讲座题目：Language is a technology, and that changes everything for cognitive-functional linguistics
讲座嘉宾：Dr. Stef Spronck
讲座时间：2016年6月8日（周三）下午2:00-4:00
讲座地点：紫金港校区东五-201（东）
讲座内容简介：
In a recent volume, Dor (2015) voices strong criticism on cognitive-functional linguistics. We cognitivist-functionalists, Dor claims, have failed to provide a positive alternative to the Chomskyan definition of language as a cognitive capacity. Dor acknowledges that the functionalist approach of finding motivations for language form in use, and the cognitivist approach of finding such motivations in general cognition has certainly made significant steps towards explaining why language is the way it is-–in strong contrast to the non-explanatory doctrine of nativism in generative grammar. But he states that such explanations cannot be put into proper perspective without a radically different definition of language. In Dor’s proposal this definition rests on the assumption that language is a communication technology: a social, cultural construct that mediates between non-linguistic cognition. Speakers use the technology to instruct discourse participants to imagine what is being said.
In this talk I explore what it would mean for cognitive-functional grammar to adopt Dor’s view of language as a communication technology for instructing imagination. I start by critically examining the proposal in Dor (2015), discussing its main motivations and arguing why on several important points I believe Dor is right.
Subsequently I analyse two linguistic phenomena that sit somewhat uncomfortably in contemporary linguistics: (1) free (in)direct speech, i.e. reported speech that is not marked explicitly, and (2) avoidance registers, i.e. a distinctive speech style used in specific cultural settings. Based on my field recordings of the Aboriginal language Ungarinyin, spoken in the northwestern part of Western-Australia, I illustrate these phenomena in detail and propose that they suggest several refinements for our understanding of what language is. This also adds one a crucial footnote to Dor’s view of language: if language is indeed an imagination instructing communication technology, the instruction is not performed by the technology in a homogeneous way.
Reference
Dor, D. (2015), The Instruction of Imagination: Language as a Social Communication Technology, Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press.
主讲嘉宾简介：
Stef Spronck (PhD The Australian National University) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leuven. After his training in Slavic and General linguistics at the University of Amsterdam he carried out extensive documentary fieldwork in Aboriginal Australia, working on reported speech and stance in Ungarinyin. His research focuses on the interactional foundation of grammatical categories from a typological, cognitive-functional and discourse perspective.
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外语学院
2016年6月2日
