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Experimental Pragmatics
Experimental pragmatics is an academic area that uses experiments (concerning children's and adults' comprehension of sentences, utterances, or story-lines) to test theories about the way people understand utterances—and, by extension, one another—in context (this is an area known as pragmatics). Technique Given that an utterance generally does not fully determine the message it is destined to convey, the main question this field asks is, how does a listener fully comprehend a speaker's intention? For example, if one were to read about a singer who says "That was a brilliant performance" to her colleague after they both sang beautifully, the utterance would seem sincere and truthful. If the same utterance were made after both sang terribly, the utterance would be perceived as ironic. The very same utterance can have two entirely different interpretations as a function of the speaker's intended meaning. Experimental pragmatics adopts existing cognitive and psycholinguistic tec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Experiment
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies. A child may carry out basic experiments to understand how things fall to the ground, while teams of scientists may take years of systematic investigation to advance their understanding of a phenomenon. Experiments and other types of hands-on activities are very important to student learning in the science classroom. Experiments can raise test scores and help a student become more engaged and interested in the material they are learning, especially when used over time. Experiments can vary from personal and informal natural comparisons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herb Clark
Herbert Herb Clark (born 1940) is a psycholinguist currently serving as Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. His focuses include cognitive and social processes in language use; interactive processes in conversation, from low-level disfluencies through acts of speaking and understanding to the emergence of discourse; and word meaning and word use. Clark is known for his theory of "common ground": individuals engaged in conversation must share knowledge in order to be understood and have a meaningful conversation (Clark, 1985). Together with Deanna Wilkes-Gibbs (1986), he also developed the collaborative model, a theory for explaining how people in conversation coordinate with one another to determine definite references. Clark's books include ''Semantics and Comprehension, Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics, Arenas of Language Use and Using Language.'' Education and academic career Clark, born in 1940, attended Stanford University until 1962 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pragmatics
In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA). Pragmatics encompasses phenomena including implicature, speech acts, relevance theory, relevance and Conversation analysis, conversation,Mey, Jacob L. (1993) ''Pragmatics: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001). as well as nonverbal communication. Theories of pragmatics go hand-in-hand with theories of semantics, which studies aspects of meaning, and syntax, which examines sentence structures, principles, and relationships. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called ''pragmatic competence''. In 1938 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction between sense and reference. Sense is given by the ideas and concepts associated with an expression while reference is the object to which an expression points. Semantics contrasts with syntax, which studies the rules that dictate how to create grammatically correct sentences, and pragmatics, which investigates how people use language in communication. Lexical semantics is the branch of semantics that studies word meaning. It examines whether words have one or several meanings and in what lexical relations they stand to one another. Phrasal semantics studies the meaning of sentences by exploring the phenomenon of compositionality or how new meanings can be created by arranging words. Formal semantics (natural language), Formal semantics relies o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind and brain; that is, the psychology, psychological and neurobiology, neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend, and produce language. Psycholinguistics is concerned with the cognitive faculties and processes that are necessary to produce the grammatical constructions of language. It is also concerned with the perception of these constructions by a listener. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were in the philosophical and educational fields, mainly due to their location in departments other than applied sciences (e.g., cohesive data on how the human brain functioned). Modern research makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, and information science to study how the mind-brain process ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deirdre Wilson
Deirdre Susan Moir Wilson, FBA (born 1941) is a British linguist and cognitive scientist. She is emeritus professor of Linguistics at University College London and research professor at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo. Her most influential work has been in linguistic pragmatics—specifically in the development of Relevance Theory with French anthropologist Dan Sperber. This work has been especially influential in the Philosophy of Language. Important influences on Wilson are Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, and Paul Grice. Linguists and philosophers of language who have been students of Wilson include Stephen Neale (CUNY Graduate Center), Robyn Carston (University College London) and Tim Wharton (University of Brighton). Biography Wilson completed her Bachelor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford while working with philosopher H. P. Grice. She completed her PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with lingui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dan Sperber
Dan Sperber (born 20 June 1942 in Cagnes-sur-Mer) is a French social and cognitive scientist, anthropologist and philosopher. His most influential work has been in the fields of cognitive anthropology, linguistic pragmatics, psychology of reasoning, and philosophy of the social sciences. He has developed: an approach to cultural evolution known as the epidemiology of representations or cultural attraction theory as part of a naturalistic reconceptualization of the social; (with British philosopher and linguist Deirdre Wilson) relevance theory; (with French psychologist Hugo Mercier) the argumentative theory of reasoning. Sperber formerly ''Directeur de Recherche'' at the ''Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique'' is Professor in the Departments of Cognitive Science and of Philosophy at the Central European University in Budapest. Background Sperber is the son of Austrian-French novelist Manès Sperber. He was born in France and raised an atheist but his parents, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gradient Salience Model
The Gradient Salience model is a model of figurative language comprehension proposed by Rachel Giora in 2002 as an alternative to the standard pragmatic model. It offers a possible explanation for the results obtained in various contemporary studies, in which figurative language is processed as fast as literal language. Salient and non salient meanings The definition of saliency is included in Rachel Giora's (2002) article "Literal vs. figurative language: Different or equal?". ''Salient meanings'' are meanings which are stored in the mental lexicon. They are most prominent in language, as they are the most familiar, conventional, frequent and prototypical. ''Non salient meanings'', on the other hand, are meanings which are relatively new to language. They are novel and infrequent. Assumptions The Gradient Salience model assumes that the processing of metaphorical expressions depends on the meaning's saliency. *Salient meanings are processed faster than non salient ones, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Glucksberg
Sam Glucksberg (February 6, 1933 – August 29, 2022) was a Canadian professor in the Psychology Department at Princeton University in New Jersey, known for his works on figurative language: metaphors, irony, sarcasm, and idioms. He is particularly known for manipulating the Candle Problem experiment which had participants figure out the best way to erect a candle on a wall. Along with performing experiments, Glucksberg has also written ''Understanding Figurative Language: From Metaphors to Idioms'', published by Oxford University Press in 2001. Biography Glucksberg was born February 6, 1933, in Montreal, Quebec. He received his B.S. in psychology in 1956 at City College of New York, magna cum laude. He then received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology with distinction at New York University in 1960. After a period of three years as a research psychologist at the U.S. Army Human Engineering Laboratories, he came to Princeton as an instructor in 1963, and rose progressively thro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gennaro Chierchia
Gennaro Chierchia (; born 10 September 1953 in Rome) is an Italian linguist and educator. Chierchia is currently the Haas Foundation Professor of Linguistics and Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. His work and study focus on areas including semantics, pragmatics, philosophy of language, and language pathology. Career Born in Rome, Chierchia received his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the Sapienza University of Rome in 1977, when he studied under Tullio De Mauro. He then went on to earn a Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1984. His dissertation, chaired by Barbara Partee, was titled "Topics in the Syntax and Semantics of Infinitives and Gerunds." Chierchia began his professorial career when he served as Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Brown University from 1983 to 1985. He then continued in the same role at Cornell University from 1985 to 1992, before moving back to his native Italy. From 1992 to 2000, Chie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pragmatics
In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA). Pragmatics encompasses phenomena including implicature, speech acts, relevance theory, relevance and Conversation analysis, conversation,Mey, Jacob L. (1993) ''Pragmatics: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001). as well as nonverbal communication. Theories of pragmatics go hand-in-hand with theories of semantics, which studies aspects of meaning, and syntax, which examines sentence structures, principles, and relationships. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called ''pragmatic competence''. In 1938 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
