Displaying 1 - 19 of 19
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Cutler, A., Klein, W., & Levinson, S. C. (2005). The cornerstones of twenty-first century psycholinguistics. In A. Cutler (
Ed. ), Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones (pp. 1-20). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Dunn, M., Terrill, A., Reesink, G., Foley, R. A., & Levinson, S. C. (2005). Structural phylogenetics and the reconstruction of ancient language history. Science, 309(5743), 2072-2075. doi:10.1126/science.1114615.
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Levinson, S. C. (2005). [Comment on: Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Piraha by Daniel L. Everett]. Current Anthropology, 46, 637-638.
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Levinson, S. C. (2005). Living with Manny's dangerous idea. Discourse Studies, 7(4-5), 431-453. doi:10.1177/1461445605054401.
Abstract
Daniel Dennett, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, argues that natural selection is a universal acid that eats through other theories, because it can explain just about everything, even the structure of the mind. Emanuel (Manny) Schegloff (1987) in ‘Between Micro and Macro: Context and Other Connections’ opposes the importation of ‘macro’ (sociological/sociolinguistic) factors into the ‘micro’ (interaction analysis), suggesting that one might reverse the strategy instead. Like Darwin, he is coy about whether he just wants his own turf, but the idea opens up the possibility of interactional reductionism. I will argue against interactional reductionism on methodological grounds: Don't bite off more than you can chew! Instead I'll support the good old Durkheimian strategy of looking for intermediate variables between systems of different orders. I try and make the case with data from Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea. -
Levinson, S. C. (2005). Languages: Europe puts it's money where its mouth is [Letter to the editor]. Nature, 438, 914-914. doi:doi:10.1038/438914c.
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Levinson, S. C. (1997). Contextualizing 'contextualization cues'. In S. Eerdmans, C. Prevignano, & P. Thibault (
Eds. ), Discussing communication analysis 1: John J. Gumperz (pp. 24-30). Lausanne: Beta Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). Deixis. In P. V. Lamarque (
Ed. ), Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language (pp. 214-219). Oxford: Elsevier. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). From outer to inner space: Linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinking. In J. Nuyts, & E. Pederson (
Eds. ), Language and conceptualization (pp. 13-45). Cambridge University Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). Language and cognition: The cognitive consequences of spatial description in Guugu Yimithirr. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7(1), 98-131. doi:10.1525/jlin.1997.7.1.98.
Abstract
This article explores the relation between language and cognition by examining the case of "absolute" (cardinal direction) spatial description in the Australian aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr. This kind of spatial description is incongruent with the "relative" (e.g., left/right/front/back) spatial description familiar in European languages. Building on Haviland's 1993 analysis of Guugu Yimithirr directionals in speech and gesture, a series of informal experiments were developed. It is shown that Guugu Yimithirr speakers predominantly code for nonverbal memory in "absolute" concepts congruent with their language, while a comparative sample of Dutch speakers do so in "relative" concepts. Much anecdotal evidence also supports this. The conclusion is that Whorfian effects may in fact be demonstrable in the spatial domain. -
Levinson, S. C. (1997). Language and cognition: The cognitive consequences of spatial description in Guugu Yimithirr. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7(1), 1-35. doi:10.1525/jlin.1997.7.1.98.
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Levinson, S. C., Pederson, E., & Senft, G. (1997). Sprache und menschliche Orientierungsfähigkeiten. In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (pp. 322-327). München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
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Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1992). 'Left' and 'right' in Tenejapa: Investigating a linguistic and conceptual gap. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, 45(6), 590-611.
Abstract
From the perspective of a Kantian belief in the fundamental human tendency to cleave space along the three planes of the human body, Tenejapan Tzeltal exhibits a linguistic gap: there are no linguistic expressions that designate regions (as in English to my left) or describe the visual field (as in to the left of the tree) on the basis of a plane bisecting the body into a left and right side. Tenejapans have expressions for left and right hands (xin k'ab and wa'el k'ab), but these are basically body-part terms, they are not generalized to form a division of space. This paper describes the results of various elicited producton tasks in which concepts of left and right would provide a simple solution, showing that Tenejapan consultants use other notions even when the relevant linguistic distinctions could be made in Tzeltal (e.g. describing the position of one's limbs, or describing rotation of one's body). Instead of using the left-hand/right-hand distinction to construct a division of space, Tenejapans utilize a number of other systems: (i) an absolute, 'cardinal direction' system, supplemented by reference to other geographic or landmark directions, (ii) a generative segmentation of objects and places into analogic body-parts or other kinds of parts, and (iii) a rich system of positional adjectives to describe the exact disposition of things. These systems work conjointly to specify locations with precision and elegance. The overall system is not primarily egocentric, and it makes no essential reference to planes through the human body. -
De León, L., & Levinson, S. C. (
Eds. ). (1992). Space in Mesoamerican languages [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, 45(6). -
Levinson, S. C. (1992). Space in Australian Languages Questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 29-40). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.Abstract
This questionnaire is designed to explore how spatial relations are encoded in Australian language, but may be of interest to researchers further afield. -
Levinson, S. C. (1992). Space in Australian Languages Questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 29-40). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3512641.Abstract
This questionnaire is designed to explore how spatial relations are encoded in Australian language, but may be of interest to researchers further afield. -
Levinson, S. C. (1992). Activity types and language. In P. Drew, & J. Heritage (
Eds. ), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings (pp. 66-100). Cambridge University Press. -
Levinson, S. C., Brown, P., Danzinger, E., De León, L., Haviland, J. B., Pederson, E., & Senft, G. (1992). Man and Tree & Space Games. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 7-14). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.2458804.Abstract
These classic tasks can be used to explore spatial reference in field settings. They provide a language-independent metric for eliciting spatial language, using a “director-matcher” paradigm. The Man and Tree task deals with location on the horizontal plane with both featured (man) and non-featured (e.g., tree) objects. The Space Games depict various objects (e.g. bananas, lemons) and elicit spatial contrasts not obviously lexicalisable in English.Additional information
1992_Man_and_tree_and_space_games_stimuli.zip -
Levinson, S. C. (1992). Primer for the field investigation of spatial description and conception. Pragmatics, 2(1), 5-47.
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Levinson, S. C., & Annamalai, E. (1992). Why presuppositions aren't conventional. In R. N. Srivastava (
Ed. ), Language and text: Studies in honour of Ashok R. Kelkar (pp. 227-242). Dehli: Kalinga Publications.
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