Lecture Information:

Time：April14,2023（Friday）13:30

Venue： Room 709， Yifu Teaching Building, Peking University Health Science Center

Speaker: Associate Prof. Penelope Scott (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University)

Moderator: Prof. Guo Liping (School of Health Humanities, Peking University)

Lecture Title: The Language of Pain in Old English

Abstract:　

Pain is a phenomenon that affects everyone at some time in their lives, and while English has several words for pain, such as sore, ache, pain, sting, hurt, agony, etc. communicating pain through language can be a challenge, leading to debate as to whether pain is ineffable. Furthermore, while it is an embodied experience, we conceptualize it through a cultural lens. This talk discusses the pain lexicon in Old English by examining textual sources including medical texts such as Bald’s Leechbook, the Old English Herbarium, and the Lacnunga, as well as narrative texts such as AElfric’s Lives of Saints, as found in the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus. The talk considers the extent to which specific pain types are conveyed through pain terms, and the role of metaphor and metonymy in constructing the concept of pain. Through this, we can gain insight into the degree to which it is possible to convey pain through language. This examination of the pain lexicon in Old English can also shine light on the cultural conceptualization of pain in the Early Medieval English period — towards this aim, the talk also considers whether pain is something to be borne, fought, or alleviated by examining how responses to pain, including pain remedies and cures, are described in these texts. The analysis takes a Cultural Linguistic approach, which emphasizes the role of cultural cognition in the construction of concepts, while incorporating insights from Cognitive Linguistics.

Speaker:

Penelope Scott is an Associate Professor Linguistics at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and is Head of the Department of Applied Linguistics. She completed her PhD in English Language at the University of Edinburgh in 2012. Her research interests include Health Humanities with a focus on Cognitive Linguistics, Old English semantics, health and illness in Anglo-Saxon England, and Old English hagiography. She has published articles in journals including Transactions of the Philological Society, Neophilologus, and English Studies. She is the Co-Leader of the XJTLU Health Humanities Research Group, which is part of the University Research Center for Culture, Communication, and Society.