EPITHETS & STAL-2025

Desctiption

EPITHETS (Explaining Pejoratives In THeoretical and Experimental TermS) is a multi-center project (UniGE, UniMiB, UniSR) that combines theoretical and experimental methods in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology to investigate negative expressives. 

STAL (Slurring Terms Across Languages) is an international and interdisciplinary workshop whose primary aim is to gather work on slurs from languages that have been seldom discussed and less studied phenomena in the recent philosophical and semantic literature, and in particular, from sign languages and non-Indo-European languages.

Invited speakers

Masha Esipova (Bar-Ilan University) and Elsi Kaiser (University of Southern California)

Special session

EPITHETS & STAL-2025 includes a special session Valence asymmetries in expressive language, supported by the ERC Advanced Grant VALENCE ASYMMETRIES n°101142133 (https://www.upf.edu/web/valence-asymmetries).

Program committee

Bianca Cepollaro (Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele), Filippo Domaneschi (DAFIST, Università di Genova), Isidora Stojanovic (Pompeu Fabra University), Dan Zeman (MLAG, University of Porto)

Organizing committee

Alessandra Zappoli (University of Genoa), Veronica Repetti (University of Genoa), Nicolò D'Agruma (University Vita-Salute San Raffaele), Giulia Giunta (University of Milano Bicocca)

Scientific committee

Justina Berskyte (University of Manchester), Heather Burnett (CNRS/Paris Cité University), Bianca Cepollaro (University Vita-Salute San Raffaele), Filippo Domaneschi (University of Genoa), Masha Esipova (Bar-Ilan University), Nicolas Lo Guercio (CONICET/University of Buenos Aires), Leopold Hess (Jagiellonian University), Elsi Kaiser (University of Southern California), Chang Liu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Elin McCready (Aoyama Gakuin University), Camilo Rodriguez Ronderos (University of Oslo), Andrés Saab (SADAF/University of Buenos Aires), Isidora Stojanovic (Pompeu Fabra University), Simone Sulpizio (University of Milano-Bicocca), Dan Zeman (University of Porto)

Program

Wednesday, May 7

10:00 Introduction
10:10 Edoardo Cavirani, Cora Pots & Guido Vanden Wyngaerd, “The Morphosyntax of Italian Expressive Binominals”
11:00 Chiara Ferrando, Andrea Marra, Lia Draetta, Cristina Bosco & Viviana Patti, “The Pragmatic Shift of Slurs: A Preliminary Linguistic Analysis of Reclamation in Digital Spaces”
11:50 Coffee break
12:10 Sebastian Walter & Cornelia Ebert, “Adding to the Expressive Typology: A Formal Analysis of Emblematic Gestures as Visual Expressives”
13:00 Lunch
15:00 Keynote talk. Elsi Kaiser, “Effects of Valence on Perspective Taking: Experimental Investigations of Epithets and Emoji”
16:00 Coffee Break
16:20 [Special session on Valence asymmetries in expressive language] Sara Amido & Adil Soubki, “Annotation of Face Effects as a Tool for Valence Analysis”
17:10 [Special session on Valence asymmetries in expressive language] Morgan Moyer, Anouch Bourmayan, Isidora Stojanovic & Brent Strickland, “Evaluating the Affect-First Hypothesis through Valence”

Thursday, May 8

10:30 Andrés Saab & Jan Casalicchio, “The Slur-Epithet Direction: The Case of Italian”
11:20 Coffee break
11:40 Robin Jeshion, “Intonation, Gesture, and Face Emojis: Explaining the Polysemy in Expressives, Exclamatives, and Slurs”
12:30 Lunch
14:30 Keynote talk. Masha Esipova, “Slurs in the Architecture of Grammar”
15:30 Coffee Break
15:50 [Special session on Valence asymmetries in expressive language] Kalle Glauch, “The Influence of Valence on the Interpretation of Expressive Adjectives”
16:40 [Special session on Valence asymmetries in expressive language] Shen Yi-Liao & Nat Hansen, “Reclaiming Slurs Over Apparent Time”
17:30 [Poster Session]
- Esben Petersen, “Conceptual Engineering of a Slur”
- Giovanna Silva & Renato Basso, “A Semantic Typology of Pejoratives Based on Animal Names in Brazilian Portuguese”
- Sage Rhys, “The Pragmatics and Phonology of Slurs in Mexican Spanish and Standard American English”

Contact

All questions about the workshop should be emailed to [email protected]