Language from the Body Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language [Hardcover]

Language from the Body deals with iconicity and metaphor in American sign language.What is the role of meaning in linguistic theory? Generative linguists have severely limited its influence while cognitivist and functionalist linguists believe that meaning pervades and motivates all levels of linguistic structure. This dispute can now be resolved conclusively by evidence from signed language. Language in the Body rebuts the generativist linguistic theories which separate form and meaning and asserts that iconicity can only be described in a cognitivist framework where meaning can influence form.What is the role of meaning in linguistic theory? Generative linguists have severely limited its influence while cognitivist and functionalist linguists believe that meaning pervades and motivates all levels of linguistic structure. This dispute can now be resolved conclusively by evidence from signed language. Language in the Body rebuts the generativist linguistic theories which separate form and meaning and asserts that iconicity can only be described in a cognitivist framework where meaning can influence form.What is the role of meaning in linguistic theory? Generative linguists have severely limited its influence while cognitivist and functionalist linguists believe that meaning pervades and motivates all levels of linguistic structure. This dispute can now be resolved conclusively by evidence from signed language. Language from the Body rebuts the generativist linguistic theories that separate form and meaning and asserts that iconicity can only be described in a cognitivist framework where meaning can influence form.1. A glimpse of the material; 2. Motivation and linguistic theory; 3. Iconicity defined and demonstrated; 4. The analogue-building model of linguistic iconicity; 5. Survey of iconicity in signed and spoken languages; 6. Metaphor in American Sign Language: the double mapping; 7. Many metaphors in a single sign; 8. The vertical scale as source domain; 9.lÓA