A theory of linguistic signs
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
A theory of linguistic signs
Oxford University Press, 1998
- pbk
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Note
Translated from the German
Description and Table of Contents
Description
What does it mean to drive a Cadillac? What does `cuckoo' suggest about the bird? -- two examples explored in this investigation of the history of language signs and of what philosophers, linguists, and others have had to say about them.
Rudi Keller shows how signs emerge, function, and develop in the permanent process of language change. He recombines thoughts and ideas from Plato to the present day to create a new theory of the meaning and evolution of icons and symbols. By assuming no prior knowledge and by developing his argument from first principles, Rudi Keller has written a basic text which includes all the necessary features: easy style, good organization, original scholarship, and historical depth. This is a non-technical book which will interest linguists, philosophers, students of communications and cultural studies, semioticians/semanticists, sociologists, and anthropologists.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Signs in Everyday Life
- PART I: TWO NOTIONS OF SIGNS
- 1. Plato's Instrumental Notion of Signs
- 2. Aristotle's Representational Notion of Signs
- 3. Frege's Representational Notion of Signs
- PART II: SEMANTICS AND COGNITION
- 5. Conceptual Realism versus Conceptual Relativism
- 6. Types of Concepts versus Types of Rules
- 7. Expression and Meaning
- PART II: SIGN EMERGENCE
- 8. Basic Techniques of Interpretation
- 9. Inferential Procedures
- 10. Arbitrariness versus Motivatedness
- PART IV: SIGN METAMORPHOSIS
- 11. Iconification and Symbolification
- 12. Metaphorization, Metonymization and Lexicalization
- 13. Literal and Metaphorical Sense
- 14. Rationality and Implicatures
- PART V: THE DIACHRONIC DIMENSION
- 15. Costs and Benefits of the Metaphoric Technique
- 16. The Metaphoric Use of Modal Verbs
- 17. The Epistemic Weil
- Summary
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