Displaying 1 - 15 of 15
-
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2000). Frames of spatial reference and their acquisition in Tenejapan Tzeltal. In L. Nucci, G. Saxe, & E. Turiel (
Eds. ), Culture, thought, and development (pp. 167-197). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Levinson, S. C. (2000). Language as nature and language as art. In J. Mittelstrass, & W. Singer (
Eds. ), Proceedings of the Symposium on ‘Changing concepts of nature and the turn of the Millennium (pp. 257-287). Vatican City: Pontificae Academiae Scientiarium Scripta Varia. -
Levinson, S. C. (2000). H.P. Grice on location on Rossel Island. In S. S. Chang, L. Liaw, & J. Ruppenhofer (
Eds. ), Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society (pp. 210-224). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistic Society. -
Levinson, S. C. (2000). Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge: MIT press.
-
Levinson, S. C. (2000). Yélî Dnye and the theory of basic color terms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 10( 1), 3-55. doi:10.1525/jlin.2000.10.1.3.
Abstract
The theory of basic color terms was a crucial factor in the demise of linguistic relativity. The theory is now once again under scrutiny and fundamental revision. This article details a case study that undermines one of the central claims of the classical theory, namely that languages universally treat color as a unitary domain, to be exhaustively named. Taken together with other cases, the study suggests that a number of languages have only an incipient color terminology, raising doubts about the linguistic universality of such terminology. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). Contextualizing 'contextualization cues'. In S. Eerdmans, C. Prevignano, & P. Thibault (
Eds. ), Discussing communication analysis 1: John J. Gumperz (pp. 24-30). Lausanne: Beta Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). Deixis. In P. V. Lamarque (
Ed. ), Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language (pp. 214-219). Oxford: Elsevier. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). From outer to inner space: Linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinking. In J. Nuyts, & E. Pederson (
Eds. ), Language and conceptualization (pp. 13-45). Cambridge University Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). Language and cognition: The cognitive consequences of spatial description in Guugu Yimithirr. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7(1), 98-131. doi:10.1525/jlin.1997.7.1.98.
Abstract
This article explores the relation between language and cognition by examining the case of "absolute" (cardinal direction) spatial description in the Australian aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr. This kind of spatial description is incongruent with the "relative" (e.g., left/right/front/back) spatial description familiar in European languages. Building on Haviland's 1993 analysis of Guugu Yimithirr directionals in speech and gesture, a series of informal experiments were developed. It is shown that Guugu Yimithirr speakers predominantly code for nonverbal memory in "absolute" concepts congruent with their language, while a comparative sample of Dutch speakers do so in "relative" concepts. Much anecdotal evidence also supports this. The conclusion is that Whorfian effects may in fact be demonstrable in the spatial domain. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). Language and cognition: The cognitive consequences of spatial description in Guugu Yimithirr. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7(1), 1-35. doi:10.1525/jlin.1997.7.1.98.
-
Levinson, S. C., Pederson, E., & Senft, G. (1997). Sprache und menschliche Orientierungsfähigkeiten. In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (pp. 322-327). München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
-
Levinson, S. C. (1995). 'Logical' Connectives in Natural Language: A First Questionnaire. In D. Wilkins (
Ed. ), Extensions of space and beyond: manual for field elicitation for the 1995 field season (pp. 61-69). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3513476.Abstract
It has been hypothesised that human reasoning has a non-linguistic foundation, but is nevertheless influenced by the formal means available in a language. For example, Western logic is transparently related to European sentential connectives (e.g., and, if … then, or, not), some of which cannot be unambiguously expressed in other languages. The questionnaire explores reasoning tools and practices through investigating translation equivalents of English sentential connectives and collecting examples of “reasoned arguments”. -
Levinson, S. C. (1995). Interactional biases in human thinking. In E. N. Goody (
Ed. ), Social intelligence and interaction (pp. 221-260). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (1995). Three levels of meaning. In F. Palmer (
Ed. ), Grammar and meaning: Essays in honour of Sir John Lyons (pp. 90-115). Cambridge University Press. -
Wilkins, D., Pederson, E., & Levinson, S. C. (1995). Background questions for the "enter"/"exit" research. In D. Wilkins (
Ed. ), Extensions of space and beyond: manual for field elicitation for the 1995 field season (pp. 14-16). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3003935.Abstract
How do languages encode different kinds of movement, and what features do people pay attention to when describing motion events? This document outlines topics concerning the investigation of “enter” and “exit” events. It helps contextualise research tasks that examine this domain (see 'Motion Elicitation' and 'Enter/Exit animation') and gives some pointers about what other questions can be explored.
Share this page