WHO?
MEANING LAB
about us
We are a team of faculty and student researchers absorbed by questions about meaning and its links with language, culture and cognition. Established in March 2017 for the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Toronto Metropolitan University’s Meaning Lab is now housed in the Faculty of Arts’ Research Collaboratory (POD 469). Directed by Jamin Pelkey and Stéphanie Walsh Matthews, the Lab has led to significant outcomes, including four federal grants (SSHRC-CRSH, Mitacs), the organization of three international conferences in Semiotics (Semiofest 2017, IACS 2018, SemAnt 2022), facilitation of the Toronto Semiotic Circle lecture series, cognitive trials exploring mindfulness and multimodal language processing, human-robot interaction programming design for research at the intersection of cognitive linguistics and autism spectrum disorder, multiple editing projects in semiotics, linguistics, anthropology and rhetoric culture, plus other research activities and publications. Current lab members include four faculty researchers, one postdoctoral researcher, two PhD researchers, and 30+ research alumni.
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language
MODELLING POSSIBLE
WORLDS
The Chinese character “意” (yì)* evokes our cross-modal, meaning-centric approach to language as a dynamic pattern-system of blended signs-about-signs useful for modeling possible worlds (for better or for worse). What is this shared ability and how does it express meaning across an array of semiotic resources, including speech and writing? What, for example, does “意” mean? “意” means ‘meaning’; but meaning”
WHAT?
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culture
(UN)LEARNING
WHO AND HOW TO BE
Chen Rong’s painting of ‘Nine Dragons’* evokes for us the oppositions, vagaries, habits, and wonders of comparative culture. Who is in and who is out? What is fitting and what “don’t fit”? As human beings, we are always learning and unlearning to navigate intercultural relations: the ever unfolding levels and intersections of socially constructed realities (and ideologies) all around us and all around the world.
*(九龍圖卷, 1244)
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cognition
MOVING, BLENDING, REMEMBERING
The echeveria succulent* evokes our embodied, process-oriented approach to human cognition as something grounded and growing, cooperating and resilient, patterned and replicating. How do things mean what they mean? What are consciousness, learning, knowing, experiencing and remembering? How does human understanding relate to (and diverge from) the cognition of animals and plants? Good questions. *(wiki, p.c.)
WHERE?
MEANING LAB
contact us
Toronto Metropolitan University ■ POD 469 ■ 350 Victoria St., Toronto, ON, M5B 1G8