Theme Sessions


Theme session 1: Cartoons and comics;
organizers: Elżbieta Górska (University of Warsaw), Michał Szawerna (University of Wrocław), Charles Forceville (University of Amsterdam)

Theme session 2: Cognitive Linguistics in Pedagogical Application;
organizers: dr Grzegorz Drożdż, dr Barbara Taraszka-Drożdż (Uniwersytet Śląski)

Theme session 3: Cognitive grammar: grammatical patterns as patterns of meaning;
organizers: Iwona Kokorniak and Agata Kochańska

Theme session 4: Modification of events and states;
organizers: Claudia Maienborn, Britta Stolterfoht, Anna Prysłopska, and Edith Scheifele

Theme session 5: Encoding/decoding affect in communication
organizers: Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman (Adam Mickiewicz University), Kamila Dębowska-Kozłowska (Adam Mickiewicz University)

Theme session 1: Cartoons and comics

Elżbieta Górska (University of Warsaw)
Michał Szawerna (University of Wrocław)
Charles Forceville (University of Amsterdam)

Whether or not cartoons and comics constitute distinct genres is a matter of some controversy. While some scholars posit a clear-cut distinction between them (Saraceni 2003), others declare, no less categorically, that “[c]omics are a form of cartooning” (Waugh 1991 /1947/: 14). Adopting the latter stance, in this session we wish to explore the two genres with the aim to show why they are “intuitively interpreted on first encounter” (Miodrag 2013: 196). Referring to their characteristic affordances (The two media are invariably static and mute.), we will be analysing them as prime examples of visual thinking (Arnheim 1969).
Special attention will be given to two aspects of their interpretation. On the one hand, we will focus on their characteristic expressive resources (Forceville et al. 2014) — such as, for example, simplified as well as exaggerated pictorial images of people and objects, intentionally meaningful typography, balloonic representations of direct speech and thought (Forceville 2013), and context-dependent graphic flourishes dubbed pictorial runes (Kennedy 1982). It will be argued that, as signs optimally suited to represent their respective designata, such expressive resources, whose meanings are to a considerable extent “coded” (Cohn 2013) greatly contribute to the intuitive interpretation of cartoons and comics (Szawerna 2017). Equally important for our discussion will be the way the visual and the verbal mode are integrated (Górska 2017; Cornevin and Forceville 2017). We will show that the characteristic form of their expressive resources as well as the integration of verbal and the visual modes are both motivated by general cognition (conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, conceptual integration, etc.).
The two genres will be shown to afford spatialization of abstract concepts and ideas in a creative way. Last but not least, their persuasive power (Abdel-Raheem 2017) and their rhetorical functions will be the recurring themes in this session.

References

Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed. 2017. Can cartoons influence Americans’ attitudes toward bailouts? Visual Communication Quarterly 24, 179-191.
Arnheim, Rudolf. 1969. Visual Thinking. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Cohn, Neil. 2013. The Visual Language of Comics: Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images. London: Bloomsbury.
Cornevin, Vanessa and Charles Forceville. 2017. From metaphor to allegory: the Japanese manga Afuganisu-tan. Metaphor and the Social World 7(2), 235-251.
Forceville, Charles. 2013. Creative visual duality in comics balloons. In Tony Veale, Kurt Feyaerts, and Charles Forceville (eds.), The Agile Mind. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 253-
Forceville, Charles, Lisa El Refaie, and Gert Meesters. 2014. Stylistics and comics. In Michael Burke (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, London: Routledge, 485-499.
Górska, Elżbieta. 2017. Text-image relations in cartoons. A case study of image schematic metaphors. Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 134/3, 219–228.
Kennedy, John M. 1982. Metaphor in pictures. Perception 11(5), 589–605.
Miodrag, Hannah. 2013. Comics and Language: Reimagining Critical Discourse on the Form. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
Saraceni, Mario. 2003. The Language of Comics. London: Routledge.
Szawerna, Michał. 2017. Metaphoricity of Conventionalized Diegetic Images in Comics. A Study in Multimodal Cognitive Linguistics. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Waugh, Coulton. 1991 /1947/. The Comics. Reprint. London and Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi /New York, NY: Macmillan/.

