Exploring Xenolinguistics Workshop | College of Liberal Arts | SIU

Exploring Xenolinguistics: Next steps in exploring the nature of language and the potential of extraterrestrial communication

Date: 9 November 2024
Location: Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Illinois USA
Contact Person: Jeffrey Punske
Meeting Contact Email: punske@siu.edu

This workshop serves as a platform for experts to share insights, exchange ideas, and foster collaborations that will shape the future of Xenolinguistics. We aim to catalyze innovative research and pave the way for new discoveries in our quest to unravel the mysteries of both language and the universe.

Plenary Speakers: Irene Pepperberg (Boston University) whose experience is in animal communication, specifically with Grey Parrots, & Matthew Brown (Southern Illinois University Carbondale) who will address this topic from the perspective of the Philosophy of Science.

This workshop builds on Xenolinguistics: Towards A Science of Extraterrestrial Language (Vakoch & Punske: Routledge, 2024) to probe the questions concerning the nature of human language, communication and cognition. Details and abstracts from the volume are available here: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003352174

Abstracts should be no more than 500 words and should additionally include references (excluded from word count) and should clearly outline the objectives, methods, results, and implications of the proposed work. Strong preference will be given to work building on or challenging work from the 2024 Xenolinguistics volume and other relevant publications such as Oberhaus (2019) and Hickey (2023). Crucially, we want to build on this growing body of research in order to start determining areas of consensus and disagreement, as well as which areas require the most attention in continued research.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Theoretical frameworks and methodologies of human language that inform our analysis of potential alien languages: is the range of grammatical variation within human languages similar to communication of other intelligent species? For example, Roberts, Watumull & Chomsky (2024) discuss whether Universal Grammar might apply to extraterrestrial languages.

• Studies examining the variables of Ross’s (2024) Linguistic Drake Equation, where the potential for successful communication is considered with respect to Perceiving the signal (whether naturally or with technology) and Understanding the message grammatically, conceptually and in a cultural context.

• Comparisons to communication of animal species on Earth, as well as discussions of different possible forms of communication including auditory, visual and other channels.

• Interdisciplinary collaborations involving anthropology, astronomy, communication, computer science, philosophy, zoology and other fields, such as:

• Cross-disciplinary approaches to understanding the cultural, biological, and technological contexts of hypothetical alien languages.

• Philosophical perspectives on the nature of language and communication in the context of alien civilizations and questions related to the Philosophy of Science.

• Theoretical and practical considerations on the possible decoding of an extraterrestrial signal or in the design of our own radio messages (METI: Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) that could be understood by other intelligent species in the universe.