Recent studies in cognitive science indicate that language has an important social function. The structure and knowledge of language emerges from the processes of human communication together with the domain-general cognitive processes. Each individual of a community interacts socially with a limited number of peers. Nevertheless societies are characterized by their stunning global regularities. By dealing with the language as a complex adaptive system, we are able to analyze how languages change and evolve over time. Multi-agent computational simulations assist scientists from different disciplines to build several language emergence scenarios. In this thesis several simulations are implemented and tested in order to categorize examples in a test data set efficiently and accurately by using a population of agents interacting by playing categorization games inspired by L. Steels&#039 / s naming game. The emergence of categories throughout interactions between a population of agents in the categorization games are analyzed. The test results of categorization games as a model combination algorithm with various machine learning algorithms on different data sets have shown that categorization games can have a comparable performance with fast convergence.

The purpose of this study is to present the metaphysical status of &ldquo / language game&rdquo / in later Wittgensteinian philosophy of language and to deal with the revolutionary role of &ldquo / language-game&rdquo / by means of Hintikka&rsquo / s interpretation of later Wittgenstein. It is usual to divide Wittgenstein&rsquo / s work into the early and the later period. The early period is based upon the picture theory of meaning, according to which a sentence represents a state of affairs. On the other hand, the later period gives special emphasis on the actions of people and the role their linguistic activities. The early period ignored factual or cognitive meaning since it relied on mirroring the structure of state of affairs by sentences. So, early period of Wittgenstein was concluded that &ldquo / whereof we can&rsquo / t speak, thereof we must be silent.&rdquo / This idea gives clues about metaphysics of early Wittgenstein. In this sense, language is treated in abstraction from activities of human beings. In the later work, Wittgenstein emphasizes everyday usage of language in &ldquo / language-game&rdquo / as social activities of ordering, advising, measuring, and counting and so on. These different &ldquo / language-games&rdquo / make up &ldquo / form of life&rdquo / . &ldquo / Language game&rdquo / with other vital notions of later Wittgenstein, as &ldquo / form of life&rdquo / , &ldquo / agreement&rdquo / establishes language matrix. So, later period of Wittgenstein is a rejection of his early period. Actually, his treatment of philosophy and philosopher is different from his early period. In addition to this, later Wittgenstein mainly focuses on the principle of &ldquo / meaning=use&rdquo / which is called contextual theory of meaning. In his later period, Wittgenstein aims to bring back words from metaphysics to everyday usage. On the other hand, metaphysics still plays a role in his later period as his early period, although he altered his early philosophy of language. To sum up, the notion of &ldquo / language-game&rdquo / is conceptually/ ontologically prior to its rules. In this sense, Wittgenstein forms &ldquo / language-game&rdquo / as a model for the other social activities of human beings. Furthermore, &ldquo / language-game&rdquo / is regarded as a bridge between language and reality and it shows &ldquo / language-game&rdquo / s revolutionary role in later Wittgenstein.

