Kommentiertes Vorlesungsverzeichnis Anglistik Heidelberg SS 2008

4.4 Proseminar II moderne Sprachwissenschaft
person, the seminar will be based not on one of Chomsky’s own books, but on the latest edition of
what I consider the best text book on the topic, Vivian Cook’s Chomsky’s Universal Grammar.
Written in a clear and comprehensible language, the book charts the evolution of what many,
including Chomsky himself, consider the most exciting breakthrough in the history of syntactic
theory, the so-called principles-and-parameters theory. This theory says that all humans share a set
of innate universal linguistic principles that define what’s possible and what’s impossible in human
languages. The syntactic differences of the languages of the world are explained in terms of a
relatively small set of choices – the parameters – the language learner has to make, such as the
choice between verb-before-object and object-before-verb that differentiates English with its SVO
word order from Japanese (SOV). In this way, relatively little can account for very much: Even if,
unrealistically, we assume only 13 such choices/parameters, this would already yield 213 or 8192
languages, more than at present are said to exist in the world. In addition to giving a fascinating – if
as of yet unproven – picture of the structure of one of the most important faculties of the human
mind, this theory also helps to elucidate the psychological question how even small children learn
the complexities of the syntax of their language as quickly as they do. The philosophical and human
implications of such a theoretical paradigm are striking: The importance of environmental
influences notwithstanding, much of what we are and can become is guided by principles of a
human nature that is common to all of us.
Text: Vivian Cook, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. An Introduction, 3 rd edition, Blackwell,
London 2007, € 32,00 (a Xerox will be available at the “Glaskasten” from February 1, 2008).
Course Requirements: Regular and active participation (1 CP); oral report (1 CP); homework/
assignment (2 CP); term paper (2 CP).
Beyond the Linguistic Code Model: Relevance Theory
Dr. Schiffmann Freitag 14:15 – 15:45 114 2st.
In traditional and modern formulations, language has often been characterized as a system that
relates sound and meaning. This is the so-called code model: A has a thought X, encodes it in an
utterance, such as “Relevance Theory is important,” and upon hearing this, B decodes the utterance
and comes to understand that A has just communicated thought X. In the execution of its research
program, generative grammar in particular has tried to render the various codes – or natural
languages, such as German, French, Swahili – that do this job as explicit as possible. At the same
time, it is clear that this can’t be all there is to human communication. Even if the grammar – or
code – of a language says a certain utterance is unambiguous in its meaning, it still can be meant
and understood in very different ways. How does this work? Building on the work of Paul Grice
and others, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson have developed a theory that says that the relevance
assigned to an utterance with regard to the particular context in which it is made is of primary
importance. The scope and the intricacies of their theory are explored in their book Relevance,
which will be the basis for this seminar. This book, wrote a reviewer, is “likely to become a classic,
not only because of its potential implications for linguistics, cognitive psychology and
anthropology, but because of the range and originality of the theory it proposes.”
Text: Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, Relevance. Communication & Cognition, 2 nd edition,
Blackwell, London 1995, € 34,00 (a Xerox will be available at the “Glaskasten” from February 1,
2008).
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