FSS 2011

PS: Semantics and Pragmatics of English

Dates and Room: Wednesday 5.15-6.45 pm; EW 169
Instructor: Dr. Holger Hopp
E-Mail: hhopp@rumms.uni-mannheim.de
Tel.: 0621-181-3160
Office: L15,1-6; Room 322
Office hours: Monday 3.30-5.00pm
Overview:
How do words and sentences get their meaning and how do people convey meaning in
communication? Why is a dog called 'dog', and how come we all understand the mea
ning of
'dog'? Why and how do we understand jokes, metaphors and irony, and why do some
people
fail to understand them?
This course aims to introduce the basic concepts of semantics and pragmatics and
will
survey major approaches to the study of meaning. We will consider meaning at sev
eral
levels (lexical, sentential, discourse) and discuss the relationship between gra
mmar and
meaning. In order to add some meat to the bones of semantic theory, we will read
original
research articles on psycholinguistic experiments to do with semantics. This way
, we will
relate semantic theory to how children acquire linguistic meaning, how language
shapes our
thinking, and how adults use semantic and pragmatic information in language
comprehension. Not least, we will do some fun in-class experiments to see how we
(mis-)
construe meaning.
Course Requirements/Requirements for a 'Schein':
All All the time:
(1) Reading preparation
.
Attendance at the first meeting is mandatory.
.
You will fail this course if you miss more than two meetings during the term for
nonmedical
reasons.
.
If you cannot attend a session for medical reasons, you need to submit a doctor'
s
certificate ('Attest') within one week after the session you missed.
.
You may not miss more than one-third of the course, i.e. more than four sessions
,
whatever the reason.
.
It is essential you read and prepare the assigned readings in Saeed (2009) befor
e
class since we will not discuss every aspect of the readings in class.
(2) Question and Answers on ILIAS forum
.
On ILIAS, there is a forum for your questions and answers.
.
Each week, you post a question relating to the chapter you read in the forum by
opening a new thread entitled Week [number]: Question about [XYZ] by [your
name] . Your question can be anything from a comprehension question to a critical
comment. Post your question by Sunday noon.
.
Each week, you also answer one question posted by someone else. You read their
thread and post an answer. Post your answer by Tuesday noon.
.
We will discuss open questions (or wrong answers) in class on Wednesday.
.
In total, you are required to post at least 11 questions and 11 answers in diffe
rent
weeks.
1
(3) Homework assignments
.
In total, there will be three short assignments for you to do at home.
.
The assignments will be short exercises similar to the ones listed at the end of
each
chapter in Saeed (2009).
.
They will not take up a lot of your time, and they may be a welcome addition to
the
exam at the end of the course, because you can look things up and ponder the
problems for days (though, of course, you should not).
.
Answers need to be submitted on paper by Tuesday noon of the following week. Put
them in my pigeonhole in the secretary s office in EW 266.
All Once:
(1) Presentation
.
You are expected to present the additional readings (i.e. an original research p
aper)
in one session. Depending on the number of students in this course, you can do t
his
in groups of 2-4s.
.
In these presentations, your task is to review the chapter to give background to
the
papers you present to your fellow students who have not read them. Hence, the fo
cus
of these presentations will be on the paper and how its findings relate to the t
opics
discussed in the chapter.
.
Presentations will be in Powerpoint format and may not exceed 30 minutes. Try to
make these presentations as interactive and engaging as possible (. see 'How to
Make a Good Presentation').
.
You need to provide additional handouts; these can be print-offs of your ppt-sli
des or
separate handouts.
.
You will meet up with me some days before class (i.e. Monday) for us to go throu
gh
the presentation. You need to submit your ppt-slides one day prior to this meeti
ng.
.
On top of the presentation, you will also look at the questions and answers on t
he
ILIAS forum. Use them to foster productive in-class discussion after your
presentation.
.
After the presentation, you will make the ppt-slides available on ILIAS.
(2) Exam
.
The course will conclude with a written exam covering the chapters of Saeed (200
9)
we discuss in class as well as the presentations.
.
Details of the setup of the exam will be discussed in the penultimate class.
(3) Take part in a psycholinguistic study
.
You will take part in an eyetracking study and some other psycholinguistic
experiments. The study will take about 90 minutes, distributed across two sessio
ns.
You will get some hands-on experience of a variety of experimental methods. The
study will be in our lab in L15, 1-6. I will send round a list with dates later.