Theme session 2: Cognitive linguistics in pedagogical applications

Grzegorz Dróżdż (University of Silesia)
Barbara Taraszka-Dróżdż (University of Silesia)

That cognitive linguistics has a lot to offer in the area of pedagogy has been stressed since the very early stages of the enterprise (cf. Hubbard 1978; Dirven 1989; Taylor 1993; Hubbard 1994). Today, these initial claims have grown in number, precision, extent, as well as have gained substantial empirical support (Pütz, Niemeier, Dirven 2001; Achard, Niemeier 2004; Boers, Lindstromberg 2006; De Knopp, De Rycker 2008; Boers, Lindstromberg 2008; Holme 2009; Tyler 2012, to name but a few). Within this general area, several specific directions of research can be distinguished: vocabulary teaching (Kövecses, Szabó 1996; Lindstromberg 1998; Tyler, Evans 2001, 2003; Boers, Lindstromberg 2008, etc.), grammar teaching (Hubbard 1978; Byrnes, Weger-Guntharp, Sprang 2006; De Knopp, De Rycker 2008; Tyler 2012, etc.), second and foreign language acquisition/ learning, language instruction (Robinson, Ellis 2008, etc.), and the learner’s mind (Pütz, Sicola 2010, etc.). While in each sphere a considerable progress can be observed, in each of them there are still new and exciting territories that need exploration.
That is why we invite abstracts for presentations that address any of the above and other pedagogical applications of cognitive linguistics. The suggested topics include (but are not restricted to) such dimensions of teaching and learning a language: vocabulary, constructions, or grammar at all levels of proficiency, language instruction in academic settings, mental processing and acquisition procedures, second and foreign language acquisition/ learning, second and foreign language instruction, etc.

References:

Achard, M., S. Niemeier (eds.). 2004. Cognitive Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and Foreign Language Teaching. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Boers, F., S. Lindstromberg (2006) Cognitive Linguistic approaches to second or foreign language instruction: Rationale, proposals and evaluation. In G. Kristaensen, R. Dirven, M. Achard, Ruiz-Mendoza (eds.), Cognitive linguistics: current applications and future perspectives (305-358). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Boers, F., S. Lindstromberg (eds.) 2008. Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Teaching Vocabulary and Phraseology. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Byrnes, H., H. Weger-Guntharp, K. A. Sprang (eds.). 2006. Educating For Advanced Foreign Language Capacities. Constructs, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
De Knopp, S., T. De Rycker (eds.) 2008. Cognitive Approaches to Pedagogical Grammar. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Dirven, R. 1989. Cognitive linguistics and pedagogic grammar. In G. Graustein, G. Leitner (eds.) Reference grammars and modern linguistic theory (56-75). Tübingen, Germany: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Holme, R. 2009. Cognitive Linguistics and Language Teaching. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hubbard, P. 1978. Understanding English modals through space grammar. Ohio University Working Papers in Linguistics and Language Teaching 8: 34-47.
Hubbard, P. 1994. Non-transformational theories of grammar: implications for language teaching. In T. Odlin (ed.) Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar (49-71). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kövecses, Z., P. Szabó. 1996. Idioms: A View from Cognitive Semantics. Applied Linguistics 17(3): 326-355.
Pütz M., S. Niemeier, R. Dirven (eds.). 2001. Applied Cognitive Linguistics I: Theory and Language Acquisition. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Pütz, M., L. Sicola (eds.) 2010. Cognitive Processing in Second Language Acquisition. Inside the learner’s mind. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Robinson, P., N. C. Ellis (eds.). 2008. Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second language Acquisition. New York/ London: Routlege.
Taylor, J. 1993. Some pedagogical implications of cognitive linguistics. In R. Geiger, B. Rudzka-Ostyn (eds.) Conceptualizations and Mental Processing in Language (201-223). Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Tyler, A. 20012. Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Learning: Theoretical Basics and Experimental Evidence. New York/ London: Routlege.

