Fachbereich 7

Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft


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Non-literal language


DozentIn: Christoph Hesse

Veranstaltungstyp: Seminar

Ort: 41/101

Zeiten: Di. 14:00 - 16:00 (wöchentlich)

Beschreibung: Non-literal language, such as metaphor, is a powerful tool to communicate conceptually complex ideas in intuitive mental imagery. Is their self-explanatory, intuitive nature evidence of universal (cross-cultural) conceptual mechanisms? At the same time the nuances of non-literal, idiomic language, and the cultural knowledge necessary to make sense of it, is one of the most challenging aspects of learning a foreign language. Mastery of non-literal, idiomatic, and figurative language is often seen as a signal that a language learner has not merely learned about the grammar of a language and its culture, but has learned to “think like a native speaker.”

We will look at examples of non-literal language use from British and American cultural discourse to go beyond referential semantics into the realm of concepts and contextualized meaning. We will learn about related theories such as emboddied cognition, conceptual metaphor theory, relevance theory, and the Gricean theory of communication as (rational) social interaction. Along the way we will ponder whether to view non-literal language as a set of stylistic devices or as mechanisms of conceptualization, and consequently whether we should be teaching concepts, conventions or culture while leaving room for creativity.


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