(Apologies for cross-posting) Workshop Complexity in Language Sciences December 12-13, 2024 Paris, France Submissions deadline : September 9, 2024
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While speaking, writing, listening and reading are easy, simple, and natural activities for those who practice them on a daily basis, what can be said about the cognitive and linguistic processes that underlie them? What about the languages in which these activities are practiced, and the theories and models developed to explain and represent the mechanisms involved? And finally, what can be said about individuals (speakers, listeners, writers, readers) who have not yet finished the learning process of these activities (children in the language acquisition phase, adults learning a second language), especially given that certain processes that may prove particularly difficult or even impossible (e.g.: writing in deaf people)? The question of complexity quickly arises, and the notion is regularly invoked in the language sciences, though often in a vague and intuition-driven way. In practice, this question takes on different forms depending on who is formulating it (psycholinguists, linguists, descriptive or model scientists, etc.) and who is targeted by it (speakers, listeners, natives, non-natives, learners, atypical subjects, etc.). In short, how complex, for whom and why? Is it necessary or contingent complexity? To answer these questions, we need to know what kind of complexity we're talking about: conceptual (e.g. representation of time and reference in languages), formal (e.g. at the phonological, graphic, morphological and syntactic level) or physiological (unnatural articulatory gestures, material constraints)? Does one complexity call for another (e.g. does the complex conception of time in a language call for a complex syntax, does formal complexity imply cognitive complexity and vice versa?).
The aim of this conference is to discuss the current state of the art on complexity in the language sciences. It will offer the opportunity to examine the history and use of the notion of complexity in linguistics, through a variety of theoretical and epistemological perspectives. Its ambition is to bring together linguists working on spoken and written language, NLP/computer scientists and psycholinguists, etc., to discuss the complexity that runs, to varying degrees, through the different components of language and discourse (segmental, suprasegmental, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic). The expected result is to elaborate a concept that will work for the community, however stratified it may be, since the criteria on which it is based are obviously many: • For the linguist, complexity is that which is not simple to represent and model, because (i) it is not easily predictable (e.g. unexpected constructions, productions that escape general rules), (ii) it could be of a continuous nature, and therefore difficult to isolate or categorize (e.g. the prosodic level of representation as opposed to the segmental level; opaque or indefinite reference)[1]. A complex element is also an observable that can be described but which resists explanation (e.g. errors in deaf writing). • For the human subject, everything that is unnatural and therefore difficult to produce or to hear (such as a foreign language) can be considered as complex. Complexity can also refer to units which are linguistically underspecified, and thus ambiguous or implicit, entailing a high cognitive load.
While human subjects or linguists might view complexity as an obstacle to learning or a challenge in representing language, complexity is conversely necessary to the very existence of natural languages and their uses. From a synchronic point of view, complexity plays a part in regulating the linguistic system, the internal balance of a language, based on a partition between complex and simple elements (e.g. poor morphology vs. complex tonal system in Chinese). What remains to be understood is how this balance is determined in languages. From a diachronic point of view, complexity seems to play the same role, whether it's a question of simplifying certain processes and maintaining the formal economy of the system (e.g. deletion of phonological oppositions with low functional output, grammaticalization processes), or, on the contrary, reintegrating complexity (e.g. the transition from pidgin to creole). This raises a question for the language sciences: how can we account for linguistic complexity? Which approach would be most adequate: typological and contrastive, or internal, experimental, or inductive on large corpora? How should complexity be measured, and what measurement standard should be proposed? Which scale and which descriptors should be used? For example, can we assume the existence of a neutral SVO sentence in order to work on complex structures in syntax? Can the concepts of transformation and movement proposed by generative grammar be used to work on syntactic complexity? If so, how? If not, what descriptors should be used to replace them: "easily" quantifiable descriptors (cf. work on text readability or simplification, which systematically use them), such as sentence length or the types of dependency between elements (e.g. number, length, direction)? The question of medium sheds a different light on complexity, particularly with regards to the syntactic component. Is the syntactic structure of a message more complex in spoken or written form? And from what point of view? In production or reception? From the point of view of language activity or from the point of view of linguistic representation and modeling? In semantics and pragmatics, how can we deal with the meaning-form relationship? How can we deal with ambiguity and implicitness? Can a text be simple, given that it contains a set of units and constructions that are themselves complex. If so, what mechanism of adjustment or qualitative change are necessary? In text linguistics, the notion of complexity has been seen in various ways; for example, through the study of the textualization process itself; through the measurement and quantification of writers' pauses or revisions; by the methods used in applied linguistics to simplify texts, too difficult to be understood and needing to be adapted for a particular audience. Finally, there's a central question in modeling: how does one manage the complexity of the object that is to be represented? How does one break down a complex object into simple elements without losing information? How can we understand which properties are necessary and sufficient to represent the system's operation? How can we approach the question of how multiple descriptors relate to each other using mathematical formulas that go further than the formulas proposed in the field of readability? Among the descriptors, one could for example be interested in units or dependency relations in syntax, in contours or tones in languages with accentual prosody, in operations underlying the description of the semantics of lexical and grammatical units (e.g. deictic operation), in referencing operations to different spaces of validation of predicative contents (e.g. hypothetic spaces), or even in different types of relations between textual units (e.g. embedding, inclusion, successivity). From the point of view of skill acquisition, a point of interest can be the way we can correlate linguistic structures and the stages of an individual's cognitive development.
