1. Thinking and speaking literally
Gibbs 2
Thinking and speaking literally

2. What is literal?
Concept of literal is based on a conceptual metaphor, known as the “conduit metaphor”:
MEANING IS IN WORDS
What are the entailments of this metaphor?

3. If MEANING IS IN WORDS, then:
The meaning of a word is a stable, independent object.
It is the job of the speaker to put the meaning in the words and the job of the hearer to take them out.
Words themselves are just packages.
Meaning objects can be broken down into smaller objects.

4. Written language
Seems to enhance the MEANING IS IN WORDS metaphor because
You can see the “packages”
It appears fixed, stable, authoritative
It appears to be context-free, autonomous
However, written texts are not so clear:
“People cannot reach a stable unambiguous literal meaning for texts devoid of context & shared knowledge between authors & readers.” (p. 75)

5. Literal theories of meaning
What phenomena cause problems for literal theories of meaning?

6. Literal theories of meaning
What phenomena cause problems for literal theories of meaning?
Encyclopedic knowledge
Deictics
Vagueness
Ambiguity
Polysemy
Lexical innovations
Context

7. Models of Categories
Traditional categories
Cognitive categories

8. Models of Categories Traditional categories Set-theory
Defined by boundary
Necessary & sufficient conditions
No relationship among members
No privileged members
Cognitive categories
Radial network
Defined by family relationship to prototype
Structured relationships among members
Central and peripheral members

9. What is an Idealized Cognitive Model?

10. What is an Idealized Cognitive Model?
A folk theory or cultural model that people use to organize knowledge.
Examples: bachelor, lie

11. Traditional view of meaning
Meaning is
Truth-conditional
Context-free
Defined in terms of necessary & sufficient conditions
Cognitive linguistics does not adhere to this view.

12. Gibbs’ alternative:
“we should adhere to the cognitive wager and empirically explore how many aspects of human cognition are grounded in everyday bodily and perceptual experiences that form the nonmetaphorical part of thought and language.” (p. 78)