教學大綱 Syllabus

科目名稱：語用學與語意處理

Course Name: Pragmatics and Meaning Processing
  • 學年學期：113-2 Spring Semester, 2025
  • 科目代碼：555732001 Course No.555732001

修別：選

Type of Credit: Elective

3.0

學分數

Credit(s)

20

預收人數

Number of Students

課程資料Course Details
  • 開課單位：語言碩一、語言博一、語言碩二、語言博二 Course Department:Institute of Linguistics/G/1&2
  • 授課老師：賴瑶鍈 Instructor: LAI YAO-YING
  • 先修科目：無Prerequisite(N/A)
  • 上課時間：三D56 Session: wed13-16

課程簡介Course Description

This course focuses on pragmatics and semantics, examining how linguistic meaning is represented and processed in our mind and brain through concept composition and contextualization. We will discuss key themes in pragmatics and integrate linguistic theories with real-time processing models, investigating the interplay between combinatorial meaning and context in shaping sentence interpretations. Topics covered include semantic underspecification, implicature, presupposition, in/direct speech acts, figurative language (primarily metonymy and metaphor), as well as a few related issues (e.g., literal vs. nonliteral meaning, and the role of social cognition in pragmatic inferences). Throughout the course, we will explore how the human language processor computes meaning during comprehension and the associated neurocognitive mechanisms, drawing on recent experimental research grounded in theoretical frameworks. 

核心能力分析圖 Core Competence Analysis Chart

能力項目說明

    課程目標與學習成效Course Objectives & Learning Outcomes

    In this course, students will learn:

    • The basic perspectives and arguments in semantics and pragmatics
    • How sentential meaning is obtained combinatorically, and how the human processor computes sentence interpretation during real-time comprehension
    • The role of context in meaning computation
    • The cognitive mechanisms involved in semantic and pragmatic processing
    • The current understanding and debates in cases of figurative languages
    • The interdisciplinary research on the interface of linguistics and cognitive psychology, and neuroscience

     

    Through this course, the students will be able to:

    • Understand the advancement and current issues of semantic and pragmatic processing
    • Understand how linguistic theories and experimental work are bridged
    • Apply scientific method and logical reasoning to research
    • Appreciate the importance and contribution of interdisciplinary research

    每周課程進度與作業要求 Course Schedule & Requirements

    教學週次Course Week 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type
    週次
    Week
    課程主題
    Topic
    教學活動與作業
    Teaching Activities and Homework
    學習投入時間
    Student workload expectation
    課堂講授
    In-class Hours
    課程前後
    Outside-of-class Hours
    1
     Course introduction & orientation
    Lecture & Discussion
    3
    5 
    2
    Fundamental concepts
    in semantics and pragmatics
    (entailment, presupposition, sense/reference)
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    3
    Semantic and conceptual structures:
    How are concepts encoded in language?
    Lecture, Discussion, & Readings
    3
    6
    4
    Semantic composition, Underspecification, and Enrichment
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6 
    5
    Conventionalization & Contextualization
    Literal & Nonliteral meaning
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    6
    Implicature: theoretical accounts
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    7
    Implicature: real-time processing
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    8
    Mid-Term: Project outline
    Oral Presentation
    3
    6
    9
    Metonymy: theoretical accounts
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    10
    Metonymy: real-time processing
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    11
    Metaphor: theoretical accounts
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    12
    Metaphor: real-time processing
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    13
     Indirect speech acts & Irony
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    14
    Linguistic computation & Social cognition 
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    15
    		 Current debates & future directions in semantic-pragmatic processing
    Lecture, Discussion,
    & Readings
    3
    6
    16
    		    Final Presentation: Term project Oral presentation
    3
    6
    17
    Term project submission
    Written report submission
    3
    6

    授課方式Teaching Approach

    50%

    講述 Lecture

    30%

    討論 Discussion

    0%

    小組活動 Group activity

    10%

    數位學習 E-learning

    10%

    其他： Others: 個案討論

    評量工具與策略、評分標準成效Evaluation Criteria

    Grading:

    1. In-class Participation & Discussion ∙∙∙ 30%
    2. Written Paper summary ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ 10%
    3. Oral paper summary ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ 10%
    4. Mid-Term proposal ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ 15%
    5. Final term project ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ 35%

     

    Academic Integrity:

    Students are required to remain truthful in presentations, papers, and reports throughout the course. Plagiarism, lying, falsification, fabrication, improper use of electronic devices, taking others’ ideas without permission, or other dishonesty are prohibited and will result in penalties according to the university policy.

