PHIL 3029 - Philosophy of Language

North Terrace Campus - Semester 1 - 2018

Language is one of the most distinctive and pervasive features of human life. But its theoretical foundations are still a matter of great controversy. These controversies often lie dormant in ordinary life, only coming to the fore we try to understand precisely how some piece of language works. (This happens a lot in philosophy, where the examination of arguments involves teasing out the precise meaning of the sentences involved.) The nature of meaning has been of interest to philosophers since Plato, but the development of precise theories of meaning really accelerated in the twentieth century, with contributions from philosophers, logicians, and linguists. This course reflects the interdisciplinary history of the subject, though drawing primarily on linguistics and philosophy. We will look at a number of foundational issues about the nature of meaning. We will investigate the meanings of interesting classes of English expressions, such as: proper names (`Alice?), kind terms (`gold?), descriptions (`the most diligent student?), indexicals and demonstratives (`here?, `there?), and modal auxiliaries (`must?). We will look at the meaning of complex sentences, as well as whether there are any aspects what is communicated by a sentence beyond what it literally means. Finally, we turn to the question of language and thought ? does the language we speak constrain the thoughts we can think and the beliefs we can have?

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Course Details

Course Code	PHIL 3029
Course	Philosophy of Language
Coordinating Unit	Philosophy
Term	Semester 1
Level	Undergraduate
Location/s	North Terrace Campus
Units	3
Contact	At least 3 hours per week
Available for Study Abroad and Exchange	Y
Prerequisites	At least 6 units of Level II study, including 3 units of Philosophy or Linguistics.
Incompatible	PHIL 2043; PHIL 2015; PHIL 3015
Assessment	Short Essay (25%), Research Essay (55%), Small Group Discovery tasks (20%)

Course Staff

Course Coordinator: Associate Professor Antony Eagle

Course Timetable

The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from .

Course Learning Outcomes

This course aims to help students:

Gain familiarity with the main positions on at least some of the following issues in the philosophy of language and formal semantics: meaning, reference, names, descriptions, semantic content, sentences and propositions, context-sensitivity, compositionality, pragmatics, and the influence of language on thought.
Develop an understanding of several philosophical theories of meaning and reference, and related issues in pragmatics and formal semantics, including direct reference theory, descriptivism, Russell’s theory of descriptions, internalism and externalism about semantic content, temporalism and eternalism about propositions, Gricean pragmatics, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Display critical understanding of the main philosophical views in recent and contemporary philosophy of language regarding the hypotheses mentioned in LO2.
Acquire the ability to analyse texts from contemporary analytic philosophers and linguistic semanticists on philosophy of language and formal semantics, and extract the relevant arguments from them.
Acquire the ability to identify and use relevant evidence to provide reasons for and against the adoption of various positions in the philosophical debates over language and semantics.
Display facility in the construction of well-argued and appropriately referenced written arguments supporting a particular position in the philosophy of language or formal semantics.
Refine their ability to grasp extended complex oral arguments, and to pay sustained attention to philosophical discourse.

University Graduate Attributes

This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attribute(s) specified below:

University Graduate Attribute	Course Learning Outcome(s)
Deep discipline knowledge informed and infused by cutting edge research, scaffolded throughout their program of studies acquired from personal interaction with research active educators, from year 1 accredited or validated against national or international standards (for relevant programs)	1-3, 6
Critical thinking and problem solving steeped in research methods and rigor based on empirical evidence and the scientific approach to knowledge development demonstrated through appropriate and relevant assessment	3-5
Teamwork and communication skills developed from, with, and via the SGDE honed through assessment and practice throughout the program of studies encouraged and valued in all aspects of learning	4-联7
Intercultural and ethical competency adept at operating in other cultures comfortable with different nationalities and social contexts able to determine and contribute to desirable social outcomes demonstrated by study abroad or with an understanding of indigenous knowledges	1,2

Learning Resources

Required Resources

There is one text assigned for this course:

Elbourne, Paul (2011) Meaning: A Slim Guide to Semantics. Oxford University Press, 978-0-199-69662-8.