Theme session 3: Cognitive Grammar: Grammatical patterns as patterns of meaning

Iwona Kokorniak (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan)
Agata Kochańska (University of Warsaw)

One of the basic assumptions of Cognitive Grammar is that language is fundamentally symbolic in nature, that is, that the lexical and grammatical resources of a language alike can, and should be, properly characterized as form-meaning pairings. This means that grammatical units such as tense, aspect, modality, determiners, particles, grammatical constructions of various sorts, etc. “can be semantically characterised along the same lines” as lexical units (Evans and Green 2006: 512) and that grammatical phenomena are conceptually motivated (cf. ibid.).
This session focuses on the grammatical end of the lexicon-grammar spectrum. Our aim will be to provide conceptual characterizations of diverse grammatical phenomena along the lines proposed by Langacker (e.g. 1987, 1991, 1999, 2008, 2009, 2016) and Talmy (2000a, 2000b, 2007) and to demonstrate that the conventional schematic conceptual import of grammatical structures motivates their distribution in specific contexts, as well as the specific semantic and pragmatic effects the structures in question produce in these contexts.
Hence, we invite papers analyzing the conceptual import of grammatical structures of diverse sorts and attempting to offer a conceptual motivation for their behavior in context. The analyses can be conducted either at the very generic level of abstract categories, such as tense, aspect, modality, etc., or at the more specific level of construction items, such as verb particles or determiners. The papers may involve either cross-linguistic comparisons or an in-depth analysis of a particular phenomenon within a single language. The general topics to be considered may include the role of grammatical structures as imposing particular schematic construals on the conceived scene, grounding, the epistemic, interactive and/or interpersonal import of grammatical structures, methodological issues, etc.

References:

Evans, Vyvyan and Melanie Green. 2006. Cognitive Linguistics. An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Langacker, Ronald. W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald. W. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2: Descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald. W. 1999. Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin. Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker, Ronald W. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald W. 2009. Constructions and constructional meaning, in: Vyvyan Evans and Stéphanie Pourcel (eds.), New directions in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 225-267.
Langacker, Ronald W. 2016. Nominal structure in Cognitive Grammar: The Lublin lectures. Głaz, Adam, Hubert Kowalewski and Przemysław Łozowski (eds.). Lublin: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Press.
Talmy, Leonard. 2000a. Toward a cognitive semantics. Vol. 1: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
Talmy, Leonard. 2000b. Toward a cognitive semantics. Vol. 2: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
Talmy, Leonard. 2007. Grammatical construal: The relation of grammar to cognition, in: Dirk Geeraerts (ed.), Cognitive Linguistics: Basic readings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 69-108.

Theme Session 4: Modification of Events and States

Claudia Maienborn (SFB 833, Tübingen University)
Britta Stolterfoht (SFB 833, Tübingen University)
Anna Prysłopska (SFB 833, Tübingen University)
Edith Scheifele (SFB 833, Tübingen University)

The nature of states and events has been widely discussed in the theoretical literature (Maienborn, in press). Since Vendler (1957), the distinction between dynamic situations (“opening a window”) and non-dynamic situations (“loving my mother”) has been at the center of a heated discussion. Do states and events differ in logical structure or do they share more core properties than differences? Despite the plethora of linguistic theories, there are few studies on the cognitive foundation of these phenomena. The insights concerning processing differences between event and state expressions are unclear and require experimental corroboration. On the one hand, there is evidence from reading latencies, that processing events is more demanding than processing states (Gennari and Poeppel, 2003; Alex-Ruf, 2016). On the other hand, there is evidence that states are embedded in a more diversely linked network, making their processing involve more cognitive effort than processing events (Coll-Florit and Gennari, 2011). To differentiate between situation types, the combination with adverbial modifiers (temporal and manner in a broader sense) is one of the prominent diagnostics in the theoretical literature (Maienborn, 2003). Over the last twenty years, a growing body of psycholinguistic studies investigated the processing of modification with regard to situation types, with the main focus on aspectual and event coercion (Brennan and Pylkkänen, 2008; Bott, 2010). How modification might be used to distinguish between events and states during language processing is still an open question.
Our workshop focuses on whether and how psycholinguistic experiments address the available theoretical alternatives, and how semantic and pragmatic theory can contribute to a cognitively plausible model of the processing of events and states. We welcome contributions that relate to the following topics:
  • Empirical approaches to modification of states and events
  • Theoretical approaches to a cognitive model of the processing of situation types
  • Case studies of phenomena on the border of states and events
  • Types of modification and how they affect the state/event divide
  • Cognitive processes underlying the processing of states and events
References