    指定/參考書目Textbook & References

     
    There is no textbook for this course. We will discuss selected articles from journal papers and book chapters associated with the topic of the week from various sources.
    *Note: We will read some (but not all) of the following articles. The readings are subject to change based on students’ interests and the course schedule.
    • Ariel, M. (2002). The demise of a unique concept of literal meaning. Journal of pragmatics, 34(4), 361-402.
    • Bach, K. (1994). Conversational impliciture. Mind and language, 9(2), 124-162
    • Baggio, G. (2021). Compositionality in a parallel architecture for language processing. Cognitive Science, 45(5), e12949.
    • Bambini, V., & Bara, B. G. (2022). Neuropragmatics. In Handbook of pragmatics (pp. 1014-1028). John Benjamins.
    • Bowdle, B. F., & Gentner, D. (2005). The career of metaphor. Psychological review, 112(1), 193.
    • Coulson, S., & Oakley, T. (2005). Blending and coded meaning: Literal and figurative meaning in cognitive semantics. Journal of pragmatics, 37(10), 1510-1536.
    • Frisson, S. (2009). Semantic underspecification in language processing. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3(1), 111-127.
    • Gibbs Jr, R. W., & Colston, H. L. (2020). Pragmatics always matters: An expanded vision of experimental pragmatics. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1619.
    • Glucksberg, S. (2003). The psycholinguistics of metaphor. Trends in cognitive sciences, 7(2), 92-96.
    • Grice, H. P. (1957). Meaning. The philosophical review, 66(3), 377-388.
    • Grice, H. P. (1981). Presupposition and conversational implicature. Radical pragmatics, 183.
    • Grice, P. (1989). Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard University Press.
    • Horn, L. R. (1992, June). The said and the unsaid. In Semantics and linguistic theory (pp. 163-192).
    • Horn, L. R. (2006). The border wars: A neo-Gricean perspective. In Where semantics meets pragmatics (pp. 21-48). Brill.
    • Horn, L., & Ward, G. (Eds.). (2008). The handbook of pragmatics. John Wiley & Sons
    • Kalandadze, T., Norbury, C., Nærland, T., & Næss, K. A. B. (2018). Figurative language comprehension in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analytic review. Autism, 22(2), 99-117.
    • Lai, Y. Y., & Piñango, M. M. (2019). Searching for specific sentence meaning in context: the conceptual relation between participants. Language and Cognition, 11(4), 582-620.
    • Lakoff, G. (2014). Mapping the brain's metaphor circuitry: metaphorical thought in everyday reason. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8, 958
    • Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge university press.
    • Littlemore (2015) Ch.3 - Theoretical models of metonymy. In Metonymy. Cambridge University Press.
    • McElree, B., Traxler, M. J., Pickering, M. J., Seely, R. E., & Jackendoff, R. (2001). Reading time evidence for enriched composition. Cognition, 78(1), B17-B25.
    • Moens, M., & Steedman, M. (2005). Temporal ontology and temporal reference
    • Nieuwland, M. S., Ditman, T., & Kuperberg, G. R. (2010). On the incrementality of pragmatic processing: An ERP investigation of informativeness and pragmatic abilities. Journal of memory and language, 63(3), 324-346.
    • Pagin, P., & Pelletier, J. (2007). Content, context, and composition. Context-sensitivity and semantic minimalism: New essays on semantics and pragmatics, 25-62.
    • Panther, K. U., & Thornburg, L. L. (2017). Metaphor and metonymy in language and thought: A cognitive linguistic approach. Synthesis philosophica, 64(2), 271-294.
    • Pickering, M. J., McElree, B., Frisson, S., Chen, L., & Traxler, M. J. (2006). Underspecification and aspectual coercion. Discourse Processes, 42(2), 131–155.
    • Piñango, M. M. (2019). Concept composition during language processing: Two case studies and a model. In The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Applied Linguistics (pp. 624-644). Routledge.
    • Potts, C. (2015). Presupposition and implicature. The handbook of contemporary semantic theory, 168-202.
    • Pustejovsky (1995) Aspectual Coercion and Logical Polysemy
    • Rapp, A. M., Mutschler, D. E., & Erb, M. (2012). Where in the brain is nonliteral language? A coordinate-based meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Neuroimage, 63(1), 600-610.
    • Searle, J. R. (1969), Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge.
    • Searle, J. R. (1975). Indirect speech acts. Syntax and semantics, 3.
    • Stalnaker, R. (1996, August). On the representation of context. In Semantics and Linguistic Theory (Vol. 6, pp. 279-294).
    • Spychalska, M., Kontinen, J., & Werning, M. (2016). Investigating scalar implicatures in a truth-value judgement task: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31(6), 817-840.
    • Wilson (2019) Relevance Theory
    • Ziegeler, D. (2007). A word of caution on coercion. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(5), 990-1028.

     

    已申請之圖書館指定參考書目 圖書館指定參考書查詢 |相關處理要點

    維護智慧財產權，務必使用正版書籍。 Respect Copyright.

    本課程可否使用生成式AI工具Course Policies on the Use of Generative AI Tools

    本課程無涉及AI使用 This Course Does Not Involve the Use of AI.

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