A proposal for the theme session "Linguistics of temperature" at the International
Cognitive Linguistics Conference 2009 (Berkeley, U.S.A., July 28-August 3)
Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm (Stockholm university), tamm@ling.su.se
Content
Temperature phenomena are universal, relatively easily perceptible by humans and
crucial for them, but their conceptualisation involves a complex interplay between
external reality, bodily experience and evaluation of the relevant properties with
regard to their functions in the human life. The meanings of temperature terms are,
thus, both embodied and perspectival. Rather than reflecting the external world
objectively, they offer a naïve picture of it, permeated with folk theories that are
based on people’s experience and rooted in their culture (cultural models).
Languages differ as to how many temperature terms they have and how these
categorize the temperature domain in general. Temperature terms can belong to
different word classes, even within one and the same language. Word-class attribution
of temperature expressions and their possible syntactic constructions are sensitive to
their semantics.
Temperature meanings are often semantically related to other meanings, either
synchronically (within a polysemantic lexeme) or diachronically. Thus, temperature
concepts often serve as source domains for various metaphors and are extended to
other perceptional modalities (‘hot spices’). Temperature meanings can also develop
from others, e.g., ‘burn, fire’ >’hot’, or ’ice’ > ’cold’. Finally, the meanings of
temperature terms can also change within the temperature domain itself. While some
languages show extensive semantic derivation from the temperature domain, others
lack it or use it to a limited degree. Languages vary as to which temperature term has
predominantly positive associations in its extended use, partly due to the different
climatic conditions.
Temperature terms have received relatively little attention. Cross-linguistic
research on temperature is mainly restricted to Sutrop (1998, 1999) and Plank (2003).
There has been no cross-linguistic research on the grammatical behaviour of
temperature expressions, apart from a few mentions.
In theoretical semantics, temperature adjectives have mainly figured in discussions
of lexical fields, antonymy and linguistic scales (cf. Lehrer 1970, Cruse & Togia
1995, Sutrop 1998, cf. also Clausner & Croft 1999). Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Rakhilina
2006 suggest that linguistic categorization of the temperature domain is sensitive to
several parameters, that are important and salient for humans and can be
distinguishable by simple procedures relating to the human body. Goddard &
Wierzbicka (2006) propose the general formula for describing the language-specific
meanings of temperature terms via reference to fire.
Extended uses of temperature words have been studied indirectly in cognitive
linguistics, primarily in research on the metaphors underlying emotions, e.g.
AFFECTION IS WARMTH (Lakoff & Johnson 1997:50) and ANGER IS HEAT (Kövecses
1995, also Goossens 1998; cf. also Shindo 1998-99). An important question raised in
Geeraerts & Grondelaers (1995) is to what degree such extensions reflect universal
metaphorical patterns or are based on common cultural traditions. The current
empirical evidence for the suggested metaphors is still relatively meagre.
The workshop contains contributions that discuss the linguistics of temperature in
particular languages and across languages from various angles, e.g.:
– Lexicalization of temperature concepts, categorization within the temperature
domain, e.g. what temperature concepts are encoded as words across languages, what
distinctions are made in the systems of temperature terms and what factors underlie
them?
– Lexicon-grammar interaction within the temperature domain, e.g. How are
temperature concepts lexicalized across languages in terms of word classes? What
syntactic constructions are used for talking about temperature perception?
– Semantic extensions and motivation relevant for the temperature domain: What are
the possible semantic extensions of the temperature meanings to other domains and
how can these be related to their concrete meanings? Where from do the temperature
terms come? What general metaphorical and metonymical models underlie the
semantic evolution of the expressions related to the temperature domain?
The workshop is envisaged as a contribution to the field in several respects:
1) by drawing attention of the cognitively oriented linguists to a domain, which is of
central importance for humans and has multiple linguistic and extra-linguistic
links, but has previously received very little attention in linguistic research;
2) by providing an opportunity for gathering experts on a wide range of genetically
and areally different languages from different climatic environments (five
African, seven European, eight Asian and one Meso-American) and enabling a
systematic cross-linguistic comparison of the conceptualization of the temperature
domain and its relation to the general climatic conditions and the cultural models;
3) by testing some of the previously suggested generalizations, e.g., on the
universality of such metaphors as AFFECTION IS WARMTH and ANGER IS HEAT
across a wide range of languages;
4) by testing and discussing the various methodological and theoretical issues
relating to cross-linguistic research on perception (e.g., data collection and a
reasonable meta-language),
It is also hoped that the theme session can stimulate future cross-disciplinary research
on temperature perception.
