35.2176, Calls: Attractors in language variation, processing and change (DGfS 2025 Workshop)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-2176. Fri Aug 02 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.2176, Calls: Attractors in language variation, processing and change (DGfS 2025 Workshop)

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Date: 02-Aug-2024
From: Petra Schumacher [petra.schumacher at uni-koeln.de]
Subject: Attractors in language variation, processing and change (DGfS 2025 Workshop)


Full Title: Attractors in language variation, processing and change
(DGfS 2025 Workshop)
Short Title: DGfS

Date: 04-Mar-2025 - 07-Mar-2025
Location: Mainz, Germany
Contact Person: Matthias Schlesewsky
Meeting Email: matthias.schlesewsky at unisa.edu.au

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; General Linguistics;
Historical Linguistics; Psycholinguistics; Typology

Call Deadline: 10-Sep-2024

Meeting Description:

The workshop is part of the 47th Annual Meeting of the German
Linguistic Society (DGfS 2025) to be held from March 5–7 at University
of Mainz, Germany.

Call for Papers:

The workshop “Attractors in language variation, processing and change”
will be part of the 47th Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic
Society (DGfS), which takes place from March 4 to 7, 2025, in Mainz,
Germany.

Asymmetric binary relations play a key role in the description and
theoretical modelling of linguistic phenomena. These often coincide
with dependencies between the relational elements, as captured via the
notion of prominence (Himmelmann and Primus 2015). From a more general
perspective drawing on insights from biology and the natural sciences,
prominent linguistic elements can be modelled as “attractors”: stable,
low energy states within a dynamical system (Bornkessel-Schlesewsky
and Schlesewsky 2014). Linguistic universals are elegantly captured
via the notion of attractors, for example, explaining how linguistic
distributions are typically skewed to favour certain patterns (e.g.
actor/subject-initial word orders) while absolute universals are
difficult to find.

A dynamic approach to attractors allows us to understand variability
and stability in language and cognitive systems more broadly. This
workshop aims to explore attractors from a range of linguistic
perspectives, with a particular focus on language variation,
processing and change. Contributions might examine the characteristics
of specific attractor categories (e.g. actor roles, pitch accent and
focus constituents), how attractor categories can be identified, how
they work / manifest themselves, as well as the degree of variation
that attractors allow and when an attractor leads to language change.

We invite contributions dealing with attractors in various linguistic
domains and how attractors influence language variation, processing
and change. Contributions from outside of linguistics that could
provide insights into linguistic attractors are also highly welcome.
Abstracts (for 20 minutes presentations, plus 10 minutes discussion)
should not exceed one page (DINA A4, 12pt font). You can include one
additional page for tables, graphs and/or references.  Please submit
your abstract as a pdf-file to matthias.schlesewsky at unisa.edu.au by
September 10, 2024 (CEST).

Invited speakers:
Rachel Nordlinger (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Robert Mailhammer (Western Sydney University, Australia)

Organizers:
Matthias Schlesewsky (University of South Australia/University of
Cologne)
Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky (University of South Australia/ University
of Cologne)
Petra B. Schumacher  (University of Cologne)



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