2
Assessment:
.
Class presentations, submission of discussion questions, active participation in
class
discussions and exam.
.
The final grade will be based on the exam (50%), the presentation (25%), the
homework assignments (15%) and class participation including the weekly question
s
and answers in the forum and participation in the study (10%).
Syllabus:
The papers for presentation and the first two chapters of the course textbook ar
e available
on-line on ILIAS.
16.02.2011 - Week 1: Introduction
23.02.2011 - Week 2: Semantics and Pragmatics in language
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 1: Semantics in Linguistics
02.03.2011 - Week 3: Thinking and language
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 2: Meaning, Thought and Reality
Presentation: Frank, Everett, Federenko & Gibson (2008)
Background: Gordon (2004) and Letters (2005); Pinker (1994): Chapter 3
09.03.2011 - Week 4: Concepts and acquisition of word meaning:
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 3: Word Meaning
Presentation: Kaminski, Tempelmann, Call & Tomasello (2009)
Background: Kaminski et al. (2004); Bloom (2004); Radford et al. (1999):
Chapters 12 & 13
16.03.2011 - Week 5: Logic and Reasoning
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 4: Sentence Relations and Truth.
Presentation: Eysenck & Keane (2009): Chapter 14
HOMEWORK 1
23.03.2011 - Week 6: Verb Semantics
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 5: Sentence Semantics 1: Situations
Presentation: van Hout (1998)
30.03.2011 - Week 7: Thematic roles
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 6: Sentence Semantics 2: Participants
Presentation: Bencini & Valian (2008)
Background: Guasti (2002): Chapter 7
3
06.04.2011 - Week 8: Pragmatics
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 7: Context and Inference
Presentation: Engelhardt, Bailey & Ferreira (2006)
HOMEWORK 2
13.04.2011 - Week 9: Componential Theories of Meaning
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 9: Meaning Components
Presentation: Gropen, Pinker & Hollander (1991): 153-154,157-161,163-179.
EASTER BREAK
04.05.2011 - Week 10: Quantification
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 10: Formal Semantics
Presentation: Guasti (2002): Chapter 9
HOMEWORK 3
11.05.2011 - Week 11: Quantification continued
18.05.2011 - Week 12: Cognitive Semantics
ALL: Saaed (2009): Chapter 11: Cognitive Semantics
Presentation: Hurtienne & Blessing (2007)
Background: Ungerer & Schmid (2006): Chapter 3
25.05.2011 - Week 13: Spill-over session
01.06.2011 - Week 14: Wrap-up and Exam Q&A
08.06.2011 - Week 15: Exam
Note on plagiarism (from: www.plagiarism.org)
Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone
else's
original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriou
sness of the
offense.
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
- turning in someone else's work as your own
- copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
- failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
- giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
- changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving c
redit
- copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of
your work,
whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)
Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply ackn
owledging
that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the in
formation
necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.
4
Attention! Changing the words of an original source is not sufficient to prevent
plagiarism. If you have retained the essential idea of an original source, and h
ave not cited
it, then no matter how drastically you may have altered its context or presentat
ion, you have
still plagiarized.
In other words, you need to provide sources/references whenever you
- quote literally
-paraphrase
-use someone else's thought or idea
- have been influenced by someone else's work in developing your own ideas.
For more information, see www.plagiarism.org
If a student is found to submit plagiarized work, s/he will not receive credit (
a Schein ) for the
course, his or her Karteikarte will be marked with a P for a an attempt at plagiar
ism for all
lecturers and professors to see, and s/he will not be eligible for Abschlussprüfun
gen at the
Lehrstuhl Tracy. For further details, see the information on the department s webs
ite.
There will also be a hand-out and an exercise on how to avoid plagiarism later i
n this course.
Last, but not least:
Please feel free to come talk to me about any issue you do not understand or you
find
particularly interesting. Of course, if you have any concerns or criticisms of t
he way the
seminar is going, let me know.
Important dates (not to be missed!)
Every week (1) Sunday noon: Post question on ILIAS forum
(2) Tuesday: Answer question on ILIAS forum
3 times Tuesday noon: Submit homework assignment on paper
Once (1) Monday: Meet with me when presenting this week
(2) Tuesday: Submit ppt-slides of your presentation by email
before 6pm
5
Bibliography (Asterisks indicate that the reading is available on ILIAS)
*Bencini, Giulia & Valian, Virginia (2008) Abstract sentence representations in 3
year-olds:
Evidence from language comprehension and production. Journal of Memory and
Language 59: 97-113.
*Bloom, Paul (2004) Can a dog learn a word? Science 304: 1605-1606.
*Engelhardt, Paul E., Bailey, Karl G.D. & Ferreira, Fernanda (2006) Do speakers a
nd
listeners observe the Gricean Maxim of Quantity? Journal of Memory and Language 5
4:
554-573.
*Eysenck, Michael W. & Keane, Mark T. (62009) Cognitive Psychology: A Student's
Handbook. Hove: Psychology Press.
*Frank, Michael C., Everett, Daniel L., Federenko, Evelina & Gibson, Edward (200
8).
Number as a cognitive technology: Evidence from Pirahã language and cognition.
Cognition 108: 819-824.
*Gordon, Peter (2004) Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia.
Science 306: 496-499.
*Gropen, Jess, Pinker, Steven & Hollander, Michelle (1991) Affectedness and direc
t objects:
The role of lexical semantics in the acquisition of verb argument structure. Cogn
ition 41:
153-195.
Guasti, Maria Teresa (2002) Language Acquisition: The Growth of Grammar. Cambrid
ge,
MA: MIT Press.
*van Hout, Angeliek (1998) On the role of direct objects and particles in learnin
g telicity in
Dutch and English. In: A. Greenhill et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the 22nd annual
BUCLD.
Somerville: Cascadilla Press. pp. 397-408.
*Hurtienne, Jörn & Blessing, Lucienne (2007). Metaphors as Tools for Intuitive Int
eraction
with Technology. metaphorik.de 12: 21-52.
*Kaminski, Juliane, Call, Josep & Fischer, Julia (2004) Word learning in a domest
ic dog:
Evidence for Fast Mapping ." Science 304: 1682-1683.
*Kaminski, Juliane, Tempelmann, Sebastian, Call, Josep & Tomasello, Michael (200
9)
Domestic dogs comprehend human communication with iconic signs. Developmental
Science 12: 831-837.
*Letters Crying Whorf (2005), Science 307: 1721-1722.
Pinker, Steven (1994) The Language Instinct. London: Penguin.
Radford, Andrew, Atkinson, Martin, Britain, David, Clahsen, Harald, Spencer, And
rew (22009)
Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP.
Saeed, John I. (32009) Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.
*Torreano, Lisa, Cacciari, Cristina & Glucksberg, Sam (2005) When dogs can fly: L
evel of
abstraction as a cue to metaphorical use of verbs. Metaphor and Symbol 120: 259-2
74.
Ungerer, Friedrich & Schmid, Hans-Jörg (22006) An Introduction to Cognitive Lingui
stics.
Harlow: Pearson.
6