ICONice

A workshop on words and interfaces between representations

The rationale for our workshop is the following:

The complex interface between symbols and their referents — objects, events, and entities — remains a central and still puzzling issue for the scientific community. 

The organization of the mental lexicon appears to be a key component of this interface, yet many fundamental questions remain: 

What exactly is stored? How is this information structured? How is it acquired and transformed across the lifespan? And how does it influence language processing? 

Our workshop aims to bring together multidisciplinary research that addresses these long-standing questions, with a focus on word meanings, forms, and the interface between mental representations. 

Why ICONice ? 

Within this framework, iconicity holds a particular place, as it refers to a resemblance between linguistic form and meaning - in particular here a direct resemblance between the spoken form of an item and its meaning ; This includes sound symbolism (e.g., the English cluster gl- in glitter, glow, gleam, evoking light or visual properties) as well as onomatopoeia (e.g., buzz, bang, splash, where the sound mimics what it refers to). The worshop will also tackle this issue but is not restricted to that.

 contact us: raphael.fargier@univ-cotedazur.fr