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The language animal : the full shape of the human linguistic capacity / Charles Taylor.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016Description: x, 352 pages ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780674660205 (cloth : alk. paper)
  • 067466020X (cloth : alk. paper)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Designative and constitutive views -- How language grows -- Beyond information encoding -- The Hobbes-Locke-Condillac theory -- The figuring dimension of language -- Constitution 1 : the articulation of meaning -- Constitution 2 : The creative force of discourse -- How narrative makes meaning -- The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -- The range of human linguistic capacity.
Summary: "In this book, Charles Taylor explains linguistic holism to people who believe language needs to be thought of as bits of information. According to one influential view of language, one that originated with Hobbes, Locke, and Condillac, language serves to encode information and to communicate it. This theory has been rendered more sophisticated over the last two centuries, but it still gives a central place to the encoding of information. The thesis of Taylor's new book is that this view neglects crucial features of our language capacity. Sometimes language serves not just to encode information, but also shapes what it purports to describe. This language is more than merely 'descriptive;' it plays a 'constitutive' role."--Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 401 T239 Available 33111008441434
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In seminal works ranging from Sources of the Self to A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has shown how we create possible ways of being, both as individuals and as a society. In his new book setting forth decades of thought, he demonstrates that language is at the center of this generative process.

For centuries, philosophers have been divided on the nature of language. Those in the rational empiricist tradition--Hobbes, Locke, Condillac, and their heirs--assert that language is a tool that human beings developed to encode and communicate information. In The Language Animal , Taylor explains that this view neglects the crucial role language plays in shaping the very thought it purports to express. Language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning and fundamentally shapes human experience. The human linguistic capacity is not something we innately possess. We first learn language from others, and, inducted into the shared practice of speech, our individual selves emerge out of the conversation.

Taylor expands the thinking of the German Romantics Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt into a theory of linguistic holism. Language is intellectual, but it is also enacted in artistic portrayals, gestures, tones of voice, metaphors, and the shifts of emphasis and attitude that accompany speech. Human language recognizes no boundary between mind and body. In illuminating the full capacity of "the language animal," Taylor sheds light on the very question of what it is to be a human being.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"In this book, Charles Taylor explains linguistic holism to people who believe language needs to be thought of as bits of information. According to one influential view of language, one that originated with Hobbes, Locke, and Condillac, language serves to encode information and to communicate it. This theory has been rendered more sophisticated over the last two centuries, but it still gives a central place to the encoding of information. The thesis of Taylor's new book is that this view neglects crucial features of our language capacity. Sometimes language serves not just to encode information, but also shapes what it purports to describe. This language is more than merely 'descriptive;' it plays a 'constitutive' role."--Provided by publisher.

Designative and constitutive views -- How language grows -- Beyond information encoding -- The Hobbes-Locke-Condillac theory -- The figuring dimension of language -- Constitution 1 : the articulation of meaning -- Constitution 2 : The creative force of discourse -- How narrative makes meaning -- The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -- The range of human linguistic capacity.

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