Lehrende/r: Dr. Florian Dolberg
Veranstaltungsart: Proseminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan: PS Eng Ling
Semesterwochenstunden: 2
Unterrichtssprache: Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 45
Anmeldegruppe: PS Engl. Ling.
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007. Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches: This course is geared towards students who have a pronounced interest in linguistics, who are comfortable with reading a fair amount of at times demanding scientific literature, who are willing to obtain and share information beyond what is directly offered in the seminar, and who are in the habit of freely sharing their insights (and difficulties) both in class and on-line. All important technical and administrative information wil be relayed in the first session. Participants unable to attend the first session are required to obtain it from their peers. Participants are required to fulfil all of the following requirements in order to obtain credit:
Inhalt: Cognitive Linguistics is probably the most popular scientific approach to language today, and for good reason. Roughly speaking, Cognitive Linguistics investigates the interrelation of language and cognition, in other words: how much and in what way does the language we use influence the way we think and divide the world into meaningful bits? The idea of a dependency between speaking (listening, writing, reading) and thinking/understanding is by no means new: In 1820, Wilhelm von Humboldt proposed: “[t]he diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world.” Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein put forth a very similar proposition in 1921: “[t]he limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” In the mid-20th-century US, this idea was known, misunderstood and ridiculed as the Sapir-Whorf-Hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics attempts to describe the relationship between language, thought and categorisation in a way that is consistent with our knowledge of the mind and the brain. It is a usage-based approach starting from the assumption that all language is first and foremost a tool for organizing, processing, and conveying information – in short: language is all about meaning. In the course of the seminar, we will address these and other questions: what a role do seemingly unimportant phenomena like metaphor and metonymy play in our understanding and partitioning of the world? How can a grammar work without rules? Are there true language universals (i.e. characteristics that all languages possess)? And of course: how much influences/determines our language how and what we think?
Empfohlene Literatur: Course materials:
