Polysemy in Old English and Old Norse
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Anya Adair
Organizer Affiliation
Yale Univ.
Presider Name
Shu-han Luo
Presider Affiliation
Yale Univ.
Paper Title 1
Beowulf 120b, "wiht unhǣlo": Polysemous Vocabulary and Monstrous Degeneracy
Presenter 1 Name
Andrew P. Scheil
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Paper Title 2
The Trouble with Joy: Negotiating a Difficult Semantic Field in Old English and Old Norse
Presenter 2 Name
Anya Adair
Paper Title 3
Listing Names and Naming Lists in Early English
Presenter 3 Name
Alexandra Reider
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Yale Univ.
Start Date
14-5-2015 10:00 AM
Session Location
Valley II LeFevre Lounge
Description
Polysemy is a perennial challenge in the study of Old English and Old Norse. Translators, lexicographers, literary critics and historians all face those interpretive challenges that arise when a word straddles several meanings. These difficulties become especially acute where the groups of meanings encompassed by a single term do not map neatly onto modern semantic fields. How are polysemous terms to be translated without losing a vital part of their meaning? How can poets be seen to take advantage of or anticipate audience reactions to the polysemous possibilities of a term? Might the combination of several meanings within a single term challenge and reshape our understanding of early medieval thought?
This panel looks to the problems and potentialities of polysemy in word study: cases where two or more denotations coexist in a single word, where literal and figurative senses differ, or where no single sense seems adequately to unify disparate contexts of use. Inviting exchange between different methodologies, and encouraging the development of new approaches to the challenge of polysemy is a major aim of this panel. This panel’s focus on new methods for the study of polysemous words will participate in and seek to further the range of recent scholarly engagements with words and their multiple meanings.
Anya Adair
Polysemy in Old English and Old Norse
Valley II LeFevre Lounge
Polysemy is a perennial challenge in the study of Old English and Old Norse. Translators, lexicographers, literary critics and historians all face those interpretive challenges that arise when a word straddles several meanings. These difficulties become especially acute where the groups of meanings encompassed by a single term do not map neatly onto modern semantic fields. How are polysemous terms to be translated without losing a vital part of their meaning? How can poets be seen to take advantage of or anticipate audience reactions to the polysemous possibilities of a term? Might the combination of several meanings within a single term challenge and reshape our understanding of early medieval thought?
This panel looks to the problems and potentialities of polysemy in word study: cases where two or more denotations coexist in a single word, where literal and figurative senses differ, or where no single sense seems adequately to unify disparate contexts of use. Inviting exchange between different methodologies, and encouraging the development of new approaches to the challenge of polysemy is a major aim of this panel. This panel’s focus on new methods for the study of polysemous words will participate in and seek to further the range of recent scholarly engagements with words and their multiple meanings.
Anya Adair