Stephen C. Levinson

Publications

Displaying 1 - 19 of 19
  • 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.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1998). Politeness, introduction to the reissue: A review of recent work. In A. Kasher (Ed.), Pragmatics: Vol. 6 Grammar, psychology and sociology (pp. 488-554). London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    This article is a reprint of chapter 1, the introduction to Brown and Levinson, 1987, Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Cambridge University Press).
  • Levinson, S. C. (1998). Deixis. In J. L. Mey (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics (pp. 200-204). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1998). Minimization and conversational inference. In A. Kasher (Ed.), Pragmatics: Vol. 4 Presupposition, implicature and indirect speech acts (pp. 545-612). London: Routledge.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1998). Studying spatial conceptualization across cultures: Anthropology and cognitive science. Ethos, 26(1), 7-24. doi:10.1525/eth.1998.26.1.7.

    Abstract

    Philosophers, psychologists, and linguists have argued that spatial conception is pivotal to cognition in general, providing a general, egocentric, and universal framework for cognition as well as metaphors for conceptualizing many other domains. But in an aboriginal community in Northern Queensland, a system of cardinal directions informs not only language, but also memory for arbitrary spatial arrays and directions. This work suggests that fundamental cognitive parameters, like the system of coding spatial locations, can vary cross-culturally, in line with the language spoken by a community. This opens up the prospect of a fruitful dialogue between anthropology and the cognitive sciences on the complex interaction between cultural and universal factors in the constitution of mind.
  • Pederson, E., Danziger, E., Wilkins, D. G., Levinson, S. C., Kita, S., & Senft, G. (1998). Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization. Language, 74(3), 557-589. doi:10.2307/417793.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1996). Introduction to part I. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 21-36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1996). Introduction to part III. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 225-231). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1996). Introduction: Linguistic relativity re-examined. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 1-20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (Eds.). (1996). Rethinking linguistic relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux's question: Cross-linguistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 109-169). Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1996). Language and space. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 353-382. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.353.

    Abstract

    This review describes some recent, unexpected findings concerning variation in spatial language across cultures, and places them in the context of the general anthropology of space on the one hand, and theories of spatial cognition in the cognitive sciences on the other. There has been much concern with the symbolism of space in anthropological writings, but little on concepts of space in practical activities. This neglect of everyday spatial notions may be due to unwitting ethnocentrism, the assumption in Western thinking generally that notions of space are universally of a single kind. Recent work shows that systems of spatial reckoning and description can in fact be quite divergent across cultures, linguistic differences correlating with distinct cognitive tendencies. This unexpected cultural variation raises interesting questions concerning the relation between cultural and linguistic concepts and the biological foundations of cognition. It argues for more sophisticated models relating culture and cognition than we currently have available.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1996). Introduction to part II. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 133-144). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1996). Relativity in spatial conception and description. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 177-202). Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Senft, G. (1996). Zur Semantik der Verben INTRARE und EXIRE in verschieden Sprachen. In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 1996 (pp. 340-344). München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft München.

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