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Call for Papers

Organization:

Invited speakers:

Webpage: https://expressivity-dgfs2025.rub.de
Contact: expressivity-dgfs2025@rub.de
Dates: March 5–7, 2025
Location: University of Mainz, Germany

Submission deadline (extended): September 8, 2024
Notification: September 15, 2024

Workshop description

Expressivity is a category in natural languages that concerns the direct expression of emotions and attitudes (in contrast to their description). Expressive meaning can be conveyed at all linguistic level: by lexical expressions, special syntactic constructions, intonation or on the pragmatic level by expressive speech acts.

While there has been made tremendous progress in our understanding of the semantics, pragmatics, and (to a lesser degree) syntax of expressive language, the great majority of this work has focused on individual languages from a synchronic view. Hence, our understanding of the variation of expressivity between languages is very limited and mostly concerns aspects in which expressivity does not vary much between languages. And while there are some hints at variation within a language (see e.g. Gutzmann/Turgay 2015 on expressive intensifiers), this has not been studied systematically. And on the broader typological level, we do not even have a good idea of what the parameters are along which expressivity may vary between languages. Similarly, there is not much dedicated diachronic work on expressivity, so that the little that there is mostly borrows from grammaticalization and/or pragmaticalization theory (e.g. Davis/Gutzmann 2015, Müller 2024), leaving us without much insight into how expressive language actually and systematically emerges and evolves.

This workshop aims at filling this gap by encouraging and bringing together research on variation and change in expressivity. Questions that may be addressed at the workshop include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • With respect to which parameters/aspects does the expressions of expressivity vary across languages and which aspects are rather stable (and may point towards universals regarding expressivity)?
  • What are intra-language variations regarding expressivity? Are there, e.g., inter-speaker factors that influence the expression and use of expressive meanings (such as age, region, gender, and other sociolinguistic aspects)?
  • How do expressive expressions emerge and evolve over time? Are there regular patterns that can be attested? Can existing theories of semantic change explain these or are there specific ways in which expressivity arises and changes?
  • Contributions are encouraged to take broader views (and are invited to be a bit speculative in their conclusion), but studies on single expressive phenomena in languages that are understudied with respect to expressivity are also welcome.

Call for Papers

We invite contributions addressing the variation and change in expressivity and phenomena at all linguistic levels and working in all linguistic frameworks.

  • Please submit your abstract by September 8, 2024 to expressivity-dgfs2025@rub.de.
  • Abstracts should not exceed one page (DIN A4, 2.5cm margins, 12pt font, minimum of 1.2 line spacing).
  • You can include up to one additional page for examples and graphics.
  • You can include up to one additional page for references.

Important notes about DGfS 2025

The workshop is part of the 47th annual meeting of the German Linguistics Society (DGfS 2025) to be held from March 5–7 at University of Mainz. Participants are not allowed to give talks at different workshops (even though their name can appear as a co-author of talks at other workshops). Participants must register for the DGfS conference and pay the conference fee (we expect the fee to be between 30–130 € depending on status and time of registration). There are no additional fees for the workshop.

DGfS 2025 will feature 15 different workshops and four plenary talks (Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (U Cairns, Australia), Alex François (LATTICE, Paris), Gerhard Jäger (U Tübingen), Annemarie Verkerk (U Saarland)), as well as additional satellite events on Tuesday March 4 and  during the conference. There will also be social program in the evenings. We expect about 400 participants from all other the world. For more information watch out for the official DGfS 2025 website at University of Mainz (not online yet).