Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Personal tools

Document Actions

Grammar, space and cognition

What	Workshop
When	05.11.2009 09:00 to 07.11.2009 18:00
Where	Path. Hörsaal / Seminarraum EG FRIAS
Contact Name	Gesa von Essen
Contact Email	lili@frias.uni-freiburg.de
Attendees	nach Anmeldung
Add event to calendar	vCal iCal

Organisers: Prof. Dr. Peter Auer, Dr. Martin Hilpert

Internal / Junior Fellow of the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Workshop I: Grammar, space and cognition

Dates 5-7.11.
05.11: Pathologischer Hörsaal (FRIAS)
06./07.11.: Seminarraum FRIAS

Thematic foci

This workshop is concerned, first, with the relationship between spatial grammar and spatial cognition and, second, with the coordinated or individual use of language, gesture and machines for movement in space.
In the grammars of the world's languages, certain parameters of spatial orientation and movement are sedimented. These patterns prestructure spatial cognition in a socially and culturally given way – they represent a certain spatial “world view”. On the other hand, local deixis is a means to anchor the meaning of linguistic expressions in space, and to help interactants locate themselves, their co-participants and the things they talk about in space. The questions to be addressed in this workshop can therefore be summarized as follows:

-    Along which dimensions do the spatial systems in the languages of the world (including sign languages) vary?
-    What is universal in spatial systems, and what is culture-specific?
-    What is the impact of spatial grammar on spatial cognition?
-    How do speakers use spatial deixis in order to manoeuver in space, to refer to non-present things, to construe displaced worlds (deixis am phantasma) , etc?

In addition to linguists and grammarians, the meeting will also include cognitive scientists, anthropologists and psychologists.

THE FRIAS LANGUAGE AND SPACE WORKSHOPS >> more

Program

Thursday, November 5, 2009

12:30 Welcome lunch in the FRIAS lounge

14:00 Peter Auer
             Martin Hilpert
             Anja Stukenbrock
             Benedikt Szmrecsanyi
             Introduction

14:30 Session 1: Linguistic Typology

Position paper: Jürgen Bohnemeyer (Buffalo)
Space in semantic typology: The MesoSpace project

Research paper: Eva Schultze-Bernd (Manchester)
                               Only some paths rise to verb status (but do the others turn into
                                satellites?) – On the lexicalisation of path concepts in languages
                              with closed-class verbs

Research paper: Soteria Svorou (San Jose)
Evolutionary Paths of Spatial Grams

Friday, November 6, 2009

09:00 Session 2: Multi-modal research

Position paper: Alan Cienki (Amsterdam)
The cognitive study of gesture in relation to grammar and space

Research paper: Gisela Fehrmann (Bonn)
Spatial Codes in German Sign Language

Research paper: Pentti Haddington (Oulu)
Collaborative movement in space: Everyday navigation in cars

12:30 Lunch break (Paradies)

15:00 Session 3: Cognitive Linguistics

Research paper: Anatol Stefanowitsch (Bremen)
Manner and Telicity in English Motion Constructions

Research paper: Holger Diessel (Jena)
Spatial deixis and joint attention

Research paper: Daniel Jacob (Freiburg)
                                Spatial metaphor in grammar and spatial metaphors in
                              grammatical description: some epistemological remarks on
                                grammatical localism

19:00 Conference Dinner

Saturday, November 7, 2009

09:30 Session 4: Cognitive Science

Position paper: Thora Tenbrink (Bremen)
Spatial language in cognition and communication

Research paper: Kenny Coventry (Newcastle)
On the mapping between spatial language and vision and action

Research paper: Lars Konieczny & Sarah Schwarzkopf (Freiburg)
Embodied Perspectives

13:00 Farewell