From LINGUIST List: Vol-13-433. Feb 17 2002. ISSN: 1068-4875.
Home Page: http://linguistlist.org/
Subject: General/Theoretical Linguistics
NEW TITLE FROM BLACKWELL PUBLISHING
Language, Bananas and Bonobos
Neil Smith, University College London
HB: 0-631-22871-3
PB: 0-631-22872-1
160 pp / December 2001
How can people who are both blind and deaf communicate? What makes
Woody Allen funny? Is it normal to hear colors and see sounds? If
questions like these have puzzled you, this book of essays on the
nature of language will quench your curiosity.
Language pervades every aspect of life. It is essential to everyone
everywhere - from politicians to poets, philosophers to pharmacists -
yet linguistics is often forbidding. This collection of short,
accessible essays changes that. Language, Bananas, and Bonobos
presents a series of engaging reflections on concerns such as our
knowledge and use of language, political correctness, and the
linguistic abilities of chimpanzees. In doing so, the volume provides
new insights into this subject of universal interest.
Contents:
Prelude:
1. How to be the Center of the Universe.
Part I: Problems:
2. Tadoma.
3. Putting a Banana in Your Ear.
4. A Fragment of Genius.
5. Colourful Language.
6. The Structure of Noise.
7. Dissociations.
Part II: Puzzles:
8. Puzzle.
9. PC.
10. Acquired Whining.
11. Godshit.
12. The Golem.
13. $.
Part III: Polemics:
14. Bonobos.
15. Whales, Sunflowers and the Evolution of Language.
16. Jackdaws, Sex and Language Acquisition.
17. Does Chomsky Exist?
18. Relentless Jollity, Inexorable Logic and the Nature of Mind.
19. Structural Eccentricities.
20. The Velarity of Linguists.
Glossary. References. Index.
=====end fwd. message.
For N. V. Smith's views on 'relevance', see _Modern Linguistics: the result
of Chomsky's Revolution_ (with D. Wilson) (Penguin), esp. Chapter 8:
'Pragmatics & communication': "[10] years ago, in a series of influential
lectures, [H.P.] Grice drew attention to the crucial role played by
judgements of _relevance_ in the interpretation of utterances. [B's 'Where
are the snows of yesteryear?' as following A's 'Where's my box of
chocolates?' will not convey the suggestion that A's chocolates had been
eaten] unless it is construed as _a relevant response_ to A. If it is
construed as _irrelevant_ -- e.g. as the start of a poetry reading, a
genuine inquiry in its own right, or a rhetorical response to a quite
different question -- [...] no such suggestion will arise. Similarly, ['The
children were in your room this morning'] [if the remark] is construed as a
relevant answer to A's question, it will suggest that the children may have
eaten his chocolates. [...C]onstrued as an attempt to change the subject or
to dismiss [the] question for some other reason, no such suggestion will
arise. [... A]n overtly irrelevant remark [e.g. 'I've got a train to
catch'] may [too] be interpreted as conveying some relevant information, as
long as [it's] seen as directed at the [question]. The third possibility of
construal is, of course, that the remark in question was indeed irrelevant.
[... Grice's "conversational "implicatures", i.e. these extremely indirect
implications, which constitute the real point of remarks like 'He used to
like playing with snails when he was a child' as following A's 'Your son's
really taken to Annette' -- +> There's something wrong with Annette, etc.]
[are then] pragmatic implications which follow from a remark only on the
assumption that it was intended as relevant. [Naturally, thus] the notion
of relevance [...] will play a central part in any theory of pragmatic
interpretation." (op. cit., pp. 175, 179).
===
==
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