This thesis examines Ezra Pound's linguistic theory in relation to literary, philosophical and academic treatments of language in the modernist period. Pound is a central figure in the history of twentieth century literature, and his poetic career marks a sustained engagement with questions of how language can register thought, how it can transmit and communicate images, and, ultimately, how language is able to mediate between artists (or, indeed, language speakers as a whole) and the world. I read Pound's statements on language against the disciplinary history of linguistics, assessing the extent to which his positions are representative of his period, or, conversely, the ways in which they form part of an idiosyncratic worldview. My approach is broadly historical. I begin with Pound's educational background, and move chronologically through his career to the concluding passages of his Cantos. I investigate the extent to which Pound's critical writing engages with new departures taking place in linguistics in the late nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. The scope of my investigation ranges from the legacy of nineteenth century philology to the approaches taken by William Dwight Whitney, Michel Bréal, and Ferdinand de Saussure, to name but a few, in focusing linguistic scholarship on synchronic study of language as function in the early twentieth century, to Franz Boas's and Edward Sapir's studies in the relationship between language and culture between 1910 and 1939. In situating Pound in relation to the history of linguistics as a discipline, I argue that his work asks some of the period's most apposite questions about language and culture, even if his conclusions differ from the dominant academic positions of the time.

This thesis describes how Eliot's concern for language and form finds roots in early twentieth century language philosophy. It also explores the way Eliot's early philosophical themes concerning language and meaning reemerge in his literary criticism and philosophical poetry during the 1920s and 1930s, and in his more explicitly philosophical Four Quartets. More significantly, this thesis historically elucidates Eliot's debt to the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and Bertrand Russell, reframing his philosophy within the two poles of the "Linguistic Turn". By closely examining Eliot's unpublished and only recently published essays and notes, the thesis unearths probable connections between Eliot's own philosophical interests and his later poetics, redefining his legacy as a prototypical modernist poet, and suggesting a new framework of study for scholars and students of literary modernism.

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This dissertation discusses and analyses Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin's conscious strategy of self-fashioning and reinvention, which is realised in his life and supported by the theoretical constructs contained in his Collected Works. It addresses the ambiguities and uncertainties in Bakhtin's life and work and uses two aspects of his philosophical approach and constructs to explicate these inconsistencies: his theory of identity and his theory of language. The analytical tools used to arrive at this conclusion include the notion of reflexivity (using Bakhtin's own theoretical constructs to analyse incidents in his life, and in turn, using those incidents to illustrate the concepts he developed). Theoretical support for Bakhtin's self-fashioning is provided by Fitzpatrick's theory of reinvention through impersonation and imposture in Revolutionary Russia. Bakhtin's theory of identity (expressed in his Nietzsche-influenced concept of the mask and its associated concept of travesty) supports this reinvention. Bakhtin's notion of double-voicedness, supported by his linguistic theories of interdiscursivity, heteroglossia and the utterance reinforce these two lines of thought. Bakhtin's two figures of speech: the word with a 'backward glance' and the word with a 'loophole' encapsulate this convergence of theory and life. These two constructs are brought into sharp relief when illuminated by Wittgenstein's theory of language-games, Austin's concept of performativity and Benveniste's formulation of deixis. The overarching metaphor for this dissertation is the Classical Greek concept of metis, or 'cunning intelligence', a concept that is instantiated in the way in which Bakhtin framed the narrative of his life and the manner in which he performed his work. The dissertation concludes that Bakhtin evolved a multi-threaded philosophy which was self-consistent in the way in which it addressed the creation of identity, the expression of language and the performance of life and work through the metaphor of metis.

According to the Encoding Model, speakers communicate by encoding the propositions they want to communicate into sentences, in accordance with the conventions of a language L. By uttering a sentence that encodes p, the speaker says that p. Communication is successful only if the audience identifies the proposition that the speaker intends to communicate, which is achieved by decoding the uttered sentence in accordance with the conventions of L. A consequence of the Encoding Model has been the proliferation of underdetermination arguments, each of which concludes against some linguistic theory T, on the grounds that, were T true, audiences would be unable to know what was said by utterances of some particular linguistic form, and therefore unable to know what speakers intended to communicate by these utterance. The result, if we accept the conclusion of these arguments, is radical restriction of the domain of viable linguistic theory. This Thesis defends an alternative model according to which there need be nothing encoded in an uttered sentence – nothing that is said by its utterance – for the audience to retrieve. Rather, there are indefinitely many ways to interpret uttered sentences – indefinitely many routes to the propositions that speaker intend to communicate – which proceed through different interpretations of what is said.

