Lehrende/r: PD Dr. habil. Martina Lampert
Veranstaltungsart: Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan: 05.008.760
Semesterwochenstunden: 2
Unterrichtssprache: Deutsch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 30
Anmeldegruppe: Seminar: English Linguistics (Master)
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: To obtain credit, participants are required to carry out their own small-scale (group) research on a selected aspect of linguistic attention, their exploratory work for their term papers, and they will be expected to do a presentation during the final meeting, July 18, when they will have the unique opportunity to meet and discuss their projects with Prof. TALMY. (Please note that this meeting is scheduled from 12:15 to 15:45 PM.) Details of organization and additional information will be available during the first meeting; study material will be provided for individual download in pdf format.
Inhalt: While attention has unequivocally been described as one major vital processing mechanism that directly follows from an organism’s survival instinct to identify and select ‘targets’ from the wealth of information present in the organism’s environment at any moment in time like food or warning signals in the animal kingdom, or more artificial objects/artifacts and information in a culturally sophisticated and highly literate community in human societies, it has been almost completely neglected in the study of language. It is Leonard TALMY, arguably one of the most distinguished linguists of our time, who has developed over the last three decades an encompassive model of ‘Linguistic Attention’ -- the topic of this (research) seminar. And just like in general cognition (in vision and perception, the motor system, or culture), attention in language proves a foundational and ubiquitous phenomenon affecting all linguistic levels, decisively influencing speakers’ choices and hearers’ understanding. So far more than fifty individual mechanisms have been identified that are found to pervasively and systematically operate on all levels in language. To illustrate: An open-class word like upcoming attracts more attention than a closed-class form like will in The meeting will take place in the upcoming week, while the two items are very similar in meaning. Or when flew in They flew to Miami incorporates ‘by plane’ in its meaning, hence backgrounds the mode of transportation, which is highlighted in They went to Miami by plane. Note, however, that this backgrounding effect in flew may be reversed to again foreground the manner of travelling when an extra heavy (contrastive) stress is placed on the verb (here indicated by bold face, which is a common way to indicate stress in writing): They flew to Miami (implying, e.g., they didn’t drive). This class, then, will introduce a selection from the inventory of attention mechanisms available in language and discuss basic excerpts from TALMY’s ongoing research.