Qual é o lugar da escrita no ensino da filosofia no Ensino Médio? Partindo desta pergunta e sob a perspectiva da cultura e da linguagem, defende-se a tese de que uma das formas viáveis da filosofia poder contribuir para a formação do jovem contemporâneo brasileiro é realizar essa atividade intelectual com ênfase na idéia do desdobramento leitura-escrita, concebendo esta última como produtora e estruturadora de pensamento. Trata-se de uma reflexão sobre a escrita filosófica, viabilizada pela leitura de quem intenciona a escrita e não pela leitura para saber, isto é, para acumular ou reproduzir conhecimento. Desde seu momento inaugural, com Platão, a tradição filosófica reserva à escrita um segundo plano, geralmente como registro ou atividade auxiliar para avaliação do aprendizado através da leitura ou do diálogo. Nos contextos de crise, é vista por alguns com desconfiança; por outros, como privilégio reservado a poucos. O que se constata, é que a escrita é uma das atividades essenciais do filosofar e possui caráter formador que precisa ser valorizado. Raros são os pensadores que não escreveram e, além do mais, vive-se num contexto em que a escrita, num sentido geral, é onipresente. A escrita filosófica, no nível da formação média, pode ser um contraponto às várias modalidades de produções disponíveis, caracterizadas pela velocidade e superficialidade. Sua consistência, tempo e modo de elaboração servem como resistência ao descartável. Sua finalidade é produzir sentido, nesse jogo de linguagem que é a filosofia. / What is the place of writing in the teaching of Philosophy in high school? Setting forth from this question, analyzed under the perspective of culture and language, herein is defended the idea that one of the viable ways by which Philosophy can contribute to the formation of the contemporary Brazilian youth is through the accomplishment of this intellectual activity with emphasis on the unfolding of the reading-writing idea, conceiving the last as the producer and organizer of thought. It is a reflection about the philosophical writing, made feasible through the reading by whom the writing is intended and not through the reading to learn, i.e., to accumulate or reproduce knowledge. From its debut, with Plato, the philosophical tradition spares to writing a second plan, usually as a registry or activity to assist the evaluation of the learning through the reading or the dialogue. In the context of crisis, it is viewed with suspicion by some; by others, as a privilege reserved for few. What is seen is that writing is one of the essential activities of philosophizing and it has a moulding character which must be appreciated. Rare are the thinkers who have not written and, besides it, it is set in a context in which the writing, in a general sense, is omnipresent. The philosophical writing, at high school formation level, can be a counterpoint to the various modes of production available, categorized by speed and shallowness. Its consistency, time and mode of elaboration serve as resistance to the disposable. Its aim is to produce meaning, in this language game which is called Philosophy.

We present the Game Walkthrough Corpus (GWTC), which contains 12,295 unique walkthrough documents covering 6,117 games. For each game walkthrough, we provide frequencies of unigrams and bigrams, treating the walkthrough document as a Bag of Words. In addition, we provide word frequencies at the sentence level. Furthermore, the GWTC contains a number of game-related metadata, including title, publisher, developer, year, and genre. All the language statistics and metadata are stored in separate plain text files and can be referenced through uniform resource names (URN). These URNs can also be used to derive any combination of statistics and metadata. Researchers, for instance, can investigate the most frequent unigrams for games in the “Adventure” genre. This way, the GWTC can be reused for different kinds of research questions on gaming language.

In this thesis I aim to apply some late Wittgenstein's thoughts and ideas (mainly those of language-game) to media studies. For argumentation sake, both mediated communication as whole and various parts of mediated communication are perceived as self-aligning language- games. These are forms of communication wielded only by implicit rules which are determinated by usage of relevant signs. The key ideology here is that of pragmatism. Meaning of words and other signs is also determined by their usage in relevant language- game (e. g. article in paper, certain kind of TV show, etc.). This notion of various forms of mediated communication leads to a belief that they posses only a very limited ability to outreach their context (of a genre and to more extent mediated communication as a whole). This theory is compatible with Jean Beaudrillard's concept of simulacra. These are symbols without meaning based in reality. Instead they form a (hyper)reality of their own. What both scholars tech us is that symbols can be properly understood only within their context. Mediated communication according to my application of Wittgenstein has always a single meaning that is determined by "the way the communication go". I also consider few objections to this "totalitarian" conception, most importantly Umberto Eco's...

The aim of this thesis is to describe some central conceptual ideas expressed in the language of six computer interested boys. The starting-point is the philosophy of language of Ludwig Wittgenstein, where language is seen as something deeply integrated in our practices, traditions and culture. The use of our language shows its meaning. The material consists of 18 months of observations in the computer room of a secondary school and a series of three deep-interviews with each one of the boys over a period of three years. The computer has a central function in their identity work. Within our culture, this object - with its structure and its ways of operating - has become a metaphor for human thinking. It offers freedom and control. The discussions involved in this work and its form of representation problemize some of the fundamental assumptions of linguistics and the humanities. The three portraits (chapters 3-5) are to be understood as meaningful examples, while the persons portrayed are to be seen as symbols, inviting the reader to reflect over our culture and our practices. The fostering into the computer world and the ways of looking at the world are shown through the "personal voice", each followed by an interpretation linked to the theories and results of other researchers. In the boys' ways of using language there are differences and similarities. Learning, growing, creating, signifying 'freedom', can be seen as central notions in the identity work of one of them. With another of the boys there is a strong resemblance in his talking of computers and of his personal God; he "fixes" the world through dividing-lines, strong recommendations, further emphasized through the frequent use of the verb ska (shall, should). In the third portrait it is evident that the boy's abundance of words and narrative-making is a strategy of preventing nearness and to be able both to control the interview situation and to intensify the here and now. "Going deep" into computers make certain assumptions about the world more essential than others. Central concepts explicit in their common language game are logic, power and control (chapter 7). There is a common tendency to hierarchize and dichotomize the world; upper/under world, outer/inner world, logic/feeling, we/they, right/wrong. Stability can be seen as a summarizing notion. The deeper significance of their feeling of safety and control in the computer world is a fostering both into male dominance and into a dominant way of thinking about knowledge as something primarily logical, controllable and possible to account for. This masculinist language game is confirmed in different ways: individually, in the group and at a more subtle and symbolic level. / <p>Diss. Umeå : Univ., 1992</p> / digitalisering@umu

