Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Research Areas

Research Area

Semantics and Pragmatics

The Research Area Semantics and Pragmatics is concerned with linguistic meaning and the connection between language and non-linguistic thinking. The results of our foundational research can be applied in various fields: Information technology, comprehensibility optimisation (medical guidelines or textbooks), language diagnostics.

By combining small units such as single words or parts of words to larger units such as sentences, dialogues, and texts, complex thoughts can be expressed. Their meaning is mainly derived compositionally from the meaning of the parts and the way they are assembled (semantics). Non-verbal signals such as emphasis, gestures and context also have an influence on meaning (pragmatics).

Projects