Beschreibung:"Can I go to the bathroom, please?"
"Oh, I don't know if you *can*, but you certainly *may*!"
Does this conversation sound familiar? After taking this course, you will be able to formulate a quick, sharp and - most importantly: linguistically accurate - clapback to comments like these (and learn why you shouldn't say this to your own students).
In this seminar we will learn that meaning can really only be understood in context - in fact, semantics will not get us very far if we want to successfully communicate. We will learn about meaning that goes beyond what is literally said, how meaning is co-constructed by multiple speakers in a conversation, how we can refer to entities far away, how meaning is constructed in text messages, why Sheldon Cooper is so obliviously funny, and much more.
