PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
Academic Year 2022/2023 - Teacher:
MARCO MAZZONE
Expected Learning Outcomes
1) Knowledge and comprehension: the students will learn, and understand, some key notions of semantics and pragmatics, from both philosophical and cognitive points of view.
2) Ability to apply knowledge and comprehension: students will exercise their ability to apply the notions they acquire to linguistic phenomena (sentence vs. word, concrete vs. abstract words, conventional vs. contextual meaning etc.).
3) Autonomy of judgment: students will be trained to compare theoretical models with their own intuitions.
4) Communicative abilities: students will acquire the ability to give expression to the subject matters with appropriate technical language.
5) Learning abilities: students will acquire the ability to understand scientific texts (not handbook or introductory books) on the subject matters.
Course Structure
Lectures, class discussion.
Required Prerequisites
Advanced abilities of comprehension and analysis of argumentative texts.
Attendance of Lessons
Optional.
Detailed Course Content
Semantics: theories of meaning and comprehension; normative and cognitive approaches; inferential role semantics; neurobiological models; modal, amodal, and dual models.
Pragmatics: Grice’s model; Relevance Theory; associative and inferential models in pragmatics; automatic and controlled processes; modularity; mindreading and pragmatics.Textbook Information
1) A. Paternoster, F. Calzavarini (2020), Comprendere il linguaggio, il Mulino (250 pagg.).
2) M. Mazzone, Pragmatica cognitiva e mindreading, Bonanno, 2016 (176 pagg.).Course Planning
| | Subjects | Text References |
|---|
| 1 | What is a theory of meaning? | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 2 | Critics to psychologism | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 3 | The issue of semantic normativity | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 4 | Non-psychological theories of comprehension | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 5 | The naturalisti turn and the return of psychologism | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 6 | Cognitive semantics and symbolic models | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 7 | The neurobiological turn and Wernicke's area | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 8 | Simulative theory | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 9 | A-modal components of comprehension and dual theories | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 10 | The open challenges of comprehension | Comprendere il linguaggio |
| 11 | Cognitive pragmatics: relevance theory | Pragmatica cognitiva e mindreading |
| 12 | The distinction between associative and inferential processes | Pragmatica cognitiva e mindreading |
| 13 | The distinction between automatic and controlled processes | Pragmatica cognitiva e mindreading |
| 14 | The modularity problem | Pragmatica cognitiva e mindreading |
| 15 | The mindreading ability | Pragmatica cognitiva e mindreading |
Learning Assessment
Learning Assessment Procedures
Oral examination.
Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises
1) If meaning is defined in terms of truth conditions of sentences, how do we define the meaning of sub-sentential expression?
VERSIONE IN ITALIANO
