Plenary speakers

Abstract

Relevance: The Key Principle of All Communication

The humanities are in need of a general, all-encompassing model of communication. The contours of such a model actually already exist: Relevance Theory: Communication and Cognition (Blackwell 1986). In this monograph anthropologist Dan Sperber and linguist Deirdre Wilson claim that Paul Grice’s four “maxims of conversation” (of quantity, quality, relation, and manner) can actually be reduced to a single one: the maxim of relevance. RT’s central claim is that each act of communication comes with the presumption of its own optimal relevance to the envisaged audience. Hitherto, however, RT scholars (virtually all: linguists) have almost exclusively analysed face-to-face exchanges between two people who stand next to each other. The type of communication studied is thus predominantly verbal (perhaps supported by gestures and facial expressions).

In order to fulfil RT’s potential to develop into an inclusive theory of communication, it is necessary to explore how it can be adapted and refined to account for (1) communication in other modes than (only) the spoken verbal mode; and for (2) mass-communication. In Visual and Multimodal Communication: Applying the Relevance Principle (Oxford UP 2020) I take a first step toward this goal by proposing how RT works for mass-communicative messages that involve static visuals. In my presentation I will first provide a crash course in “classic” RT for non-linguists, and go on to demonstrate how the theory can be (made) applicable to visual and multimodal communication. Examples discussed include: logos & pictograms; print advertisements; and cartoons.

Importantly, RT is no less but also no more than a model, and has little to contribute to the analysis of specific instances of communication. Therefore, RT cannot replace other theories and approaches that provide analytical models for interpreting specific discourses, such as (social) semiotics, narratology, and stylistics. It only aims to provide an all-encompassing communication model within which the insights from other approaches can be put to optimal use.

Optional preparation for the talk: read https://semioticon.com/semiotix/2021/02/relevance-the-key-to-visual-multimodal-and-all-other-communication/ (2800 words) and/or watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNmHHf8NKQI (6 minutes).

Abstract

Cognitive Linguistics and the Social World

Much of the focus in cognitive linguistics has been on links between language, cognition and our physical environment (the embodiment thesis). Increasingly, however, there is a focus on the links between language, cognition and our social world. Applied in critical discourse analysis, analytical frameworks developed in cognitive linguistics have been able to shed light on the likely cognitive and consequent social effects of textual choices in media and political discourses, including discourses of immigration, civil disorder and international state conflict. More recently still, empirical methods have been used to test the effects of textual choices in reader-response studies. The results of these studies show that features of language and conceptualisation like metaphor, event-structure, point of view and distribution of attention matter but also that the dynamics of textual influence are nuanced. In this talk, I present a number of case studies in which cognitive linguistics has been used to interrogate the links between language, cognition and action in social and political contexts of communication.

Abstract

Combining corpus-linguistic and experimental methods for the study of alternations

In my talk I focus on combining various linguistic methods to find out what we can infer about linguistic variation from the patterns and structures we see in the language data. The case study I present comes from the Estonian language and pertains to the alternation between the exterior locative cases and the corresponding adpositions. I will first fit different machine classifiers (e.g. mixed-effects logistic regression, conditional inference trees and random forests) to the corpus data in order to see which variables contribute significantly to the model fit. The second part of the talk looks at the results of linguistic experiments (a forced choice task and an acceptability rating task) carried out on the same phenomenon. The discussion of the talk highlights some of the pros and cons of combining different methods for the study of alternations.

Abstract

Applied Cognitive Linguistics for Meaningful –and Successful!– L2 Language Teaching

Cognitive Linguistics, when applied to Second Language Acquisition and directly through instruction in the L2 classroom, has the potential to improve the way learners understand, process, and ultimately successfully learn their target language of choice.

In this talk, I will explain and illustrate how many of the key tenets of Cognitive Linguistics fit L2 instruction and how they reimagine what can be taught. Teaching methodologies and their compatibility with this approach will be discussed, but most importantly, I will address empirical testing in the field and with it, the elephant in the room: Why do many classroom-based research studies fall short of yielding the results we know that they should?

By recognizing the challenges and shortcomings of study design, I will offer recommendations for empirical testing. I will also share the positive outcome of a recent exploratory study on teaching verbs of emotion at the Elementary level in Spanish/L2. Our results indicate that alternative testing tasks that explicitly include a cognitive-based approach (instead of the usual fill-in-the-blanks or grammaticality judgments) can, in fact, give us new and exciting pathways to follow.