Universität Wien

420012 SE Language in the Cognitive Sciences (2012W)

Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung

Erster Termin: Donnerstag, 11.10.2012, Letzter Termin: Donnerstag, 31.01.2013;

Do wtl. von 11.10.2012 bis 31.01.2013, 18.00 - 19:30

Ort: 1090 Wien, Sensengasse 3a, Hörsaal 1, 1 Stock

An/Abmeldung

Hinweis: Ihr Anmeldezeitpunkt innerhalb der Frist hat keine Auswirkungen auf die Platzvergabe (kein "first come, first served").

Details

max. 50 Teilnehmer*innen
Sprache: Englisch

Lehrende

Termine

Zur Zeit sind keine Termine bekannt.

Information

Ziele, Inhalte und Methode der Lehrveranstaltung

Human language is studied by various branches of the cognitive sciences (including philosophers, psychologists, and linguists), many of whom view it as what sets the humans apart from other species. In this seminar, we will review how different disciplines look at language, and examine the arguments for treating it as a specialized sub-system of the mind and consequently of cognition. Some important issues in this context concern complexity, abstractness, universality, emergence, variation, uniformity and speed of acquisition across cultures and population groups, which also necessitates distinguishing between questions concerning language as a communicative system and questions concerning the computations underlying this system, such as those underlying recursion. Concomitantly, we will discuss how linguistics fits into cognitive science by looking in particular at issues such as nativism vs. empiricism, formalism vs. functionalism, and grammar vs. analogy.

Art der Leistungskontrolle und erlaubte Hilfsmittel

Mindestanforderungen und Beurteilungsmaßstab

Prüfungsstoff

Literatur

Carruthers, P. 2011. Language in cognition. In E.Margolis, R.Samuels, and S.Stich (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press.
Chomsky, N. 1975. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon. [Especially Chapter 1: On cognitive capacity]
Cummins, R. 1975. Functional analysis. The Journal of Philosophy 72:741-765.
Darwin, C. 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation with Sex. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
Fitch, W.T., M. D. Hauser and N. Chomsky. 2005. The evolution of the language
faculty: clarifications and implications. Cognition 97:179–210.
Hauser, M., N. Chomsky and W. T. Fitch. 2002. The faculty of language:
what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298:1569-1579.
Jackendoff, R. and S. Pinker. 2005. The nature of the language faculty and its implications for evolution of language (Reply to Fitch, Hauser, & Chomsky). Cognition 97:211–225.
Kirby, S. 2007. The evolution of language. In R. Dunbar and L. Barrett (eds) Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology 669-681. Oxford University Press.
Pinker, S. and R. Jackendoff. 2005. The faculty of language: what’s special about it? Cognition 95:201–236.

Zuordnung im Vorlesungsverzeichnis

Letzte Änderung: Mo 02.10.2023 00:26