Full text
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| Author(s): |
Joana Bortolini Franco
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2014-12-11 |
| Examining board members: |
Evani de Carvalho Viotti;
Carlos Eduardo Cornejo Alarcon;
Joao Vergilio Gallerani Cuter
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| Advisor: | Evani de Carvalho Viotti |
| Abstract | |
This thesis presents the main results of a research dedicated to comparing and confronting Cognitive Linguistics conceptions of language and meaning with the formulations of the second phase of Ludwig Wittgensteins philosophy. Based on the reading and interpretation of fundamental texts in Cognitive Linguistics and of important publications of Wittgenstein, this thesis aims at highlighting the similarities and differences between these two lines of thought, in order to suggest promising lines of dialogue between them. It also intends to include in the debate other trends of Cognitive Sciences, respecting the interdisciplinary view of the language conceptions which have oriented this research. Although the discussions especially concern the notions of meaning and language, they also involve conceptions of rationality and cognition that touch several contemporary themes of relevance in western thought. In the early chapters, these notions appear in a wider context of thought, side by side in a debate between two paradigms: the objectivist and the experientialist paradigms. Cognitive Linguistics and late Wittgensteins philosophy likewise assume that human language cannot be considered as something isolated from its concrete use. The conflict between them begins when we have, on the one hand, a conception of meaning grounded in the experience with the body as a biological organism, and, on the other hand, an approach to language that excludes the concern with any causal fundament of language use. This difference has been partially presented in terms of a difference between Science and Philosophy, but mainly taking into account the internalist aspect of Cognitive Linguistics and the externalist aspect of Wittgensteins conceptions. After discussing the models of Cognitive Linguistics to explain certain particularities of language use, which Wittgenstein has likewise noted, the notions of language-game and form of life are investigated; an interpretation focused on the idea of language as human action has been proposed. This interpretation suggests that the notion of form of life should be seen from an interactionist point of view, which has consequences to the conception of meaning brought from Wittgenstein and to its approximation with Cognitive Linguistics. Finally, the original research questions are reset with a new focus: the problems suggested by the difference between Science and Philosophy are left aside and the opposition between embodied meaning and public meaning is reformulated to the one that gives title of this thesis: embodied meaning and meaning as use. This reformulation points to the necessity of not opposing an embodied conception of meaning and an interactional and action oriented view, as found in the second philosophy of Wittgenstein. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 12/24577-2 - Embodied meaning and meaning as use: an investigation on the relations between cognitive linguistics and Wittgensteins philosophy |
| Grantee: | Joana Bortolini Franco |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |