LING 4438 - [Language and Image]

(crosslisted) ARTH 4438, COGST 4438, PHIL 3970, VISST 4438
(KCM-AS)

Spring. Next Offered: 2019-2020. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: previous course work in Logic, Philosophy of Language, Linguistics, or permission of instructor.

D. Abusch.

What are the analogies between the interpretation of sentences and of pictures? We consider issues of representation, convention, and rule-governed systems in both media, and investigate parallels in matters such as ambiguity, self-reference, illusion, anaphora, temporal structure, and content-enrichment. Particular interests are the applicability to visual medium of frameworks used for characterizing meaning in language, and connections between the semantics of linguistic and pictorial representation and perception. Primary materials include paintings, comics, ads, and psychological experiments on vision and language. Literature is drawn from linguistics, philosophy, art history, and cognitive science.