Students should acquire this text before semester begins; chapter 1 is required reading before the first meeting of the course.

Online Learning

Required resources will be supplemented by further articles and chapters supplied through an online content list via MyUni.

Lecture notes and lecture recordings, tutorial questions, and assignments will all be made available through MyUni.

Learning & Teaching Modes

The primary mode of teaching delivery in this course is the lecture-seminar; this provides support and scaffolding for student engagement with the assigned readings, and provides overall narrative structure to the course and assignments. This course meets for one 2 hour lecture-seminar per week. The lecture component includes informal class discussion and active learning elements.

In addition to lecture-seminars, students are expected to attend one workshop each week. The workshop component is structured as a ‘jigsaw’ classroom, where the class is divided into three groups who discuss questions set in advance (different questions for each group) for 20 minutes, then divide into groups of three, each containing one representative from each of the initial groups, to share the results of those group discussions. Whether this model succeeds will depend on student engagment.

Workload

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

Workload	Total Hours per semester
Structured Learning
1 x 2 hour lecture per week	24
1 x 1 hour workshop, 12 per semester	12
Self-directed Learning
Required reading (6 hours per week)	72
Research (2 hours per week)	24
Assignment preparation (2 hours per week)	24
TOTAL	156

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Learning Activities Summary

A detailed syllabus will be made available via MyUni before the beginning of semester. Here is the weekly breakdown of topics.

Week 1: What is Meaning?
Are the meanings of words definitions? Or concepts? Or something else? What about the meanings of sentences?

Week 2: Referentialism and Internalism
We look more closely at the debate over whether the meanings of words are concepts/ideas or properties, with particular reference to proper names like Antony and natural kind terms like gold.

Week 3: Proper Names
We investigate two theories of proper names: descriptivism, the theory that the meaning of a name like Aristotle is given by a description like the greatest philosopher of antiquity; and direct reference, the view that the meaning of a name is the thing it denotes.

Week 4: Lexical Semantics
Special features arise when we consider the meanings of words: issues about synonymy, ambiguity, and vagueness are our focus.

Week 5: The Nature of Propositions
What are the meanings of sentences? We look at the strengths and weakness of the view that the meaning of sentence is a set of possible worlds (those, intuitively, in which those sentences would be true).

Week 6: Negative Polarity Items
We investigate the semantics of words like any, which can only appear in the scope of ‘negative’ expressions. (E.g., compare I never have any money with *I always have any money.) We investigate whether explaining this phenomenon provides reasons for thinking that propositions are sets of possible worlds.

Week 7: Presupposition and Definite Descriptions
John has stopped drinking appears to assume that John once drank; how can we explain this notion of presupposition? It can also be applied in the analysis of definite descriptions like the man drinking a martini.

Week 8: Ambiguity and Compositionality
We focus this week on the structure of sentences, and the linguistic principle that the meaning of a complex sentence should be systemantically composed out of the meanings of its simpler constituents in line with its syntactic structure.

Week 9: Indexicals and Context
Some words vary in their meaning from context to context, but in a systematic way. Here, for example, means different places in different utterances. So how can a theory of meaning accomodate such things?

Week 10: Implicature and Speech Acts
A sentence can be used, in context, to communicate things that it does not literally entail. Can we give a systematic account of how this works? A sentence can also be used to do things (consider I name this ship the Endurance) – how?

Week 11: Intensional Constructions
Some complex sentences have a truth value that is determined not just by the actual present referents of their simpler constituents, but by their merely possible referents, or previous referents. We will investigate some of these constructions.

Week 12: Language and Thought
Lots of people believe that the language we speak constrains the thoughts we can think. We’ll see if this is true.

