Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers

Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers PDF Author: David Kronenfeld
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195357493
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Meaning seems to shift from context to context; how do we know when someone says "grab a chair" that an ottoman or orange crate will do, but when someone says "let's buy a chair," they won't? Somehow, in spite of this slipperiness, we usually understand each other in conversations, and have straightforward ways of querying each other when we sense a gap in understanding. We seem capable of using ordinary language to communicate with as much precision as we are willing to take the time and effort for--through attention to interactive feedback, and the use of paraphrastic modification, specification, and explication. In Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers, Kronenfeld offers a theory that explains both the usefulness of language's variability of reference and the mechanisms which enable us to understand each other in spite of the variability. His theory is rooted in the tradition of ethnoscience (or cognitive anthropology), a tradition which promotes an ethnography of explicit methodology and mathematically precise theory while remaining responsive to the complexity of particular cultures. Kronenfeld accomplishes three things with his theory. First, he distinguishes prototypic referents from extended referents. Second, he describes the various bases of semantic extensions. Finally he details how we use the situational context of usage, the linguistic context of opposition and inclusion, and the conceptual context of knowledge about the world to interpret communicative events.

Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers

Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers PDF Author: David Kronenfeld
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195357493
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book

Book Description
Meaning seems to shift from context to context; how do we know when someone says "grab a chair" that an ottoman or orange crate will do, but when someone says "let's buy a chair," they won't? Somehow, in spite of this slipperiness, we usually understand each other in conversations, and have straightforward ways of querying each other when we sense a gap in understanding. We seem capable of using ordinary language to communicate with as much precision as we are willing to take the time and effort for--through attention to interactive feedback, and the use of paraphrastic modification, specification, and explication. In Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers, Kronenfeld offers a theory that explains both the usefulness of language's variability of reference and the mechanisms which enable us to understand each other in spite of the variability. His theory is rooted in the tradition of ethnoscience (or cognitive anthropology), a tradition which promotes an ethnography of explicit methodology and mathematically precise theory while remaining responsive to the complexity of particular cultures. Kronenfeld accomplishes three things with his theory. First, he distinguishes prototypic referents from extended referents. Second, he describes the various bases of semantic extensions. Finally he details how we use the situational context of usage, the linguistic context of opposition and inclusion, and the conceptual context of knowledge about the world to interpret communicative events.

Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers

Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers PDF Author: David B. Kronenfeld
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195094085
Category : Anthropological linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Presents a comprehensive understanding of the process by which we use words in speech to refer to things in the world. The text aims to develop a theory of the semantics of natural language which can account adequately for native speakers' intuitions regarding word meanings and their word usage.

Culture, Society, and Cognition

Culture, Society, and Cognition PDF Author: David B. Kronenfeld
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110211483
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This theoretically motivated approach to pragmatics (vs. semantics) produces a radically new view of culture and its role vis-a-vis society. Understanding what words mean in use requires an open-ended recourse to pragmatic cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge makes up a productive conceptual system. Members of a cultural community share the system but not all of the system's content, making culture a system of parallel distributed cognition. This book presents such a system, and then elaborates a version of "cultural models" that relates actions to goals, values, emotional content, and context, and that allows both systematic generative capacity and systematic variation across cultural and subcultural groups. Such models are offered as the basic units of cultural action. Culture thus conceived is shown as a tool that people use rather than as something deeply internalized in their psyches.

Southern Anthropology - a History of Fison and Howitt’s Kamilaroi and Kurnai

Southern Anthropology - a History of Fison and Howitt’s Kamilaroi and Kurnai PDF Author: Helen Gardner
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137463813
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Southern Anthropology, the history of Fison and Howitt's Kamilaroi and Kurnai is the biography of Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1880) written from both a historical and anthropological perspective. Southern Anthropology investigates the authors' work on Aboriginal and Pacific people and the reception of their book in metropolitan centres.

Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory

Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory PDF Author: Paul A. Erickson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442600691
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 650

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Book Description
This comprehensive anthology presents 40 readings that are critical to an understanding of anthropological theory and the development of anthropology as an academic discipline. The readings have broad anthropological appeal, emphasizing social and cultural anthropology. The third edition has been completely revised throughout and organized to work more closely alongside the companion overview text, A History of Anthropological Theory. It includes six new readings as well as two original essays written by contemporary anthropologists on "Why Theory Matters." These new essays help ground the more abstract readings in the collection. The glossary has been significantly expanded and the discussion questions have been revised. The result is a volume that offers not only a strong foundation in the history of the discipline but also a good overview of developments in twentieth- and twenty-first-century anthropological theory, including feminist anthropology, postmodernity, medical anthropology, globalization, postcolonialism, and public anthropology.

A History of Anthropological Theory, Sixth Edition

A History of Anthropological Theory, Sixth Edition PDF Author: Paul A. Erickson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487535961
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
For over twenty years, A History of Anthropological Theory has provided a strong foundation for understanding anthropological thinking, tracing how the discipline has evolved from its origins to the present day. The sixth edition of this important text offers substantial updates throughout, including more balanced coverage of the four fields of anthropology, an entirely new section on the Anthropocene, and significantly revised discussions of public anthropology, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. Written in accessible prose and enhanced with illustrations, key terms, and study questions in each section, this text remains essential reading for those interested in studying the history of anthropology. On its own or used with the companion volume, Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, sixth edition, this text provides comprehensive coverage in a flexible and easy-to-use format for teaching in the anthropology classroom.

Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition

Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition PDF Author: Paul A. Erickson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442606584
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1846

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Book Description
This comprehensive anthology offers over 40 readings that are critical to the understanding of anthropological theory and the development of anthropology as an academic discipline. The fourth edition maintains a strong focus on the "four-field" roots of the discipline in North America but has been reorganized with a new section on twenty-first-century theory, including coverage of postcolonial and public anthropology. New key terms and introductions accompany each reading and a revamped glossary makes the book more student-friendly. Used on its own, or together with the overview text A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition, this anthology offers a flexible and unrivaled introduction to anthropological theory that reflects not only the history but also the changing nature of the discipline today. For additional resources, visit the "Teaching Theory" page at www.utpteachingculture.com.

Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, Sixth Edition

Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, Sixth Edition PDF Author: Paul A. Erickson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487538898
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 776

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Book Description
Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory curates and collects many of the most important publications of anthropological thought spanning the last hundred years, building a strong foundation in both classical and contemporary theory. The sixth edition includes seventeen new readings, with a sharpened focus on public anthropology, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and the Anthropocene. Each piece of writing is accompanied by a short introduction, key terms, study questions, and further readings that elucidate the original text. On its own or together with A History of Anthropological Theory, sixth edition, this anthology offers an unrivalled introduction to the theory of anthropology that reflects not only its history but also the changing nature of the discipline today.

Language, Space, and Social Relationships

Language, Space, and Social Relationships PDF Author: Giovanni Bennardo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521883121
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Discusses the relationship between language and the mental organisation of knowledge, based on research carried out in Polynesia.

Relatively Speaking

Relatively Speaking PDF Author: Eve Danziger
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195099109
Category : Language and culture
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Based upon 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork among the Mopan Maya in Belize, Eve Danziger examines the semantic complexity of particular kinship terms used among Mopan women and children and shows that a culture-specific analysis of their terms is superior to other non-ethnographically-based methods. In doing so she contributes not only to theoretical semantics and the ethnography of that area, but to the cross-cultural study of child development and language acquisition.