An edition of The language animal (2016)

The language animal

the full shape of the human linguistic capacity

  • 3 Want to read
The language animal
Charles Taylor, Charles Taylor
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Last edited by MARC Bot
November 7, 2025 | History
An edition of The language animal (2016)

The language animal

the full shape of the human linguistic capacity

  • 3 Want to read

"In this book, Charles Taylor explains linguistic holism to people who believe language needs to be thought of as bits of information. According to one influential view of language, one that originated with Hobbes, Locke, and Condillac, language serves to encode information and to communicate it. This theory has been rendered more sophisticated over the last two centuries, but it still gives a central place to the encoding of information. The thesis of Taylor's new book is that this view neglects crucial features of our language capacity. Sometimes language serves not just to encode information, but also shapes what it purports to describe. This language is more than merely 'descriptive;' it plays a 'constitutive' role."--Provided by publisher.

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Edition Availability
Cover of: The language animal
The language animal: the full shape of the human linguistic capacity
2016, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
in English

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Designative and constitutive views
How language grows
Beyond information encoding
The Hobbes-Locke-Condillac theory
The figuring dimension of language
Constitution 1 : the articulation of meaning
Constitution 2 : The creative force of discourse
How narrative makes meaning
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
The range of human linguistic capacity.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
401
Library of Congress
P107 .T39 2016, P107.T39 2016

The Physical Object

Pagination
x, 352 pages
Number of pages
352

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL27207352M
ISBN 10
067466020X
ISBN 13
9780674660205
LCCN
2015034224
OCLC/WorldCat
921240438
Wikidata
Q113377417

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL20027304W

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
November 7, 2025 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
May 4, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
March 7, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 19, 2022 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
July 19, 2019 Created by MARC Bot Imported from marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record