Language from a social, psychological, and cultural perspective – how to reconstruct linguistic images of the world

General data

Course ID:	1500-SZD-LFASPACP
Erasmus code / ISCED:	(unknown) / (unknown)
Course title:	Language from a social, psychological, and cultural perspective – how to reconstruct linguistic images of the world
Name in Polish:	Language from a social, psychological, and cultural perspective – how to reconstruct linguistic images of the world
Organizational unit:	Faculty of Polish Studies
Course groups:
ECTS credit allocation (and other scores):	(not available) Basic information on ECTS credits allocation principles: the annual hourly workload of the student’s work required to achieve the expected learning outcomes for a given stage is 1500-1800h, corresponding to 60 ECTS; the student’s weekly hourly workload is 45 h; 1 ECTS point corresponds to 25-30 hours of student work needed to achieve the assumed learning outcomes; weekly student workload necessary to achieve the assumed learning outcomes allows to obtain 1.5 ECTS; work required to pass the course, which has been assigned 3 ECTS, constitutes 10% of the semester student load.
Language:	English
Type of course:	elective courses
Short description:	The subject of the course will be lexical semantics, comparative semantics, cognitive semantics, and ethnolinguistics. Since language is not an autonomous being, but one of the cognitive phenomena dependent on many non-linguistic factors, we will look at lexis and discourse in a broad psychological, cultural, and social context. You will learn about various theories, such as lexical fields, interpretive frames, semantic prosody, and mental spaces. We will consider the definition and function of a metaphor in language. We will focus on the theory of the linguistic image of the world and methods of its reconstruction. We will learn about online resources that are essential for semantics and learn how to use them (e.g., WordNet, corpora, digital dictionaries). We will also learn to use various tools for automatic text analysis, such as Corpusomat.
Full description:	The following topics will be discussed during the classes: 1. Various concepts of meaning. 2. Classical and cognitive categorization theory. 4. Lexical fields, WordNet semantic networks. Semantic relations: synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, hypo / hyperonymy, partivity. polysemy, homonymy. 5. Keywords, basics of stylometry. Corpus analysis. 6. The concept of connotation 7. Cognitive definition 9. The meaning of words in cognitive terms: the concept of the cognitive domain, profiling, interpretation framework, ICM. FrameNet network. 10. The concept of linguistic relativism (Sapir, Whorf's thesis): culture and categorization. Comparative semantics. 11. Linguistic and textual image of the world: methods of reconstruction. 12. Semantic prosody. 13. Conceptual metaphor in terms of Lakoff and Johnson: metaphor in classical, interactive terms and conceptual metaphor, functions of conceptual metaphor, metaphorization process (source and target domain) 14. The theory of amalgams (mental spaces).
Bibliography:	Coulson, S., & Oakley, T. (2005). Blending and coded meaning: Literal and figurative meaning in cognitive semantics. Journal of pragmatics, 37(10), 1510-1536. Egbert, J., Larsson, T., & Biber, D. (2020). Doing linguistics with a corpus: Methodological considerations for the everyday user. Cambridge University Press. Geeraerts, D. (2009). Theories of lexical semantics. OUP Oxford. Glaz, A., Danaher, D., & Lozowski, P. (2013). The linguistic worldview: Ethnolinguistics, cognition, and culture. Walter de Gruyter. Glynn, D. (2010). Corpus-driven cognitive semantics introduction to the field. Quantitative methods in cognitive semantics: Corpus-driven approaches, 1-41. Głaz, A. (Ed.). (2019). Languages–Cultures–Worldviews: Focus on Translation. Springer Nature. Mierzwińska-Hajnos, A. (2010). The Linguistic Worldview Revisited. A Cognitive Analysis of Plant Terms. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 46(4), 457-479. Sharifian, F. (2017). Cultural Linguistics: Cultural conceptualisations and language (Vol. 8). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Learning outcomes:	Knowledge: knows and understands P8S_WG.1 to the extent enabling the revision of the existing paradigms - world achievements, covering theoretical foundations and general issues and selected specific issues regarding lexical and comparative semantics, ethnolinguistics and cognitive linguistics P8S_WG.2 main development trends in semantics, ethnolinguistics and cognitive linguistics P8S_WG.3 methodology of corpus research, lexical fields, mental spaces, frame semantics P8S_WK.1 fundamental dilemmas of modern civilization Skills: can P8S_UW.1 use knowledge from various fields of linguistics to creatively identify, formulate and innovatively solve complex problems or perform research tasks, in particular: - define the purpose and subject of semantic and ethnolinguistic research, formulate a research hypothesis, - develop methods, techniques and research tools for semantics and ethnolinguistics and use them creatively, - make conclusions on the basis of the results of scientific research P8S_UK.1 communicate on specialist topics to a degree that allows active participation in the international scientific environment P8S_UK.4 participate in the scientific discourse P8S_UK.5 use a foreign language at the B2 level of the European Educational Description System to a degree enabling participation in the international scientific and professional environment Social Competence: is ready to P8S_KK.3 recognition of the importance of knowledge in solving cognitive and practical problems P8S_KR.1 maintaining and developing the ethos of research and creative environments, including: - conducting scientific activities in an independent manner, - respecting the principle of public ownership of the results of scientific activity, taking into account the principles of intellectual property protection
Assessment methods and assessment criteria:	Timely execution of assignments on the Kampus UW platform (tests, tasks, individual and group projects).

This course is not currently offered.

Course descriptions are protected by copyright.
Copyright by University of Warsaw.