35.1608, Calls: Complexity in Language Sciences

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1608. Thu May 30 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1608, Calls: Complexity in Language Sciences

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Date: 21-May-2024
From: Georgeta Cislaru [gcislaru at parisnanterre.fr]
Subject: Complexity in Language Sciences


Full Title: Complexity in Language Sciences

Date: 12-Dec-2024 - 13-Dec-2024
Location: Paris (Maison de la Recherche, 4 rue des Irlandais, 75005
Paris), France
Contact Person: Georgeta Cislaru
Meeting Email: georgeta.cislaru at sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Call Deadline: 09-Sep-2024

Meeting Description:

While speaking, writing, listening and reading are easy, simple,
natural activities for those who practice them on a daily basis, what
can be said about the cognitive and linguistic processes that underlie
them? What about the languages in which these activities are
practiced, and the theories and models developed to explain and
represent the mechanisms involved? And finally, what can be said about
individuals (speakers, listeners, writers, readers) who have not yet
finished the learning process of these activities (children in the
language acquisition phase, adults learning a second language),
especially given that certain processes that may prove particularly
difficult or even impossible (e.g.: writing in deaf people)?

The question of complexity quickly arises, and the notion is regularly
invoked in the language sciences, though often in a vague and
intuition-driven way. In practice, this question of complexity takes
on different forms depending on who is formulating it
(psycholinguists, linguists, descriptive or model scientists, etc.)
and who is targeted by it (speakers, listeners, natives, non-natives,
learner s, atypical subjects, etc.). In short, how complex, for whom
and why? Is it necessary or contingent complexity? To answer these
questions, we need to know what kind of complexity we're talking
about: conceptual (e.g. representation of time and reference in
languages), formal (e.g. phonological, graphic, morphological and
syntactic structure of a language) or physiological (unnatural
articulatory gestures, material constraints)? Does one complexity call
for another (e.g. does the complex conception of time in a language
call for a complex syntax, does formal complexity imply cognitive
complexity and vice versa?).

The aim of this conference is to discuss the current state of the art
on complexity in the language sciences. It will offer the opportunity
to examine the history and use of the notion of complexity in
linguistics, through a variety of theoretical and epistemological
perspectives. Its ambition is to bring together oral and written
linguists, NLP/computer scientists and psycholinguists, etc., to
discuss the complexity that runs, to varying degrees, through the
different components of language and discourse (segmental,
suprasegmental, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic). The
expected result is to craft a concept that will work for the
community, however stratified it may be, since the criteria on which
it is based are obviously many:
 •      For the linguist, complexity is that which is not simple to
represent and model, because (i) it is not easily predictable (e.g.
unexpected constructions, productions that escape general rules), (ii)
it could be of a continuous nature, and therefore difficult to isolate
or categorize (e.g. the prosodic level of representation as opposed to
the segmental level; opaque or indefinite reference)[1]. A complex
element is also an observable that can be described but which resists
explanation (e.g. errors in deaf writing).
 •      For the human subject, everything that is unnatural and
therefore difficult to produce or to hear (such as a foreign language)
would be complex. Complexity would also refer to units which are
linguistically underspecified, and thus ambiguous or implicit,
entailing a high cognitive load.

While human subjects or linguists might view complexity as an obstacle
to learning or a difficulty in representing language, complexity is
conversely necessary to the very existence of languages and their
uses. From a synchronic point of view, complexity plays a part in
regulating the linguistic system, the internal balance of a language,
based on a partition between complex and simple elements (e.g. poor
morphology vs. complex tonal system in Chinese). What remains to be
understood is how this balance is determined in languages. From a
diachronic point of view, complexity seems to play the same role,
whether it's a question of simplifying certain processes and
maintaining the formal economy of the system (e.g. deletion of
phonological oppositions with low functional output,
grammaticalization processes), or, on the contrary, reintegrating
complexity (e.g. the transition from pidgin to creole).

This raises a question for the language sciences: how can we account
for linguistic complexity? Which approach would be most adapted:
typological and contrastive, or internal, experimental, or inductive
on large corpora? How should complexity be measured, and what
measurement standard should be proposed? What scale and what
descriptors should be used? In syntax, for example, can we assume the
existence of a neutral SVO sentence in order to work on complex
sentences? Can the concepts of transformation and movement proposed by
generative grammar be used to work on syntactic complexity? If so,
how? If not, what descriptors should be used to replace them: "easily"
quantifiable descriptors (cf. work on text readability or
simplification, which systematically use them), such as sentence
length or the types of dependency between elements (e.g. number,
length, direction)? The question of medium sheds a different light on
complexity, particularly with regards to the syntactic component. Is
the syntactic structure of a message more complex in spoken or written
form? And from what point of view? In production or reception? From
the point of view of language activity or from the point of view of
linguistic representation and modeling?
In semantics and pragmatics, how can we deal with the meaning-form
relationship? How can we deal with ambiguity and implicitness? Can a
text be simple, given that it contains a set of units and
constructions that are themselves complex. If so, what mechanism of
adjustment or qualitative change are necessary? In text linguistics,
the notion of complexity has been seen in various ways; for example,
through the study of the textualization process itself; through the
measurement and quantification of writers' pauses or revisions; by the
methods used in applied linguistics to simplify texts, too difficult
to be understood and needing to be adapted for a particular audience.

Finally, there's a central question in modeling: how does one manage
the complexity of the object they want to represent? How does one
break down a complex object into simple elements without losing
information? How can we understand which properties are necessary and
sufficient to represent the system's operation? How can we approach
the question of how multiple descriptors relate to each other using
mathematical formulas that go further than the formulas proposed in
the field of readability?

Important dates:
September 9 – abstract submissions
October 15 - scientific committee decision
December 12-13, 2024 - Workshop

Submission instructions:
Abstracts, written in French or English, are due on September 9 at the
latest:
- 1 cover page including the name and affiliation of the author(s) ;
- 1-2 pages of text (excluding references);
- 3 to 5 keywords.

They should be sent by eMAIL to
delphine.battistelli at parisnanterre.fr
georgeta.cislaru at parisnanterre.fr
sascha.diwersy at univ-montp3.fr
anne.lacheret at parisnanterre.fr
dominique.legallois at sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

Scientific Committee: Basso Pierluigi, Université Lumière Lyon 2
Blache Philippe, CNRS, ILCB, Laboratoire Parole & Langage, Université
Aix Marseille Brunetti Lisa, LLF, Université Paris Cité Feltgen
Quentin, Gent University François Thomas, Cental, UCLouvain Gala
Núria, LPL, Aix Marseille Université Grandjean Didier, Swiss Center
for Affective Sciences, Université de Genève Heidlmayr Karin, MoDyCo,
CNRS-Université Paris Nanterre Kahane Sylvain, MoDyCo, CNRS-Université
Paris Nanterre Lampitelli Nicola, MoDyCo, CNRS-Université Paris
Nanterre Landragin Frédéric, Lattice, CNRS Nadvornikova Olga,
Université Charles à Prague Olive Thierry, CeRCA, CNRS – Université de
Poitiers Prévost Sophie, Lattice, CNRS Watine Marie-Albane, BCL,
Université Côte d’Azur Ziegler Johannes, Centre de Recherche en
Psychologie et Neuroscience (CRPN) CNRS et Université Aix Marseille.



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