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hrj(Sponsor: DISTAFF)
Note: the "Lexis of Cloth and Clothing" project is a massive database of cloth and clothing terminology in the British Isles.
Third Floor: Socks, Frocks, Crocs, and Knives: "Furnishing" as a Category in a Class Glossary -- Stuart Nels Rutten, Univ. of Manchester
Topic is organizing hierarchies and relationships of category labels/concepts for use in the database. Problems of documenting the full semantic relationship structures of the roots that are important to the database while keeping the focus to the semantic field that defines the project (i.e., cloth and clothing). Working with historic glossaries of technical terminology there's the problem of circular definitions and distinguishing applied uses of general terminology vs. specialized narrow extended senses of words with other meanings. Do we apply category terminology as presented in source texts (e.g., catalogs of monastic furnishings categorized as to whether they were used in the mass or not) or re-analyze for uniformity? Database tags can cover many different types of semantic fields and needn't stick to a single hierarchical system.
How Long is a Launce?: Units of Measure for Cloth in Late Medieval Britain -- Mark Chambers, Univ. of Westminster
Source texts are often confusingly multi-lingual. Lexemes are categorized by root, variants, application (i.e., what gets measured with it) and notes about sources, contexts, etc. Criteria: post-conquest, pre 16th c. British text in contexts that imply a standard or accepted term of measurement (rather than an ad hoc usage), and specific to the cloth, wool, or fur trade. So not general units like "foot" but ones specifically applied to cloth, like "ell". Presentation of various specific examples of lexemes in context and application. Interesting examples of code-switching in mid-phrase, as when the term "beast" as a unit of fur shows up as "le beste" (French def. art.) in an otherwise Latin entry. The "launce" demonstrates the problem of a term that, in context, is clearly a measure of cloth, but with insufficient information to determine the magnitude.
Mining for Gold: Invstigating Multilingualism in the Lexis of Cloth and Clothing -- Louise Sylvester, Univ. of Westminster
Investigating the terminology of "gold" in cloth/clothing descriptions and what it says about the use of gold in that context. Starts with basic cognitive category theory and how it applies to the polysemy of "gold" lexemes. This is similar to the question in the "furnishings" paper previously: to what extent are specific uses a specialized textile/clothing-related sense and to what extent are they extensions of non-clothing senses but not really "technical clothing terminology". E.g., when is "bezant" in the sense of a gold coin a clothing-related term (e.g., for a sequin-like object) and when does it belong solely to the semantic field of money? And given the former, should all coin-related words be considered potential clothing-related words?
Note: the "Lexis of Cloth and Clothing" project is a massive database of cloth and clothing terminology in the British Isles.
Third Floor: Socks, Frocks, Crocs, and Knives: "Furnishing" as a Category in a Class Glossary -- Stuart Nels Rutten, Univ. of Manchester
Topic is organizing hierarchies and relationships of category labels/concepts for use in the database. Problems of documenting the full semantic relationship structures of the roots that are important to the database while keeping the focus to the semantic field that defines the project (i.e., cloth and clothing). Working with historic glossaries of technical terminology there's the problem of circular definitions and distinguishing applied uses of general terminology vs. specialized narrow extended senses of words with other meanings. Do we apply category terminology as presented in source texts (e.g., catalogs of monastic furnishings categorized as to whether they were used in the mass or not) or re-analyze for uniformity? Database tags can cover many different types of semantic fields and needn't stick to a single hierarchical system.
How Long is a Launce?: Units of Measure for Cloth in Late Medieval Britain -- Mark Chambers, Univ. of Westminster
Source texts are often confusingly multi-lingual. Lexemes are categorized by root, variants, application (i.e., what gets measured with it) and notes about sources, contexts, etc. Criteria: post-conquest, pre 16th c. British text in contexts that imply a standard or accepted term of measurement (rather than an ad hoc usage), and specific to the cloth, wool, or fur trade. So not general units like "foot" but ones specifically applied to cloth, like "ell". Presentation of various specific examples of lexemes in context and application. Interesting examples of code-switching in mid-phrase, as when the term "beast" as a unit of fur shows up as "le beste" (French def. art.) in an otherwise Latin entry. The "launce" demonstrates the problem of a term that, in context, is clearly a measure of cloth, but with insufficient information to determine the magnitude.
Mining for Gold: Invstigating Multilingualism in the Lexis of Cloth and Clothing -- Louise Sylvester, Univ. of Westminster
Investigating the terminology of "gold" in cloth/clothing descriptions and what it says about the use of gold in that context. Starts with basic cognitive category theory and how it applies to the polysemy of "gold" lexemes. This is similar to the question in the "furnishings" paper previously: to what extent are specific uses a specialized textile/clothing-related sense and to what extent are they extensions of non-clothing senses but not really "technical clothing terminology". E.g., when is "bezant" in the sense of a gold coin a clothing-related term (e.g., for a sequin-like object) and when does it belong solely to the semantic field of money? And given the former, should all coin-related words be considered potential clothing-related words?