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Please read the abstract in the section 08summary, of this document / Dissertation (MA (Philosophy))--University of Pretoria, 2001. / Philosophy / unrestricted

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Compilation of two papers, the first of which was accepted for publication in the South African Journal of Philosophy in the second half of 2001. / Why metaphors have no meaning : considering metaphoric meaning in Davidson. -- Bare idea of a conceptual scheme : relativism, intercultural communication and Davidson. / Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: WHY METAPHORS HAVE NO MEANING: CONSIDERING METAPHORIC MEANING IN DAVIDSON Since the publication of Donald Davidson's essay 'What Metaphors Mean' (1984c) - in which he famously asserts that metaphor has no meaning - the views expressed in it have mostly met with criticism: prominently from Mary Hesse and Max Black. This article attempts to explain Davidson's surprise-move regarding metaphor by relating it to elements in the rest of his work in semantics, such as the principle of compositionality, radical interpretation and the principle of charity. I conclude that Davidson's views on metaphor are not only consistent with his semantic theory generally, but that his semantics also depend on these insights. Eventually, the debate regarding Davidson's views on metaphor should be conducted on the level of his views on the nature of semantics, the relationship between language and the world and the possibility of there existing something like conceptual schemes. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: THE BARE IDEA OF A CONCEPTUAL SCHEME: RELATIVISM, INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND DAVIDSON Donald Davidson's paper 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' ('OVICS') has become famous for the refutation accomplished in it of conceptual relativism. Via an argument that, essentially, all languages are intertranslatable, Davidson rejects the notion that different conceptual schemes can inhere in the supposed 'un-translatable' languages said to exist by, for instance, Whorf and Kuhn. Critics of Davidson's position have mainly focussed on practical issues, with many holding that his arguments in 'OVICS' ignore the realities of the real intercultural communication situation. In the present paper, I address criticisms of this sort. Davidson's arguments are reconstructed, with attention being paid to their dependence on the idea of practical application in the real intercommunication situation. With the aid of practical examples, the implications of elements of Davidson's philsophy of interpretation for intercultural communication are evaluated. Finally, radical interpretation is presented as a better model for intercultural dialogue than linguistically relativist ones. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: WHY METAPHORS HAVE NO MEANING: CONSIDERING METAPHORIC MEANING IN DAVIDSON Sedert die publikasie van Donald Davidson se opstel 'What Metaphors Mean' (1984c) - waarin hy die berugte stelling maak dat metafoor geen betekenis het nie - is sy sieninge meestal begroet met kritiek, ook van prominente figure soos Mary Hesse en Max Black. Hierdie artikel poog om 'n verduideliking te vind vir Davidson se verassende skuif aangaande metafoor, deur sy sieninge hieroor te kontekstualiseer teen die agtergrond van elemente uit die res van sy werk in semantiek, soos die beginsel van komposisionaliteit, radikale interpretasie en die beginsel van rasionele akkomodasie ('charity'). Ek kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat Davidson se sieninge aangaande metafoor nie slegs naatloos aansluit by sy algemene sieninge aangaande semantiek nie, maar dat die res van sy semantiese teorie ook afhang van sy sieninge aangaande metafoor. Uiteindelik behoort die debat rakende Davidson se sieninge aangaande metafoor gevoer te word op die vlak van die aard van semantiek, die verhouding tussen taal en die werklikheid en die moontlike bestaan van konseptueie skemas. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: THE BARE IDEA OF A CONCEPTUAL SCHEME: RELATIVISM, INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND DAVIDSON Donald Davidson se artikel 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' het beroemdheid verwerf as teenargument vir die idee van konseptuele relativisme. By wyse van 'n argument dat alle tale in beginsel vertaalbaar is, verwerp Davidson die idee dat verskillende konseptueie skemas kan skuilgaan in die veronderstelde 'onvertaalbare' tale waarvan daar sprake is by byvoorbeeld Whorf en Kuhn. Kritici van Davidson se posisie beperk hul hoofsaaklik tot praktiese besware en 'n vername aanklag teen Davidson is dat hy die realiteite misken van werklike interkulturele gesprek. In hierdie artikel spreek ek sodanige kritiek aan. Ek herkonstrueer Davidson se argumente en voer aan dat dit deurgaans afhanklik is van die idee van toepassing in 'n praktiese situasie van interkulturele dialoog. By wyse van praktiese voorbeelde evalueer ek die implikasies van Davidson se filosofie van interpretasie vir interkulturele kommunikasie. Laastens bied ek radikale interpretasie aan as 'n beter model vir interkulturele dialoog as linguisties relativistiese modelle.