Semantics and Pragmatics

Catalog description

This course provides an introduction to the theoretical frameworks of Semantics (meaning in language) and Pragmatics (meaning in context). In the first part of the semester, we will focus on semantics, exploring how the meaning of a sentence or a phrase is derived from its parts. In the second part of the semester, we will focus on pragmatics and investigate how meaning is related to conversational context. We will investigate linguistic meaning and its role in communication, culture, society, politics, advertising, and literature. The course will explore the following topics: word and sentence meaning; logical semantics; thematic roles and lexical conceptual structure; presupposition, text organization, and implicature; reference, sense, and mental images; speech acts and implicature; deixis; relevance theory.