Linguists from the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin are organising the interdisciplinary workshop "Social Meaning Berlin 2023" on 14 and 15 November 2023. The workshop is the third international event in a series on social meaning as part of the Collaborative Research Centre 1412 'Register'.
Research on social meaning assumes that, depending on the situation, speakers not only decide what to say, but also how to say something and thus reveal information about their identity, attitudes and ideologies to their counterparts - whether consciously or unconsciously.
While sociolinguistic research has traditionally focussed on how social structures and ideological attitudes are reflected, constructed and passed on through language use, the topic of social meaning has recently also become the focus of other linguistic sub-disciplines. One assumption here is that it is not only the choice of linguistic expressions and their phonological realisation that convey social meaning, but that social meaning is expressed at all linguistic levels, for example in grammatical structures or non-verbal communication. What is also new is the assumption that social meaning can not only be described, but also modelled using formal means. Social meaning is a central research topic of the Leibniz Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS), but also of the DFG Collaborative Research Centre 1412 'Register', which is jointly run by ZAS and HU Berlin.
The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers from very different disciplines to share and discuss new findings and common interests around the topic of social meaning. What can they learn from each other? What questions do they have in common? And where do their interests, assumptions and goals diverge?
All lectures and poster presentations will be held in English. Participant registration is closed. However, interested media representatives are welcome to register by emailing Dr. Fabienne Salfner at presse@leibniz-zas.de.
More information about the event can be found at: https://www.leibniz-zas.de/de/das-zas/veranstaltungen/details/events/social-meaning-berlin-2023