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newcastle.ac.uk>*************************************************************************** Harmony: Culture, Cognition and Communication in East Asia There seems little controversy about the fact that interpersonal communication is goal-directed. The goal itself, however, is often culture-specific. Hall observed in Beyond Culture (1976) that, in 'high-context' cultures such as those of East Asia, most of the meaningful information in interactional communication is in the context, which is not only shared by the speaker and the hearer, but also internalised in their cognition. Those participating in interactions do so with well-developed knowledge of mutual relations and a high sensitivity to nonverbal cues and subtle affect. People from Western cultures, especially low-context cultures where interactional communication can be characterised as much more direct and explicit verbal communication, often find this kind of communication ambiguous and confusing. Such ambiguity, however, has not acted as a motivation for people to learn more about each other in relation to what make sense in their cultures, as Hall called for, but given rise to a series of stereotypical dichotomies such as collective vs individualistic, or dependent vs independent. The purpose of this panel, therefore, is to overcome these simplistic dichotomies by exploring language use and communication of East Asia in relation to whata make sense in their cultures. As the first step of a series of such explorations, we shall focus on 'harmony', the core cultural value. In East Asian cultures, 'harmony' is a keynote of existence. Individuals strive to reconcile divergent forces, principles and points of view in order to maintain harmony. In accordance with Confucian teachings, which dominate the cultural cognition of East Asians, confrontation is avoided and 'face' protected. Mutually satisfactory and face-saving outcomes are the goal of communication and take precedence over the attainment of any other goal by any one individual. Lest one stereotype be replaced by another, the reality of changes in language use should not be ignored. To what extent are Western patterns of interaction finding their way into East Asian cultures? What forms might they take? Where might they be found? What are the consequences? The proposed forum aims to gather contributors from different disciplinary backgrounds to examine in a detailed and systematic manner the impact of the goal of 'harmony' on language use and communication in East Asian countries . Variations among different groups as well as among neighbouring regions may highlight differences in the understanding of the concept of harmony, and are expected to be brought up for discussion. Such variations may be the result of many factors, or outside influences, of social change, of time. Contributions can take the form of a 15-minutes paper presentation on field observations, experiments or discourse data analysis. Those who are interested in participating should contact 1) Professor Li Wei, Department of Speech, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK (Fax: +44 (0) > 191 222 6518; e-mail: li.weiMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
zfn.uni-bremen.de>!!! NEW DEADLINE !!! CALL FOR PAPERS 28th LAUD SYMPOSIUM University of Koblenz-Landau at Landau (Germany) 28-31 March 2000 Ten Years After: Cognitive Linguistics: Second Language Acquisition, Language Pedagogy, and Linguistic Theory The LAUD symposium held in Duisburg in 1990 marked "the birth of cognitive linguistics as a broadly grounded, self-conscious intellectual movement" (Langacker). Ten years after this First International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, LAUD once again invites papers related to general issues of cognitive linguistics with special reference to language acquisition research and language pedagogy. Although cognitive linguistics can certainly be characterized as the most rapidly expanding linguistic paradigm of the last decade, the impact of this linguistic theory on research in language acquisition and foreign language teaching has not even appeared at the periphery of CL. Since the earliest stages, the pedagogical implications of CL have been largely ignored. Consequently, LAUD 2000 intends to stimulate the contributions that CL can make to the areas of language acquisition and language pedagogy. Simultaneously, it wants to discuss new positions and developments in more general fields of cognitive linguistics research. The conference is therefore aimed at three interrelated areas within cognitive linguistics. We invite papers which consider (1) the interaction between language, cognition and acquisition, (2) the pedagogical implications that cognitive linguistics may favour, and (3) cognitive principles of linguistic, i.e. conceptual organization (1) Language, cognition, and language acquisition Specific areas of inquiry at the symposium will include, but will not be limited to: - models of second language acquisition in natural settings - cognitive approaches to language learning research - psycholinguistic experiments in language learning - comprehension and production strategies in language learning - languages in contrast: L1 and L2 conceptualizations - corpus requirements in language learning - the role of the first language - the role of memory and lexical learning (2) Pedagogical implications favoured by cognitive linguistics Specific areas of inquiry at the symposium will include, but will not be limited to: - general: insights prevailing in CL and their possible relevance for the teaching of grammar/vocabulary in foreign language pedagogy - basic level items and prototype categories in the acquisition of vocabulary - CL and pedagogical grammars - the function of a cognitive grammar of English - from meaning-focused to form-focused instruction - the role of grammatical rules as applications of cognitive principles - CL and the 'consciousness raising' movement - the teaching of language-specific conceptualizations (3) Cognitive principles of linguistic, i.e. conceptual organization Specific areas of inquiry at the symposium will include, but will not be limited to: - linguistic categories and cognitive models - conceptual metaphors and metonymies, e.g. emotion concepts - schemas and prototypes exploited and built up in and across language(s) - construals within languages and across languages - iconicity in language and thought - language and space as the basis of concrete and abstract conceptualization - language, culture and thought, i.e. language as a culture's symbolization The final date for submitting one-page abstracts will be July 1, 1999. Abstracts should be sent by email to each of the following, from whom further information can also be obtained: Martin P\252tz email: <puetzMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue