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Discovering Shared Understandings in Discourse: Prototypes and Stereotypes

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Approaches to Language, Culture, and Cognition

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Abstract

The cognitive linguist John R. Taylor has been a source of my inspiration, although my graduate training was mainly in the areas of sociolin-guistics and linguistic anthropology (e.g., Blount, 1995[1974]; Gumperz and Hymes, 1986[1972]; Wortham and Rymes, 2003). Taylor’s oeuvre (e.g., 2002, 2003[1989], 2012) has made me seriously think about meaningful connections among cognitive linguistics (CL), linguistic anthropology (LA), and cognitive anthropology (CA).1 In particular, Taylor’s highly acclaimed Linguistic Categorization (2003[1989]) has influenced my thinking and subsequently changed my assumptions of language, culture and cognition. This chapter is an attempt to externalize the positive changes that have been occurring in my assumptions and thoughts. In relation to the broader academic contexts, Taylor’s work has been widely read by both linguists and anthropologists. For instance, Michael Silverstein, the eminent linguistic anthropologist, refers to Taylor (2003) as a useful source of information in discussing the ‘causal theory of reference’, developed by Kripke (1972) and Putnam (1975) (Silverstein, 2005: 10–12; also see Kockelman, 2005: 247–249).

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Authors
  1. Masataka Yamaguchi
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Queensland, Australia

    Masataka Yamaguchi

  2. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

    Dennis Tay

  3. SocioEcological Informatics, USA

    Benjamin Blount

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© 2014 Masataka Yamaguchi

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Yamaguchi, M. (2014). Discovering Shared Understandings in Discourse: Prototypes and Stereotypes. In: Yamaguchi, M., Tay, D., Blount, B. (eds) Approaches to Language, Culture, and Cognition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137274823_9

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