Beginning with Plato's expulsion of the poets in the Republic, this dissertation looks at the often hostile, yet also symbiotic, relationship between poetry and philosophy. Aristotle's 'response' to Plato is regarded as a significant origin of literary theory. Nietzsche's critique of Western philosophy as being an attempt to suppress its own metaphoricity, leads to a revaluation of truth and consequently of the privileging of philosophy over poetry. Post-structuralism sometimes overemphasizes this constitutive force of metaphoricity, at the expense of conceptual modes. However, Derrida's notion of philosophy as play retains a balance between concept and metaphor: there is no attempt to transcendentally ground philosophy, but neither is it reduced to a merely metaphorical discourse. Finally, Wittgenstein's notion of meaning as determined by use can help us distinguish pragmatically between poetry and philosophy by looking at the contexts in which they function. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

The master's thesis deals with didactic games in teaching Czech for schoolchildren with a different mother tongue. The aim of the thesis is a set of didactic games which is divided to three parts: pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Firstly, the cognitive and language development of schoolchildren are characterised, primarily in relation to game. Afterwards, there are described game and its characteristics at schoolchildren. It is defined as a part of teaching methods and put into context of teaching foreign languages. The master's thesis theoretically deals with the situational sylabus which was created for the practical part. The games, which are introduced in the practical part of thesis, are adaptations of games intended for different school subjects. These games were pre-tested by group of schoolchildren, they were changed on the basis of teacher's feedback if needed and then made to methodical description.

Beginning with Plato's expulsion of the poets in the Republic, this dissertation looks at the often hostile, yet also symbiotic, relationship between poetry and philosophy. Aristotle's 'response' to Plato is regarded as a significant origin of literary theory. Nietzsche's critique of Western philosophy as being an attempt to suppress its own metaphoricity, leads to a revaluation of truth and consequently of the privileging of philosophy over poetry. Post-structuralism sometimes overemphasizes this constitutive force of metaphoricity, at the expense of conceptual modes. However, Derrida's notion of philosophy as play retains a balance between concept and metaphor: there is no attempt to transcendentally ground philosophy, but neither is it reduced to a merely metaphorical discourse. Finally, Wittgenstein's notion of meaning as determined by use can help us distinguish pragmatically between poetry and philosophy by looking at the contexts in which they function. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This diploma thesis is concerned with possible connection between literary theory of Wolfgang Iser and analytic philosophy of language. First of all I introduce analytic linguistic turn in general but the main part of thesis is dedicated to two opposite conceptions of language and interpretaton within the latter period of analytical movement. I want to explore Michael Dummett's and Donald Davidson's dispute over the role of conventions and questions about their indispensability in linguistic communication.Whereas their own opinions converge in view of the fact that influence of society on human thought is radically irreducible, there is great difference between their beliefs in the necessity of conception of rules inherent in social linguistic practice. My aim is to vindicate Davidson's theory of interpretation against Dummett's objections and then continue to discussing Iser's own theory of reading. Particularly I try to demonstrate that Iser's concept of literariness is based on Dummett's philosophical assumptions. In closing the main interest will be to reconsider if Iser's explanation of difference between literature and ordinary speech or document stands up to Davidson's challenge of Iser's entire treatment of linguistic practice. And, namely, if Davidson' philosophy of language can provide an...