Important dates: September 9, 2024 – abstract submissions October 15, 2024 - scientific committee decision December 12-13, 2024 - Workshop
Submission instructions: Abstracts, written in French or English, are due on September 9 at the latest: - 1 cover page including the name and affiliation of the author(s) ; - 1-2 pages of text (excluding references); - 3 to 5 keywords.
They should be sent to MAIL to: Delphine Battistelli, Modyco, Paris Nanterre : delphine.battistelli@parisnanterre.fr Georgeta Cislaru, Modyco, Paris Nanterre : georgeta.cislaru@parisnanterre.fr Sascha Diwersy, Praxiling, Paul Valéry Montpellier : sascha.diwersy@univ-montp3.fr Anne Lacheret, Modyco, Paris Nanterre : anne.lacheret@parisnanterre.fr Dominique Legallois, Lattice, Sorbonne Nouvelle : dominique.legallois@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
Scientific Committee: Basso Pierluigi, Université Lumière Lyon 2 Blache Philippe CNRS, ILCB, Laboratoire Parole & Langage, Université Aix Marseille Blumenthal-Dramé Alice, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies Brunetti Lisa, LLF, Université Paris Cité Feltgen Quentin, Université de Gand François Thomas, Cental, UCLouvain Gala Núria, LPL, Aix Marseille Université. Grandjean Didier, Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Université de Genève Heidlmayr Karin, MoDyCo, CNRS-Université Paris Nanterre Kahane Sylvain, MoDyCo, CNRS-Université Paris Nanterre Lampitelli Nicola, MoDyCo, CNRS-Université Paris Nanterre Landragin Frédéric, Lattice, CNRS Nadvornikova Olga, Université Charles, Prague Olive Thierry, CeRCA, CNRS – Université de Poitiers Prévost Sophie, Lattice, CNRS Watine Marie-Albane, BCL, Université Côte d’Azur Ziegler Johannes, Centre de Recherche en Psychologie et Neuroscience (CRPN) CNRS et Université Aix Marseille.
Selected References Barbaresi, Adrien. 2011. La complexité linguistique, méthode d’analyse. TALN Jun 2011, Montpellier, France. pp.229-234. Berthoz, Alain. 2009. La Simplexité, Paris, Odile Jacob. Bottineau, Didier. 2015. Les langues naturelles, objets complexes, systèmes simplexes : le cas du basque. In Begioni et Placella (dir.), Problématiques de langues romanes, Linguistique, politique des langues, didactique, culture, Hommages à Alvaro Rocchetti, Linguistica 69, Fasano, Schena Editore, pp. 55-85. Dahl, Östen. 2004. The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins. Do-Hurinville, Danh-Thành, Dao, Huy-Linh (dir.). 2017. La complexité et la comparaison des langues, ÉLA. Études de linguistique appliquée, n°185. Ehret, Katharina, Berdicevskis, Aleksandrs, Bentz, Christian, and Blumenthal-Dramé, Alice. 2023. Measuring language complexity: challenges and opportunities. Linguistics Vanguard, vol. 9, no. s1, pp. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2022-0133 Ellis, Nick C. & Diane Larsen-Freeman (eds). 2009. Language as a Complex Adaptive System. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Glaudert, Nathalie. 2011. La complexité linguistique : essai de théorisation et d’application dans un cadre comparatiste, Université de la Réunion. Housen, Alex, Kuiken, Folkert, and Vedder, Ineke. (Eds.). 2012. Dimensions of L2 Performance and Proficiency: Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency in SLA. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Laplantine, Chloé, Joseph, John E., and Aussant, Émilie (dir.) 2023. Simplicité et complexité des langues dans l’histoire des théories linguistiques. Paris : SHESL (HEL Livres, 3). Larsen-Freeman, Diane, & Cameron, Lynne. 2008. Complex Systems and AppliedLlinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lund, Kristine, Basso Fossali, Pierluigi, Mazur, Audrey & Ollagnier-Beldame, Magali (eds.). 2022. Language is a Complex Adaptive System: Explorations and evidence (Conceptual Foundations of Language Science 8). Berlin: Language Science Press. Martinot, Claire, Bosnjak Botica, Tomislava, Gerolimich, Sonia, and Paprocka-Piotrowska, Urszula (eds.) 2019. Reformulation and Acquisition of Linguistic Complexity. Crosslinguistic perspective. London: ISTE & Wiley. Sampson, Geoffrey, Gil, David, Trudgill, Peter (dir.). 2009. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable, Oxford Linguistics. Trudgill, Peter. 2001. Contact and simplification: Historical baggage and directionality in linguistic change. Language Typology, 5, 371–37.