Call For Papers: “Value in Language”.

Guest editor: Dan Zeman (Slovak Academy of Sciences).

Many expressions in natural language are used to convey how we value parts of the world – things, events, actions, people. We use them to express our own opinions, but they also help us gain insight into what others think. Value and valuing is a crucial part of our lives: it guides us into action, it categorizes the world around us, it shapes our identity.

The special issue focuses on questions in the semantics of natural language expressions that are used to express value and valuing. Evaluative expressions (moral terms like “good”, “bad” or “ought to”, aesthetic adjectives like “beautiful”, “ugly”, “balanced”, predicates of taste like “tasty”, “disgusting”, ”boring”, thick terms like “courageous” or “generous”), slurs like “boche” and expressives like “damn” are among the expressions that involve, in some way or another, valuing and value. Among the questions papers in the issue should address are the following:

-How do languages encode value (if at all)? - Should value be part of the semantics of a language or of pragmatics (or neither)?

- What are the best arguments for the main approaches to these expressions in the literature?

- How is disagreement involving the expressions in question to be accounted for?

- What is the connection between the semantics of these expressions and the social milieus in which they are used?

- How are the most prominent linguistic features of those expressions (e.g., the “hyper-projectivity” of slurs) to be treated?

The following authors have confirmed their contribution to the issue: Bianca Cepollaro (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University), Stefano Predelli (University of Nottingham), Pekka Väyrynen (University of Leeds). Papers up to 7500 words (including references) tackling the questions above (but also others that might be of interest) should be send to submissions@organonf.com with the subject “ViL special issue” by JULY 15, 2020. 4-6 papers will be selected for publication after double-blind refereeing. The special issue is planned to come out in the spring of 2021.