Small Group Discovery Experience

Small group discovery is incorporated into weekly workshops, where after initial larger group discussions, students break out into groups of three or four to share the results of that larger group discussions, and learn from peers about the results of discussions in other groups. (Groups are set different topics, so the small break out groups is a place for students not in a group to learn from peers about the content discussed in that group.) These activities build skills in accurate recording, summarisation, presentation, and communication, and are student led in terms of focus and content. The lecturer roams the workshop meeting with each group individually to take note of discussion and to suggest questions for further discussion.

The University's policy on Assessment for Coursework Programs is based on the following four principles:

Assessment must encourage and reinforce learning.
Assessment must enable robust and fair judgements about student performance.
Assessment practices must be fair and equitable to students and give them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.
Assessment must maintain academic standards.

Assessment Summary

Assessment Task	Type	Weight	Course Learning Outcomes
Short Essay	Summative/Formative	30%	1–6
Research Essay	Summative/Formative	55%	1–6
Small group discovery (class discussion) tasks	Formative/Summative	15%	1–5

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Assessment Detail

Short Essay: Essay of ~1250 words covering a topic from the first part of the course. Essays will be expected to focus on prescribed course material. 30% weighting.
Research Essay: Essay of ~2500 words covering a topic from the course, or by negotiation. Essays will be expected to go beyond prescribed course material and will require further research. 55% weighting.
Small group discovery tasks: Students engage in interaction with peers in both small and large groups, including answering prior set questions online, discussing answers with group, taking note of large group discussion, presenting large group discussion results to small group, etc. Evaluated over the course of the semester. 15% weighting.

Submission

All essays must be submitted electronically through MyUni. Please do not submit a hard copy of your essay. In this course, work will be submitted and marked through Turnitin. If you are not familiar with the Turnitin process, you may want to access the relevant MyUni support tutorial. It is your responsibility to submit assessments correctly.

Essays are marked using an electronic rubric, in line with the University’s official grade descriptors. You will be able to access the electronic rubric used for marking from the Turnitin assignment page, and you should familiarise yourself with the rubric while writing your essay.

Course Grading

Grades for your performance in this course will be awarded in accordance with the following scheme:

M10 (Coursework Mark Scheme)
Grade	Mark	Description
FNS		Fail No Submission
F	1-49	Fail
P	50-64	Pass
C	65-74	Credit
D	75-84	Distinction
HD	85-100	High Distinction
CN		Continuing
NFE		No Formal Examination
RP		Result Pending

Further details of the grades/results can be obtained from Examinations.

Grade Descriptors are available which provide a general guide to the standard of work that is expected at each grade level. More information at Assessment for Coursework Programs.

Final results for this course will be made available through .

Student Feedback

The University places a high priority on approaches to learning and teaching that enhance the student experience. Feedback is sought from students in a variety of ways including on-going engagement with staff, the use of online discussion boards and the use of Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) surveys as well as GOS surveys and Program reviews.

SELTs are an important source of information to inform individual teaching practice, decisions about teaching duties, and course and program curriculum design. They enable the University to assess how effectively its learning environments and teaching practices facilitate student engagement and learning outcomes. Under the current SELT Policy (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/policies/101/) course SELTs are mandated and must be conducted at the conclusion of each term/semester/trimester for every course offering. Feedback on issues raised through course SELT surveys is made available to enrolled students through various resources (e.g. MyUni). In addition aggregated course SELT data is available.
Student Support
Policies & Guidelines
This section contains links to relevant assessment-related policies and guidelines - all university policies.
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Students are reminded that in order to maintain the academic integrity of all programs and courses, the university has a zero-tolerance approach to students offering money or significant value goods or services to any staff member who is involved in their teaching or assessment. Students offering lecturers or tutors or professional staff anything more than a small token of appreciation is totally unacceptable, in any circumstances. Staff members are obliged to report all such incidents to their supervisor/manager, who will refer them for action under the university's student鈥檚 disciplinary procedures.

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Authorised by:	Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Academic)
Maintained by:	Course Outlines Administrator

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