Language from the body : iconicity and metaphor in American Sign Language / Sarah F. Taub.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Taub, Sarah F., 1968- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American Sign Language.

Iconicity (Linguistics).

Metaphor.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 256 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

What is the role of meaning in linguistic theory? Generative linguists have severely limited the influence of meaning, claiming that language is not affected by other cognitive processes and that semantics does not influence linguistic form. Conversely, cognitivist and functionalist linguists believe that meaning pervades and motivates all levels of linguistic structure. This dispute can be resolved conclusively by evidence from signed languages. Signed languages are full of iconic linguistic items: words, inflections, and even syntactic constructions with structural similarities between their physical form and their referents' form. Iconic items can have concrete meanings and also abstract meanings through conceptual metaphors. Language from the Body rebuts the generativist linguistic theories which separate form and meaning and asserts that iconicity can only be described in a cognitivist framework where meaning can influence form.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; List of Figures; Acknowledgments; CHAPTER ONE A Glimpse of the Material; CHAPTER TWO Motivation and Linguistic Theory; CHAPTER THREE Iconicity Defined and Demonstrated; CHAPTER FOUR The Analogue-Building Model of Linguistic Iconicity; CHAPTER FIVE Survey of Iconicity in Signed and Spoken Languages; CHAPTER SIX Metaphor in American Sign Language: The Double Mapping; CHAPTER SEVEN Many Metaphors in a Single Sign; CHAPTER EIGHT The Vertical Scale as Source Domain; CHAPTER NINE Verb Agreement Paths in American Sign Language

CHAPTER TEN Complex Superposition of Metaphors in an American Sign Language PoemCHAPTER ELEVEN The Future of Signed-Language Research; APPENDIX ONE Glossing Conventions; APPENDIX TWO Translation of The TreasureŽ; References; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-247) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11906-5

0-521-15860-5

1-280-42116-9

0-511-17363-6

0-511-15277-9

0-511-30327-0

0-511-50962-6

0-511-04937-4

OCLC:

191035620