Alex-Ruf, Simone. Die Temporalität von Situationen. Empirische Studien zu Zeitbezug und Situationstyp. PhD thesis, Universität Tübingen, 2016.
Bott, Oliver. The processing of events. John Benjamins Publishing, 2010.
Brennan, Jonathan and Pylkkänen, Liina. Processing events: Behavioral and neuromagnetic correlates of aspectual coercion. Brain and Language, 106(2): 132–143, 2008.
Coll-Florit, Marta and Gennari, Silvia. Time in language: Event duration in language comprehension. Cognitive Psychology, 62:41–79, 2011.
Gennari, Silvia and Poeppel, David. Processing correlates of lexical semantic complexity. Cognition, 89:B27–B41, 2003.
Maienborn, Claudia. Die logische Form von Kopula-Sätzen. Akademie-Verlag (studia grammatica 56), 2003.
Maienborn, Claudia. Events and states. Oxford University Press, in press. Vendler, Zeno. Verbs and times. The philosophical review, pages 143–160, 1957.

Theme session 5: Encoding/decoding affect in communication

Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Kamila Dębowska-Kozłowska (Adam Mickiewicz University)

Both cognitive and affective content need to be factored in to account for the many facets of communication. This session is aimed at providing a forum for a multidisciplinary discussion on empirical and theoretical aspects of how affect and language interact in communication. We are interested in putting together the varying modalities and modes of expressing and processing affective meaning.
We want to explore how the linguistic content is combined with the affective content in the study of multimodal communication that involves both affective encoding and affective cognition. When communicating people encode the foremost contents of their minds, thoughts and feelings into multimodal repertoire of cues: verbal, vocal and visual (face- and body-language). Communication relies on the complex multimodal systems of meaning encoded and expressed via these diverse modalities of verbal and nonverbal signs. Affective cognition, i.e. the use of domain-general reasoning for processing affective content that is situation specific, is part of communicative decoding. Emotional cue integration is thus seen as a part of inferential processing that relies on multimodal contextual cues. Our session aims to investigate these diverse communicative modalities employed to communicative means in meaning-sharing, and meaning-making.
Since we delve into a truly interdisciplinary field of investigation with a vast array of methods applied to its studying, we encourage contributions from linguistics and beyond as long as they are probing the means and modes of affective communication and its comprehension. Multidisciplinary research frameworks employing multimodal data, verbal, visual, paralinguistic, audio and audio-visual – are welcome.
Possible foci include:
  • verbal and non-verbal signs of communication of affective meanings (e.g., kinesics, gestures);
  • verbal and vocal cues in affective communication
  • affect/language interactions in L1/L2
References

Bar M. 2011. Predictions in the Brain: using our past to generate a future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barrett, L.F. 2017. How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Lewis, Haviland-Jones, Barrett (eds.) 2008. Handbook of Emotions. The Guildford Press: New York.
Mesquita, Barrett and Smith (eds.) 2010. The Mind in Context. The Guilford Press: New York.
Ong D.C., J. Zaki, N. D.Goodman. 2015. Affective cognition: Exploring lay theories of emotion. Cognition, 141-162.
Planalp, S. 1999. Communicating Emotion. Social, Moral, and Cultural Processes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.