Overview

What does it mean to drive a Cadillac? What does 'cuckoo' suggest about the bird? -- two examples explored in this investigation of the history of language signs and of what philosophers, linguists, and others have had to say about them. Rudi Keller shows how signs emerge, function, and develop in the permanent process of language change. He recombines thoughts and ideas from Plato to the present day to create a new theory of the meaning and evolution of icons and symbols. By assuming no prior knowledge and by developing his argument from first principles, Rudi Keller has written a basic text which includes all the necessary features: easy style, good organization, original scholarship, and historical depth. This is a non-technical book which will interest linguists, philosophers, students of communications and cultural studies, semioticians/semanticists, sociologists, and anthropologists.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rudi Keller (Professor of German Linguistics, Professor of German Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf) ,  Kimberley Duenwald
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.30cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 24.20cm
Weight:   0.561kg
ISBN:  

9780198237334

ISBN 10:   0198237332
Pages:   280
Publication Date:   29 October 1998
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Signs in Everyday Life Part I: Two Notions of Signs 1: Plato's Instrumental Notion of Signs 2: Aristotle's Representational Notion of Signs 3: Frege's Representational Notion of Signs Part II: Semantics and Cognition 5: Conceptual Realism versus Conceptual Relativism 6: Types of Concepts versus Types of Rules 7: Expression and Meaning Part III: Sign Emergence 8: Basic Techniques of Interpretation 9: Inferential Procedures 10: Arbitrariness versus Motivatedness Part IV: Sign Metamorphosis 11: Iconification and Symbolification 12: Metaphorization, Metonymization and Lexicalization 13: Literal and Metaphorical Sense 14: Rationality and Implicatures Part V: The Diachronic Dimension 15: Costs and Benefits of the Metaphoric Technique 16: The Metaphoric Use of Modal Verbs 17: The Epistemic Weil Summary

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Rudi Keller is Professor of German Linguistics at Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf.

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