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Han Nijdam (Fryske Akademy): Het Fries.

Languages as Mechanisms for Interaction: Explorations and Repercussions 2016 Workshop

It is uncontentious that language lies at the core of human interaction. However, the broad significance of this observation is only beginning to receive due recognition. In the past, the emphasis has been on the precise identification of what an individual speaker’s capacity for language amounts to in terms of a grammar, and/or individual cognitive processes. These approaches usually posit a grammar or cognitive architecture with independent modules whose elements are assigned discrete, identifiable meanings, all attributes being defined independently of other cognitive sub-systems. However, the horizon is shifting in a number of ways. Some see grammar as interfacing with a rich inferential system even though the two systems remain independent (e.g. Asher & Lascarides 2003; Carston 2002; Clark 1996; Sperber & Wilson 1986). Others focus on the need for grammars of dialogue (e.g. Ginzburg 2012). Yet others consider language a system of procedures for licensing communicative interaction (e.g. Gregoromichelaki et al. 2011). However, what most of these approaches have in common is a belief in the interdependence of the grammar system and processes of general cognition.

This shift in perspective has given rise to an array of new developments: cross-linguistic studies developing new synchronic and diachronic accounts of linguistic phenomena reflecting dialogue dynamics; computational models of ongoing dialogue dynamics, and formal grammar learning; cross-disciplinary investigations of foundational issues such as the concepts of individuation and identity that reflect language plasticity; articulation of formal  and cognitive constraints on what are possible language processes, the interaction of these with constraints determining effective cross-modular processing in real time, the inter-relation between mechanisms internal to language and other cognitive systems such as for gesture and music, and perception. This workshop seeks to bring together those working within these cross-disciplinary approaches to interaction.

The updated programme and abstract booklet can be consulted here.

Abstracts are welcome relating to:
models of conversational dialogue purporting to model speaker and hearer interaction in jointly developing structures in context;
accounts of how these interactions allow for clarifications, corrections or negotiations through which such development takes place;
accounts of language acquisition in which such interactions are assigned central status;
accounts of how such interactive adaptations consolidate via ongoing use to yield language variation and change;
accounts of how incremental language processing interfaces with other modalities such as gesture.
Abstracts should be anonymous and no longer than one page, including references and examples, in 12-point Times New Roman, with margins of at least 2.5 cm. Submissions are limited to a maximum of one individual and one joint abstract per author. The deadline for submission is 29 February, 2016. Abstracts are to be submitted in pdf-format via the EasyChair system at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=interaction2016.To submit an abstract, you must follow these steps:

To begin, login at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=interaction2016
If you do not have an existing EasyChair account, click on “Sign up for an account”. You will be asked to fill out a simple form to create an account.
Click ”New Submission” at the top of the page.
Select the track relevant for your submission and click “Continue”.
Enter author information in the provided fields. Tick the ”Corresponding Author” box for all authors who wish to receive e-mail correspondences or notifications.
Enter your title in the “Title” field.
In the “Abstract” field, please enter a one sentence summary. Do not paste your full abstract into this field.
Enter at least three keywords.
Upload your abstract in the “Paper” field. Only .pdf files will be accepted. Do not include your name or affiliation in the abstract/file name!
Do not tick the “Abstract only” box, or your .pdf will not be uploaded.
Click “Submit”. You will be taken to a summary page of your submission – this is your confirmation that it has been saved. Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously.
You may make any necessary updates until the deadline by logging in and clicking on “My Submissions”.
For more information, please contact interaction2016@easychair.orgCited referencesAsher, N. & A. Lascarides (2003) Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Carston, R (2002) Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.Clark, H. (1996) Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Sperber, D. & D. Wilson (1986) Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press.Ginzburg, J. (2012) The Interactive Stance: Meaning for Conversation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Gregoromichelaki, E., R. Kempson, M. Purver, G.J. Mills, R. Cann, W. Meyer-Viol & P.G.T. Healey (2011) ‘Incrementality and Intention-Recognition in Utterance Processing.’ Dialogue and Discourse2: 199-233.

Local organisers:

Miriam Bouzouita
Sol Sansiñena Pascual
Programme committee:

Miriam Bouzouita
Hannah Gibson
Ruth Kempson
Jieun Kiaer
Chris Howes

Accommodation
Hotels

Ibis Gent Centrum Opera
Marriott Hotel Ghent
Hotel Harmony
Ghent River Hotel
Novotel
Most hotels have corporate rates for guests of the university.

Charm hotels

Hotel Gravensteen
Monasterium Poortackere
Bed & Breakfasts, guesthouses

http://www.bedandbreakfast-gent.be/_en/home.php
http://www.charmio.com/en/region/ghent
Zebrastraat
PPP Guesthouse
NOTE that you will always have to pay a separate ‘city tax’ of €2,50 per night on top of your normal hotel bill.

