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Gastdozent am Arbeitsbereich Historische Geographie des antiken Mittelmeerraumes vom 01.05.2013 - 15.06.2013

Martin Thiering’s research is on spatial concepts and mental models of space in languages with a non-written tradition. The theoretical framework is embedded in cognitive linguistics and cognitive anthropology aiming at a semiotics of space from a diachronic perspective. The idea is to survey the influence from culture upon language (and vice versa) and cognition. What is cultural or language-specific and what might be candidates for universals? These questions mirror discussions starting with Aristotle arguing that language expresses thoughts that are a priori given. Gottlob Frege and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein argue that all cognitive activity is linguistic. Wittgenstein claims in his Tractatus that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world“. Research on Amerindian languages introduced by Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and Benjamin Lee Whorf built on Wilhelm von Humboldt’s idea of Weltansichten ‘world perspectives’, i.e., the idea that the structure of language influences the thought process. This concept is known as the linguistic relativity principle or Sapir-Whorf theory. Thiering subscribes to the idea that languages differ in the way they shape our world perspectives, but believes as others do that non-linguistic information has its impact upon language and categorization.

Books

Thiering, Martin. Linguistic Categorization of Topological Spatial Relations. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2009.

Edited Books

Geus, Klaus & Thiering, Martin (Editor/s). Common Sense Geography and Mental Modelling. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2012.

Articles and Chapters

Thiering, Martin. "Spatial mental models in common sense geography." In: Common Sense Geography and Mental Modelling, eds.: Geus, Klaus & Thiering, Martin. Berlin: 2012.

Thiering, Martin. "Degree of specificity in spatial semantic." In: Variation in Language and Language Use: Linguistic, Socio-Cultural and Cognitive Perspectives, eds.: Monika Reif, Justyna A. Robinson & Martin Pütz. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012.

Thiering, Martin. "Topographical coordinates and spatial language. " LAUD Papers, Linguistic Agency University of Duisburg-Essen 35th International LAUD Symposium (2012)

Thiering, Martin. "Figure-Ground Reversals in Language. " Gestalt Theory 33, No. 3/4 (Gestalt Theory, Special Issue The Place of Meaning in Perception: Towards a Science of Meaning, Vol. 1 2011)

Thiering, Martin. "Intralingual variation of spatial concepts in an Athapaskan language. " LAUD Papers, Linguistic Agency University of Duisburg-Essen (2010)

Thiering, Martin. "Language loss in spatial semantics: Dene Suline ." In: An Anthology on Quantitative Sociolinguistic Studies of Indigenous minority languages, Variationist Approaches to Indigenous Minority Languages, eds.: Jim Stanford & Dennis Preston. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2009.

Thiering, Martin. "Topological Relations in an Athapaskan Language. " PETL: Papers in Experimental and Theoretical Linguistics. Department of Linguistics Working Papers 1 (2006)

Thiering, Martin. "A case study on language loss: Spatial semantics in Dene Suline. " Working Papers in Athabaskan Languages 4 (Alaska Native Language Center Working Papers 2004)