Full Title: Referential Structure in Communication
Short Title: RED24

Date: 18-Mar-2024 - 19-Mar-2024
Location: University of Tokyo, Japan
Contact Person: Klaus von Heusinger
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://red.uni-koeln.de/red-2024-referential-structure-in-communication

Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories; Philosophy of Language; Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics; Semantics

Call Deadline: 11-Dec-2023

Meeting Description:

Referential expressions introduce, activate, and maintain the objects of our communicative actions. Referential structure itself is formed by the intricate interaction of referential information and conceptual information (Gernsbacher 1991; Brocher & von Heusinger 2018). Research has focused on the felicitous conditions of referential expressions (Ariel 1988) and the interaction of speaker-oriented planning and hearer expectation (Kehler et al. 2008, Bott & Solstad 2021), as well as on their interaction with prominence (von Heusinger and Schumacher 2019). Recent approaches also include the forward-looking function (or discourse structuring potential) of referential expressions (Chiriacescu & von Heusinger 2010), the role of quantifiers in the licensing of anaphoric expressions (Schmitt et al. 2017) and the role of questions of specification in the marking and interpretation of referential expressions (Onea 2021). Important advances have been also achieved in stochastic modeling of reference including redundancy effects (Degen et al. 2021) and extending current theories to Sign Languages (Schlenker 2018) While significant progress has been made in recent years, an overall integrative theory of reference in discourse and the dynamics of referential expressions in communication is still missing.
Keynote Speakers:

Chiara Gianollo, Bologna
Jesse Harris, Los Angeles
Jet Hoek, Nijmegen
Sofiana Lindemann, Brasov
Edgar Onea. Graz

Call for Papers:

We invite researchers in semantics, pragmatics, philosophy, and communication science to submit their original research, focusing on the contribution of referential expressions and discourse structure to establishing particular communicative effects and goals in discourse.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Referential expressions and discourse structure
• Pragmatic aspects of reference in conversation
• Cross-linguistic variations in referential communication
• Referential ambiguity and resolution
• Cognitive processes involved in reference comprehension
• Linguistic markers of reference in written and spoken discourse
• Referential structure in signed or non-verbal communication

Abstracts: We invite submissions for 30 min presentations (plus 15 min for discussion) in English. Abstracts should be anonymous and not longer than two pages (Times New Roman 12 pt., single space, 2,4 cm margins). They should be submitted in pdf format to [email protected]

Important dates: Deadline for submissions: December 11, 2023 Notification of authors: December 20, 2023 Workshop: 18-19 March 2024 Organizers: Klaus von Heusinger (University of Cologne) Yoshiki Mori (Tokyo University) Contact: [email protected]