LINGUIST List 14.2844

Sat Oct 18 2003

Confs: Pragmatics/Discourse Analysis/Switzerland

Editor for this issue: Prashant Nagaraja <prashantlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Louis.deSaussure, Pragmatic Interfaces / Interfaces pragmatiques

Pragmatic Interfaces / Interfaces pragmatiques 
Date: 12-Feb-2004 - 14-Feb-2004
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Contact: Michaela Popa
Contact Email: Michaela.Popalettres.unige.ch 
Meeting URL: http://www.unige.ch/lettres/latl/interfaces/index.html


Linguistic Sub-field: Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis

Meeting Description:

International colloquium on interfaces and relations between current
approaches in pragmatics and discourse analysis Colloque international
sur les relations entre les approches actuelles en pragmatique et
analyse du discours The international colloquium PRAGMATIC INTERFACES
will be held at the University of Geneva, 12-14 FEB 2004, room S160,
Campus Uni-Mail.

Scientific coordination:

Louis de Saussure & Peter Schulz
University of Geneva / University of Lugano

The colloquium addresses a range of issues relating to the possible
and impossible relations and interfaces between current theories in
pragmatics and discourse analysis.

Pragmatic theories, although they all focus on language in use, don't
only oppose each-other through methodology and epistemology, but also
through their domain of study.

Some describe social interaction and consider discourse as a document
for that task. Others tackle the cognitive process of interpretation
in context. Others discuss semantic issues in discourse, argumentative
processes, symbolic or semiotic aspects of discourse, or various other
psychological aspects of linguistic practice.

These oppositions result from profound epistemological discrepancies
that show how much the sciences of language are situated at the
crossroads of materialistic naturalistic methodologies and methods in
social sciences (which in turn are all but homogeneous, see the
difference between psychosocial approaches to speech acts and
ethnomethodological conversational pragmatics for example).

It's crucial for the development of pragmatics that researchers focus
on these differences, but also on potential converging lines, and, of
course, to exploit them in the future. Here resides the main objective
of the colloquium.

The main issues addressed by the colloquium are, among others, the
following:

- Is an interface possible between any radical pragmatic theory and
any discourse analysis theory?

- To what extent macro-discursive phenomena can be tackled by radical
pragmatics, in particular discourse organisation, dialogue /
interaction, and literature?

- To what degree of granularity meaning and reasoning integrate into
models in discourse analysis? And what kind of theory of meaning is
(potentially) used by theories in discourse analysis?

- Is there a path towards an interplay between theories that consider
cognition as individual and approaches that assume facts of
''collective'' cognition?

- Is it necessary to posit strict limits for each kind of approach, or
should we consider that they are competing on a unique and exclusive
domain?

- What are the view of scholars in related fields such as syntax,
semantics, philosophy of language and psychology?

The colloquium will be held in English and French.

SPEAKERS
Nicholas ALLOTT (London)
Nicholas ASHER (Austin)
Antoine AUCHLIN (Geneva)
Alain BERRENDONNER (Fribourg)
Diane BLAKEMORE (Salford) 
Robyn CARSTON (London)
Paul CHILTON (Norwich)
Paul DANLER (Innsbruck)
Marc DOMINICY (Brussells)
Laurent FILLIETTAZ (Geneva)
Hans KAMP (Stuttgart)
Jacques MOESCHLER (Geneva)
Andrea ROCCI (Lugano)
Louis de SAUSSURE (Geneva)
Peter SCHULZ (Lugano)
Frans VAN EEMEREN (Amsterdam)
Daniel VANDERVEKEN (Québec)
Deirdre WILSON (London)
Ruth WODAK (Vienna)

Free admission.

All practical information is available on the conference's website:
http://www.unige.ch/lettres/latl/interfaces/index.html