Blog CRC1646

On 8-9 September 2025, Project C01 hosted a workshop on the cognitive processes underlying creative language use, titled “Psycholinguistics of Lexical Creativity”. The event brought together researchers from within the CRC1646 and invited experts from around the world to discuss how people produce and understand creative words and expressions, and how these abilities differ across speakers and contexts.

The talks covered a wide range of perspectives on linguistic creativity. The first keynote speaker, Prof. Dr. Alissa Melinger from University of Dundee talked about the ways speakers choose between different words that signify the same thing or are very similar in meaning. Prof. Dr. Rasha Abdel Rahman from Humboldt-University at Berlin then presented a talk on the role of multisensory, associative, contextual and socially driven meaning processing for creative communication. meaning processing for creative communication.

On the second day of the workshop, Dr. Solène Hameau, from Université catholique de Louvain, spoke about creative strategies in individuals with neurogenic language disorders, arguing in what way so-called “errors” in word production can provide valuable insights into the mechanisms of language and Dr. Britta Biedermann from Curtin University, talked about how different factors, such as multilingualism, can influence the word selection processes.

The PhD students and researchers working within the C-Area of the CRC (see below) complemented the keynote talks with the presentations on their ongoing work. The sessions were followed by lively discussions that encouraged the exchange of ideas and highlighted opportunities for future collaboration. The workshop offered an engaging platform for reflecting on how linguistic creativity emerges in different speaker groups and contexts. It provided valuable insights into the cognitive processes and resources that allow speakers to deviate from conventional language use, whether to be inventive, humorous, or to communicate effectively when concepts and words are not available or seem inadequate.

Presentations given by members of the CRC1646:

Alexandra Filimonova & Denise Gajda (C04): Communication Strategies at the Intersection of Clinical Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition

Alon Fishman & Lisa Gottschalk (C02): Non-codable Stimuli in Reference Games: Salient Features and How to Capture Them

Mareike Hartmann & Lotta Heidemann (C03): Creativity in Verbal and Multimodal Communication of People with Neurogenic Language and Communication Disorders

Valentina Alimenti (C05): Verbal Fluency and Creative thinking: Comparing Semantic and Emotion categories and Network Dynamics

Bedia Vidua (C05): Investigating the Role of Personal Experience in Semantic Clustering: Implications for Creativity and Divergent Thinking

Dilara Balaban & Amelie Ewald (C01): Exploring Linguistic Creativity: Methods and Challenges of a Production Task.

© Sascha Hermannski, SFB 1646

© SFB 1646

Project C01

hintere Reihe v.l.n.r.: Joana Cholin, Lisa Hudalla, Amelie Ewald

vordere Reihe v.l.n.r: Jana Häussler, Dilara Balaban

© Sascha Hermannski, SFB 1646