Travel information
Getting to Ghent (from Brussels National Airport or a Brussels train station)Take a train to Ghent St-Pieters station. For information about train timetables, click here.Getting to the conference venue from the train station (St-Pieters): 15 minutes
Take tram #1 in the direction of Wondelgem/Evergem/Centre from the tram platform (“to city centre”) outside the train station. Get off at Verlorenkost. You are now on the Kortrijksepoortstraat, at the corner turn right onto Sint-Kwintensberg, continue straight till you reach on the left-hand side the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy (Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte), turn left onto Blandijnberg. Enter through the main entrance and take stairs to the second floor. The presentations will be held in room 120.083 (2nd floor).More information on how to get there: www.delijn.be (in Dutch), or more specifically, http://reisinfo.delijn.be/reisinfo/. Getting around in GhentThere is a good bus and tram network throughout the city (see www.delijn.be). Tickets cost 3 euros from the vending machine. A ticket valid for 10 rides costs 14 euros (1,40 cents per ride). You will find the ticket vending machines outside the station, on the tram platform. Ghent is pretty manageable on foot as well, however. All hotels suggested on this website are in the center of town, as is the conference venue. For a map of the city, click here (or many other websites).

The Determinants of Diachronic Stability

That human languages are constantly evolving is an undeniable fact. By now, theories have become very apt at dealing with linguistic variation and change. But the reality is that populations are in constant flux, socially and linguistically. Much of what used to be considered “internally caused change” might perhaps more appropriately have to be considered as contact-induced on the level of contact between varieties of a single diasystem. This realization turns the faithful stable transmission of linguistic features where it does occur into an urgent explanandum. Different linguistic subfields have responded to this in different ways, and many questions still need to be addressed.

  • Within the field of typology, the question of diachronically and cross-linguistically more stable traits of languages has been put on the agenda mainly by the work of Johanna Nichols (Nichols 1992).
  • From a markedness point of view, inflectional classes apparently needlessly complicate morphological systems and lead to the expectation that they should be diachronically unstable (e.g. Wurzel 1989). The fact that this is empirically not confirmed is in need of explanation (e.g. Lass 1990).
  • While there is no question that language contact may induce change (e.g. Thomason & Kaufman 1988), it has only more recently been noted that there may also be linguistic stability in spite of language contact, and that it may, in some cases, even be contact-induced (e.g. Trudgill 2011, Braunmüller et al. eds. 2014).
  • A further question that has not yet satisfyingly been answered is why, given the same or similar input conditions in different languages, some linguistic changes never happen, or, once initiated, stall (e.g. Weinreich, Labov & Herzog 1968, Labov 1994; 2001).
  • More recently, the related question of whether there can be such a thing as stable variation in language, and how it interacts with language change has been added to the research agenda (e.g. Wallenberg 2013, Fruehwald & Wallenberg in prep).
  • It is unclear what the influence of type and token frequency is on keeping certain properties diachronically stable. On the one hand, research on grammaticalization has indicated that highly frequent items are more likely to grammaticalize, and therefore, low frequency of usage might be expected to favour stability. On the other hand, highly frequent elements often resist analogical change, so in this sense, ‘low frequency items’ are expected to be more prone to change.
  • Finally, the role of extra-linguistic factors such as normative pressure in keeping linguistic phenomena constant should be studied more systematically, and with an eye on interaction with the language internal factors mentioned above.

 

The workshop takes place on 28 June 2016, the day before the start of DiGS 18. Its goal is to bring together researchers from different areas of linguistics to discuss the determinants of diachronic stability from their individual perspectives, with the aim of fostering dialogue between them.

Keynote speakers:

  • Sheila Watts (Cambridge)
  • Joel C. Wallenberg (Newcastle)

Doctoral Schools course “Grammaticalization and Constructionalization”

Topic and Theme
– The objective of this course is to familiarize students with the linguistic theory and methodology of constructionalization in comparison to those of grammaticalization.
– The course will include as much exercises as time will allow, and will be taught in English.
– Participants are assumed to be acquainted with basic concepts and notions of linguistics, and in particular with the domain of historical linguistics.

Lecturer
Prof. Dr Elizabeth Closs Traugott (Stanford University)
Elizabeth Closs Traugott is Professor Emerita of Linguistics and English at Stanford University. She obtained her PhD in English Language at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. After receiving her PhD, she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Dar-es-Salaam, and York University before settling at Stanford University in 1970. There she served as chair of the Department of Linguistics and as Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies. She is world renowned for her work on historical linguistics, especially grammaticalization, subjectification and constructionalization. Her current research focuses on (i) ways to bring the theories of construction grammar, grammaticalization and lexicalization together in a unified theory of constructionalization, (ii) the development of pragmatic markers at left and right periphery of the clause and on ways to define “periphery”.She held a Guggenheim fellowship and a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. She was President of the International Society for Historical Linguistics in 1979, of the Linguistic Society of America in 1987, and of the International Society for the Linguistics of English in 2007-2008. She is currently a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.Her publications include the following books: A History of English Syntax (1972), Linguistics for Students of Literature (1980; with Mary L. Pratt), On Conditionals (1986; co-edited with Alice ter Meulen, Judith Snitzer Reilly, and Charles A. Ferguson), Approaches to Grammaticalization (1991; co-edited with Bernd Heine, 2 volumes), Grammaticalization (1993, 2nd much revised ed. 2003; with Paul Hopper), Regularity in Semantic Change (2002; with Richard B. Dasher), Lexicalization and Language Change (2005; with Laurel J. Brinton), Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization (2010; co-edited with Graeme Trousdale), The Oxford Handbook of the History of English (2012; co-edited with Terttu Nevalainen), and Constructionalization and Constructional Changes (2013; with Graeme Trousdale).