Semiotics

The eagle: a metaphor for power – or rather a symbol?

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gary

In modern, mainstream linguistics, metaphors and symbols do not have anything to do with each other. Metaphors are by definition motivated, no matter which theoretical approach to them one might have. One can, as Aristoteles did, treat a metaphor as the rhetoric trope comparatio in absentia (an “absent” or implicit comparison), allowing to refer to for example ‘government’ by ‘yoke’, based on a common quality (the tertium comparationis, third element of the comparison, e.g. ‘suppression/power over’). One can follow Black and lay emphasis on the interplay between focus and frame. Or one can be interested, as Lakoff and Johnson, in the so-called  conceptual metaphor as a cognitive tool helping to understand one conceptual domain in terms of … ↪

Dan Everett on the ethics of linguistic fieldwork

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dan everett

 

One evening, Linea Flansmose Mikkelsen and Liv Moeslund Ahlgren met up in Lingoland at Aarhus University and set up a zoom-connection across the Atlantic Ocean to talk to Dan Everett. He is an American linguist, best known for his work on the Pirahã language, and is currently a professor at Bentley University. This is the second part of the interview, where we talk about the ethics of fieldwork, building relationships and the importance of seeing yourself as a student.

In the first part of the interview, we discussed Dan Everett’s career, motivations and his dream project.

You started your career as a missionary and ended up as a scientist. Can you tell us about some of the ethical … ↪

Dan Everett on the excitement of being a linguist

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dan everett

 

One evening, Linea Flansmose Mikkelsen and Liv Moeslund Ahlgren met up in Lingoland at Aarhus University and set up a zoom-connection across the Atlantic Ocean to talk to Dan Everett. He is an American linguist, best known for his work on the Pirahã language, and is currently a professor at Bentley University. This is the first part of the interview, where we talk about Dan Everett’s career, motivations and his dream project.

In the second part of the interview, we discuss the ethical aspects of doing fieldwork.

Can you tell a bit about yourself and how you got into linguistics?

Yeah, so I got into linguistics in order to be a bible translator. I met a young woman … ↪