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Meaning is an important aspect of language and the study of meaning (semantics) is a core discipline of linguistics. Talking about language on any level will most certainly lead to the need of thinking about meaning, because it is almost impossible to untangle language and meaning and view them separately from each other. Meaning can be found in structure, in (parts of) words, in sentences, whole conversations and so on and is therefore an important aspect of many different (if not all) disciplines of linguistics. In some cases it is obvious that we are dealing with meaning (e.g. words), in others, meaning is hidden and requires a second look (e.g. grammar). As soon as we get involved with meaning, it becomes clear that is a very slippery thing and often very hard to pin down (e.g. what IS the meaning of meaning?!).
The aim of this class is to get a better understanding of the importance of meaning by finding a way of looking at it from different perspectives and showing how different researchers tried to grasp the meaning of meaning. We will look at theories that go back thousands of years to the ancient Greek philosophers and are still valid today, and will move to rather frequent approaches that try to take the whole picture into consideration. |
