Schemas in Language, Music, and Visual Cognition

We cordially invite submissions from linguists, psychologists, computer scientists, musicologists, media researchers and other experts from related fields and disciplines, whose research pursues topics dealing with schematicity in meaning construction in various contexts. Contributions dealing with schematicity related to image schemas, conceptual primitives, cross-modal correspondences, conceptual metaphor and metonymy, multimodality, in language, music and visual cognition will be particularly welcome. Also, we welcome research dealing with schematicity in the broader sense, i.e., studies dedicated to mental models, situation models, and semantic frames, all of which operate at a "macro-schematic" level which has a more pronounced connection with background knowledge structures and provides broader schematic structures of various types of discourse and interactions within the discourse.

Possible topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Theoretical Frameworks: novel theoretical approaches dealing with schemas in language, music, and visual cognition;
• Discourse studies: investigation of specialized discourse and specialized corpora for the use of schemas and the potential functions that such schemas may perform in those corpora. The possible sets of data for analysis could include written, spoken, or multimodal corpora;
• Cognitive Linguistics: investigations from various fields of Cognitive Linguistics (e.g., Corpus-based Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics and Discourse Analysis, Cognitive Linguistics and Multimodality, Cognitive Pragmatics, Cognitive Semantics, Cognitive linguistics, NLP and Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Grammar, Construction Grammar) dealing with the schematic nature of meaning construction in general;
• Semantic frames: exploring the schematic nature of semantic frames, their recruitment and refinement in specific contexts, their role in the process of online meaning construction; exploring the possible role of metaphorical framing in discourse;
• Psycholinguistics of metaphor comprehension: the investigation of metaphor comprehension, impact of individual differences on metaphor comprehension, impact of context on metaphor comprehension, impact of schematicity on metaphor comprehension;
• Mental models and situation models: exploring the schematic nature of situation models and mental models and their application in discourse modeling;
• Cognitive processing: the exploration of specific cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation, function, and use of schemas across different domains;
• Music cognition: the contribution of cognitive schemas to musical grammar, whether inspired by cognitive- or generative-linguistic frameworks (e.g. Lerdahl and Jackendoff's Generative Theory of Tonal Music, Zbikowski's Cognitive Grammar of Music, Larson's Musical Forces), and to musical semantics (e.g. the conceptualization of music, musical connotation and referentiality);
• Multimodality: the investigation of the role of conceptual blending in the integration of language, music, and visual elements; exploration of the interplay of language, music and visual elements in the process of meaning construction; design of novel computational models dealing with multimodal cognition; studies on how the principles of embodied cognition factor into the process of meaning construction in the context of multimodality.
• Computational models: design of novel computational models that incorporate schema-based approaches in understanding language, music, and visual cognition;
• Educational applications: exploration of the implications of schema-based learning strategies in educational contexts, including language acquisition, language learning, music education, and media studies;
• Cultural perspectives: investigation of how some specific cultural factors influence the development and utilization of schemas in various contexts of use.

Confirmed keynotes:

• Ray Jackendoff (Tufts / MIT),
• Todd Oakley (CWRU),
• Beate Hampe (Erfurt).

Abstract Submission to: https://forms.gle/bFLkpxz6FEg14uno7

Abstract Submission Deadline: August 1st, 2024.

Notifications of acceptance by September 1st, 2024.

We welcome proposals for talks of up to 20 minutes. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words.

Information on abstract acceptance by 1 Sep 2024.

The conference is kindly supported by the Serbian Science Fund (SCHEMAS project , Grant No. 7715934).

More information on the conference website: https://schemas.rs/conference2024/