🚀 go-pugleaf

> 17 Nov 1998 21:08:32 -0800 (PST)
>Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 22:09:03 -0700
>From: Sherman Wilcox <wilcox@UNM.EDU>
>Subject: Call for Papers
>Sender: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
>Theme Session Call for Papers
>
>6th International Cognitive Linguistics Association (ICLA) Conference
>(Stockholm, July 1999)
>
>Typological Research on Signed Languages: Cognition and Discourse
>Structure
>
>Session Coordinators: Sherman Wilcox and Terry Janzen
>
>
>Several hundred signed languages are known to exist in the world, used
>within communities in which the signed language is the primary language.
>Most grammatical description of these languages, however, is not extensive,
>and is confined to no more than a handful of these languages. There is
>speculation that signed languages may share a significant number of
>linguistic features even when such languages are genetically unrelated, due
>in part to their common use of the hands and body as articulators and the
>eyes, rather than ears, as perceptual organs. Very little actual work,
>however, has been carried out with respect to which specific grammatical
>features are shared, and which may differ.
>
>Many questions surrounding the relationship between cognition and signed
>language structure involve the cross-linguistic typology of structural and
>semantic categories. It is not yet clear, however, whether certain
>linguistic features of signed languages emerge cross-linguistically because
>users of these languages employ similar articulatory and perceptual
>systems, and how much variation between and within particular categories
>exists.
>
>The purpose of this session is to focus on information processing and
>discourse structure as typological features among signed languages. A
>cognitive approach to this topic assumes that signers will structure
>their discourse to best represent and convey what is cognitively salient,
>and that the grammar that emerges within a community of language users will
>reflect this cognitive motivation.
>
>We invite papers which focus on cognition and features of discourse
>structure in
>a variety of signed languages, with the intention of facilitating
>discussion among researchers regarding typological features.
>
>Abstracts (700 to 1400 words) are invited, and should be submitted
>by November 31 to each of the following:
>
>        wilcox@unm.edu
>        tjanzen@post.rrcc.mb.ca
>
>
>
>===========================
>
>Sherman Wilcox, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor
>Dept. of Linguistics
>University of New Mexico
>Albuquerque, NM 87131
>
>http://www.unm.edu/~wilcox
>
>
Lise Menn
Professor and Chair
Linguistics Department - Box 295
University of Colorado
Boulder CO 80309-0295
303-492-8042; fax 303-492-4416

BEWARE PROCRUSTES BEARING OCCAM'S RAZOR