Language Use · Languages and Language Use
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-01 → 2021-10-14
- EU contribution
- €212,934
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Languages and Language Use
The problem being addressed is the nature of language and communication. The project questions the old idea that language is based on a convention of cooperative information exchange. This idea was problematic in that it ignores many uses of language that are ubiquitous. For instance, language use is not always cooperative. Often times we use language in a strategic way for conflicting purposes—in the political sphere, for example, in the courtroom, and even with our children and intimate partners. Even when language is cooperative, it’s not always used for information exchange. For instance, we also use language to tell stories, to make jokes, to socially bond, to perform rituals, etc. These issues are important for society because they have implications for social sciences such as linguistics, as well as for legal and moral issues involving interpretation, free speech, and hate speech. The project has two main objectives: (1) to provide a novel metasemantic proposal, i.e., an account of what makes it the case that a community of speakers share a given language and (2) to provide a novel ontology of linguistic entities such as languages and expressions. The aim is for the findings to be published in a series of articles and a monograph.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The ER (Jessica Keiser) is an early career researcher. The focus of her research to this point has been the philosophy of language, specifically metasemantics. The research goal of the project is to develop an account of the nature of language and language use (explained below) which reduces these phenomena to facts about the actions and mental states of language users. This project builds on the ER’s existing research expertise, but with the support of the host institution (University of Leeds) and the supervisor (Professor Robert Williams), the project will broaden the purview of her research by integrating it with empirical research in linguistics and evolutionary psychology, as well as core areas of philosophy such as metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. It will advance her career at a crucial early stage by making a mark with a large scale project which offers offering novel and viable solutions to recalcitrant problems, and position her at the cutting edge of contemporary discussion.The project has two main objectives: (1) to provide a novel metasemantic proposal, i.e., an account of what makes it the case that a community of speakers share a given language and (2) to provide a novel ontology of linguistic entities such as languages and expressions. The metasemantic proposal claims that populations speak the languages they do in virtue of conventions of locutionary action (using an utterance to direct attention). This proposal departs from the traditional conception of language as grounded in illocutionary action (using an utterance to elicit a propositional attitude), and overcomes problems concerning indeterminacy and nonliteral speech that were problematic for traditional accounts. The metaphysical proposal uses the tools and framework from metasemantic account to provide an ontology of the linguistic entities it is committed to. It moves away from standard approaches by using communicative actions (rather than the products of those actions e.g., sound
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS · LeedsCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union