Descrizione del progetto
Un nuovo approccio allo studio del linguaggio nella comunicazione
Nella filosofia del linguaggio, il campo della metasemantica postula che una popolazione impiega il linguaggio come comunicazione basata sul suono secondo una specifica convenzione di sintassi e grammatica, piuttosto che sul reale significato delle parole. Il progetto Language Use si allontana da questo approccio per studiare il rapporto che intercorre tra il linguaggio e le azioni e lo stato mentale dei suoi utilizzatori avvalendosi di una ricerca empirica che coinvolge linguistica, psicologia evoluzionistica, metafisica e filosofia della mente. Il progetto farà progredire l’inizio della carriera della ricercatrice, che come parte della sua ricerca fornirà inoltre una nuova ontologia del linguaggio e delle espressioni.
Obiettivo
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
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinatore
LS2 9JT Leeds
Regno Unito