How language makes meaning : embodiment and conjoined anatomy / Herbert L. Colston.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colston, Herbert L., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Semantics.

Language and logic.

Figures of speech.

Sociolinguistics.

Psycholinguistics.

Language and languages.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xx, 281 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Language's key function is to enable human social interaction, for which people are motivated to engage by powerful brain mechanisms. This book integrates recent work on embodied simulations, traditional meaning-making processes and a myriad of semantic and other meaning contributors to formulate a new model of how language functions following a pattern of conjoined antonymy. It investigates how embodied simulations,semantic information, deviation, omission, indirectness, figurativity, language play, and other processes leverage rich meaning from only a few words by using inherently biological, cognitive and social frameworks. The interaction of these meaning-making components of language is described and a language-functioning model based on recent neuroscientific research is laid out to allow for a more complete understanding of how language operates.

Contents:

Preface

Acknowledgments

A note on examples

1. The coin toss

2. Deviance

3. Omission

4. Imprecision

5. Indirectness

6. Figurativeness

7. Language play

8. THE social media

9. The art of language

10. The end game

Epilogue: A clearing revealing an eclipse

References

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 25 Oct 2019).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-38203-7

1-108-38395-5

1-108-37754-8