35.3304, Calls: Wanting, wishing, desiring (Workshop)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-3304. Thu Nov 21 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.3304, Calls: Wanting, wishing, desiring (Workshop)

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Date: 18-Nov-2024
From: Antoine Consigny [anconsig at unistra.fr]
Subject: Wanting, wishing, desiring (Workshop)


Full Title: Wanting, wishing, desiring (Workshop)

Date: 06-Nov-2025 - 07-Nov-2025
Location: Strasbourg, France
Contact Person: Antoine Consigny
Meeting Email: anconsig at unistra.fr

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Pragmatics; Semantics;
Syntax
Subject Language(s): English (eng)

Call Deadline: 28-Feb-2025

Meeting Description:

This 2-day workshop aims to bring together researchers interested in
the expression of volition, wish and/or desire in all its
manifestations. It will take place in Strasbourg, France, on 6 and 7
November 2025.

Call for Papers:

“Wanting, wishing, desiring”

The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers interested
in the expression of volition, wish and/or desire in English, in all
its manifestations. Several levels of analysis can therefore be of
interest: lexical, phraseological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic.

It will thus be possible to study the various linguistic expressions
expressing volition and its degrees from a lexical and/or
phraseological point of view: lexical words such as the three given in
the title, but also phrases and fixed expressions, such as “I would
like”, “I’m dying / gagging / craving for”, etc. Within this category,
it will also be possible to focus on the expression of desire or
volition through the use of euphemism (“I wouldn’t mind”, “I wouldn’t
say no to”).

The syntactic aspect may concern, among others, the possible
constructions linked to wishing or desiring: catenative constructions
(“I want to leave now”) or using auxiliaries (“I shan’t answer that”,
“Will you help me?”), type(s) of complementation (direct or indirect:
“I want the best for you”, “I wish you the best”, “I wish only the
best for you” but not “*I want you the best”). The different syntactic
categories of words belonging to the notional field ranging from
volition to desire may provide a productive angle: nouns, verbs,
adjectives etc. Why can we say “a desire”, “a wish” when “*?a want”
seems less easily acceptable? What is the link between “will” (noun),
“willing” (adjective), “willingly” and “will” (lexical verb, modal
verb)? In respect to the verbs of volition and desire, the scope of
negation may be the subject of a specific study. It is known that
“want” is a neg-raising verb, which implies that the scope of the
negation is the predicate and not the verb, is it the same with other
verbs of the same lexical field? What about the nouns? One may wish to
focus on the morpho-syntactic aspect.

In semantics, among the relevant topics, one can mention the
polysemous nature of words within the volition/wish/desire field:
“want” expresses volition but also lack, whereas “lack” does not
express volition; “wish” can be used in different contexts and with
different meanings, as in “best wishes” or “You wish!” (whose French
equivalent would be “Dans tes rêves!”). In that respect, a diachronic
approach may shed a welcome light on the reasons for such polysemy.
The questions of discrepancy, lack, but also of the counterfactual
could also be looked into.
Wish or desire can also be seen as speech acts. In this connection,
one could wonder whether linguistic and pragmatic meanings coincide,
or if volition/desire/wish are only the pragmatic meaning of an
expression whose semantic meaning is different. On the other hand, the
expression of volition can lead to a pragmatic interpretation close to
a request or an order. It can even in some contexts be explicitly
taken as such by the co-speaker: “Your wish is my command”.

Finally, it will be possible to consider all those questions from a
comparative perspective. One could indeed compare English and other
languages in order to see the differences but also the similarities.
Could some aspects of the field of volition/wish/desire be considered
as universals?

Submission guidelines and deadlines:

The language of the workshop will be English. Anonymous proposals
should be sent by email to Antoine Consigny and Stéphane Kostantzer :
anconsig at unistra.fr, skostant at unistra.fr.
They will include the title of the talk, a summary of about 300 words
plus references. The name(s) and institution of the author(s) will be
given separately, in the text of the email.

Submission deadline: 28 February 2025
Notification of acceptance: 17 April 2025



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