for the LangEnact II conference has been
extended to 21 May, 2017. 

The theme of the event is ''Meaning without Representation: Grounding Language
in Sensorimotor Coordination“. It will focus on ecological and enactive
approaches to linguistics and language studies, and how these can be traced to
sensorimotor coordination. The conference will take place from 25 to 27
September in Odense, Denmark. 
For further information please read the CfP below. Please send abstracts (max.
500 words plus references) to the organizing committee, chi at sdu.dk. 
The committee expects to make final decisions on the program by 9 June 2017.

Until recently, the rejecting computational views of mind have tended to adopt
representational linguistic models or to leave language out of account. In
seeking to reconnect language with cognition, we address “meaning without
representation.” By so doing, we ask how language can be, on the one hand, an
effective means of interpersonal coordination and, on the other, grounded in
individual bodies that bring forth an encultured and lived world. The
conference places this question at the confluence of two traditions: while
enactive linguistics makes embodiment central to rethinking French theories of
‘enunciation’ and the nature of langues (language-systems), the
distributed-ecological perspective builds on cognitive science by tracing
language, not to verbal patterns, but to how people coordinate bodily movement
as they make their way in a (partly) common world.

Much connects the two traditions. Both oppose dualism and models that reduce
language to the use of patterns, words or input. Both turn from describing
languages as formalized systems where human operators connect symbols with
fragments of a pre-given world or inner representations. Indeed, both trace
the human to how sensorimotor-based experience came to ground speech, language
and historically derived practices. Language is thus both a distributed or
collective phenomenon and also one based in individual histories of
sensorimotor activity. In short, language depends on what is experienced as
meaningful and, given its reflexivity, can also be analysed in terms of
meaning.

Because traditional linguistic theories do not trace language to ecological
sensorimotor coordination, they tend to focus on the verbal production of
intrinsically meaningful forms. Accordingly, they ask how those forms, produce
meaning, qua linguistic expression, of an extra-linguistic situation. By
contrast, within both enactive linguistics and work from a
distributed-ecological view, one focuses on how the effects of human
interactivity co-develop with know-how that bears on meaning potential. One
thus asks how, as a striking component of interactivity, languaging brings
forth meaning in both larger and narrower senses. The conference challenge is
to concert these voices by recognizing speech as ecological coordination that
binds phonation, articulation and gestures into human action/perception.

- If joint sensorimotor activity shapes language systems, to what extent does
the diversity of natural languages specify the interactive emergence of
linguistic meaning? 
- Given that sensorimotor activity already has value, evokes presence, and is
thus ‘meaningful’, how is it insinuated into linguistic meaning?
- Given linguistic meaning, language-based categories constrain sensorimotor
activity. How, during face-to-face activity, do people concert their
sensorimotor activity while drawing on cultural traditions?
- How do individual and collective agents engage with the diversity of
languaging and cultural practices in the context of communities,
activity-types, and a life span that unites expertise and experience?

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