Participants and papers (!+bold refers to the contributions that are
in one or another respect different from the earlier proposal
submitted on September 15)
1. Felix K. Ameka (Leiden University Centre for Linguistics/
Dept of African Languages and Cultures), f.k.ameka@hum.leidenuniv.nl
“Hard sun, Hot weather and Skin pain”: The ethnosyntax and semantics of
temperature expressions in two Kwa languages in contact
2. Samuel Awinkene Atintono (University of Education, Winneba, Ghana),
atintono@yahoo.com
“The Semantics of Temperature Terms in Gurenɛ”
!3. Paulette Roulon-Doko (LLACAN, CNRS-France), roulon@vjf.cnrs.fr
“Lexicalization of temperature concepts in Gbaya, an Ubanguian language of C.A.R.”
4. Loïc-Michel Perrin (LLACAN, CNRS-France), perrin@vjf.cnrs.fr
"The representations of temperature in Wolof"
5. Katarina Rasulic (English Department, University of Belgrade), ekv@eunet.yu
“What’s hot and what’s not in English and Serbian: A contrastive view on the
semantic extensions of temperature adjectives”
6. Katerina Stathi (Free University Berlin), katerina.stathi@fu-berlin.de
“Temperature adjectives in Modern Greek: a preliminary approach”
!7. Ahti Nikunlassi & Ekaterina Protassova (Department of Slavic and Baltic
Languages and Literatures, University of Helsinki), ahti.nikunlassi@helsinki.fi,
ekaterina.protassova@helsinki.fi
“Temperature terms in Finnish”
!8. Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia, Linguistic Department), Paolo Mascheretti
(University of Pavia, Department of Physics “A. Volta”) & Maria Pia Riccardi
(University of Pavia, Department of Earth Sciences), silvia.luraghi@unipv.it
“Asymmetries in Italian temperature terminology”
9. Michael Daniel (Moscow State University) &
Victoria Khurshudyan (Russian State University for Humanities),
misha.daniel@gmail.com, vkhurshudyan@yahoo.com
“Temperature terms in modern Eastern Armenian”
10. Erik Redling (Univ. of Augsburg / the University of California, Berkeley),
erik.redling@phil.uni-augsburg.de
"'Play That Thing, You Jazz Mad Fools!': Conceptualizing HOT and COOL in Jazz
Poetry"
11. Russell Alfonso (Hawaii Pacific University, Honolulu), Kenneth William Cook
(Hawaii Pacific University, Honolulu) & Paulo Martins (Chaminade University,
Honolulu), kencook@hawaii.edu
“ Smokin' at the Half Note”
12. Mika Shindo (Kyoto University), mikashindo@gmail.com
“Subdivisions of Temperature Concepts”
!13. Hilário de Sousa & Nick Enfield (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics,
Nijmegen), hilario.desousa@mpi.nl, nick.enfield@mpi.nl
“Thermoceptual expressions in Lao and Cantonese”
14. Hu Chunmei, He Lin, Li Jingjing (School of English Studies, Xi¡¯an International
Studies University, China), huchunmei@xisu.edu.cn, hu_sarah@hotmail.com
“The temperature metaphor network in Mandarin Chinese”
!15. Kyung-Joo Yoon (Australian National University), kyung-joo.yoon@anu.edu.au
“What do Koreans mean by siwonhata (cool) when they use it about boiling hot
soup?”
16. Henrik Liljegren (Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University/SIL
International) & Naseem Haider (Frontier Language Institute, Peshawar),
henrik@ling.su.se, naseem@fli-online.org
“Facts, feelings and the lexicalization of temperature expressions in Palula of the
Hindu Kush”
17. Peter Edwin Hook (University of Michigan) & Prashant Pardeshi (Kobe
University), Peter.E.Hook@gmail.com, prashantpardeshi@gmail.com
“Blowing hot, hotter, and hotter yet: Temperature vocabulary in Indo-Aryan and its
extension to the world of emotions”
18. Olivier Le Guen (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen),
OlivierLeGuen@mpi.nl
“Temperature terms and their meaning in Yucatec Maya”
19. Regina Pustet (University Munich /Colorado University Boulder),
pustetrm@yahoo.com
“Experiencer marking in temperature expressions”
!20. Michèle FRUYT (Latin Department, University of Paris IV – Sorbonne),
michele.fruyt@club-internet.fr
“The expression of temperature in Latin”
!21. Maria Brykina (Moscow State University) & Valentin Gusev (Institute of
Linguistics, Moscow), vgoussev@yandex.ru, mashukm@mail.ru
“Temperature terms in Nganasan”
!22. Frans Plank & Michael Spagnol (Dept. of linguistics, University at Konstanz),
Frans.Plank@uni-konstanz.de, michael@uni-konstanz.de
“Designations for in-between grades and stages, with particular reference to rising
and falling temperature”