Freitag, 14.00 Uhr
Originally, the notion of 'perspective' derives from the Latin verb 'perspicere' which means 'to observe accurately', and up to the Renaissance 'perspectiva' was understood as the 'doctrine of accurately observing'. Only 'paintings in perspective' could reach the norm of a realistic representation.
Nowadays, the notion of 'perspective' belongs to the vast collection of 'everyday scientific categories' that is used within various disciplines including linguistics each time with slightly or rather big different meanings (Canesius & Gerlach 1987). Recently, it also entered the analysis of intercultural communication (Koole & ten Thije 1994).
It is self-evident that 'perspective' is no longer a notion denoting a realistic representation. Quite on the contrary, 'perspective' now indicates that reality is always constructed (discursively) from a specific point of view which essentially determines its representation. Moreover, 'perspectivity' is no longer restricted to perception, but also covers the cognitive representation of reality.
In this paper I will discuss a historic reconstruction of the use of this notion. My thesis for this reconstruction is that 'perspective' - like other categories e.g. 'intention' or 'context' - have entered into the linguistic analysis from non-linguistic theories in order to compensate for, what Ehlich (1996) has called the object reduction of the traditional Saussurian linguistics.
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