Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

The Targeting System of Language, Hardback Book

The Targeting System of Language Hardback

Part of the The MIT Press series

Hardback

Description

A proposal that a single linguistic/cognitive system, "targeting," underlies two domains of reference, anaphora (speech-internal) and deixis (speech-external). In this book, Leonard Talmy proposes that a single linguistic/cognitive system, targeting, underlies two domains of linguistic reference, those termed anaphora (for a referent that is an element of the current discourse) and deixis (for a referent outside the discourse and in the spatiotemporal surroundings).

Talmy argues that language engages the same cognitive system to single out referents whether they are speech-internal or speech-external. Talmy explains the targeting system in this way: as a speaker communicates with a hearer, her attention is on an object to which she wishes to refer; this is her target.

To get the hearer's attention on it as well, she uses a trigger-a word such as this, that, here, there, or now.

The trigger initiates a three-stage process in the hearer: he seeks cues of ten distinct categories; uses these cues to determine the target; and then maps the concept of the target gleaned from the cues back onto the trigger to integrate it into the speaker's sentence, achieving comprehension.

The whole interaction, Talmy explains, rests on a coordination of the speaker's and hearer's cognitive processing.

The process is the same whether the referent is anaphoric or deictic. Talmy presents and analyzes the ten categories of cues, and examines sequences in targeting, including the steps by which interaction leads to joint attention.

A glossary defines the new terms in the argument.

Information

Save 21%

£48.00

£37.65

 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information

Also in the The MIT Press series  |  View all