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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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Levinson, S. C. (1994). Deixis. In R. E. Asher (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (pp. 853-857). Oxford: Pergamon Press. -
Levinson, S. C., & Brown, P. (1994). Immanuel Kant among the Tenejapans: Anthropology as empirical philosophy. Ethos, 22(1), 3-41. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/640467.
Abstract
This paper confronts Kant’s (1768) view of human conceptions of space as fundamentally divided along the three planes of the human body with an empirical case study in the Mayan community of Tenejapa in southern Mexico, whose inhabitants do not use left/right distinctions to project regions in space. Tenejapans have names for the left hand and the right hand, and also a term for hand/arm in general, but they do not generalize the distinction to spatial regions -- there is no linguistic expression glossing as 'to the left' or 'on the left-hand side', for example. Tenejapans also show a remarkable indifference to incongruous counterparts. Nor is there any system of value associations with the left and the right. The Tenejapan evidence that speaks to these Kantian themes points in two directions: (a) Kant was wrong to think that the structure of spatial regions founded on the human frame, and in particular the distinctions based on left and right, are in some sense essential human intuitions; (b) Kant may have been right to think that the left/right opposition, the perception of enantiomorphs, clockwiseness, East-West dichotomies, etc., are intimately connected to an overall system of spatial conception. -
Levinson, S. C., & Haviland, J. B. (1994). Introduction: Spatial conceptualization in Mayan languages. Linguistics, 32(4/5), 613-622.
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Levinson, S. C., & Haviland, J. B. (
Eds. ). (1994). Space in Mayan languages [Special Issue]. Linguistics, 32(4/5). -
Levinson, S. C., & Senft, G. (1994). Wie lösen Sprecher von Sprachen mit absoluten und relativen Systemen des räumlichen Verweisens nicht-sprachliche räumliche Aufgaben? In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 1994 (pp. 295-299). München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft München.
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Levinson, S. C. (1994). Vision, shape and linguistic description: Tzeltal body-part terminology and object description. Linguistics, 32(4/5), 791-856.
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Levinson, S. C. (1980). Speech act theory: The state of the art. Language teaching and linguistics: Abstracts, 5-24.
Abstract
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