Language is the primary source of communication for humans and is used to convey thoughts, feelings, intentions, and desires to others (Bonvillain 2008:1). Many rules are taken into account when forming a language. According to Bolton, language is arbitrary and is unrepresentative of the objects they represent (Bolton 1996: 63). The study of Semantics allows us to identify the meaning of words and phrases in their literal sense, and helps us to make meaning out of arbitrary sounds and phrases. It has been contributed to by both linguists and philosophers. Linguists used lexical decomposition to understand the features that comprise words and the categories in which the words fit. Philosophers dealt more with the meanings of sentences and truth condition and reference (Parker and Riley 2010: 28).Semantics is still not a completely understood field, and as a result it is not easy to study (Parker and Riley 2010:26-27).Semantics is split into three different sections: sense, reference, and truth conditions.
Thanks to semantics, we gain an understanding of what words mean when they are said to us. Without semantics, we would not be able to understand each other. Semantics take into account cultural, situational and environmental constructs to develop meaning in different areas of the United States and throughout the world (Bonvillain 2008: 27). With that being said, there are several things that semantics brings to the English language that allows us to communicate on a deeper level and makes our language more complex. Sense is the study of the literal and intentional meaning of words and phrases. Part of this section is lexical ambiguity. This occurs when one word has more than one meaning. Parker and Riley use the example of the wo...
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...nd not in the other (Parker and Riley 2010: 40). Presuppositions are phrases that have to be considered true in order to evaluate the validity of another phrase. For example if I said “Judy Genshaft is the president of USF” and “Judy Genshaft is a good president,” you would have to accept the idea that she is the president in order to understand whether she was a good or bad president.
In conclusion, semantics is what we use to make sense of our language. It takes into account the cultural references, environmental sayings, and situation events. Maybe the reason that semantics is so hard to understand is because it tries to make sense of something that has no meaning and things that change from place to place. Without it, our language would be much more primitive than it is now, but because of it we can make sense of things, make references, and understand truth.
Croft, William, and D A. Cruse. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2004. USC Upstate Ebook. Web. 27 February 2011.
Connotative language: Words that relate to deeper, symbolic levels of meaning. It includes social meanings acquired through use and emotional associations. It can also reflect social, racial, political, or religious stereotypes. For example, a writer who refers to liberals as “bleeding hearts” communicates not only her or his own bias, but an expectation that the audience shares this bias.
Cokely (1992) states that there are a variety of processing models used to help understand the process of interpreting. However, while the variety of process models have subtle differences in factors and characteristics, these models share a view that interpreting is a “complex cognitive process” (p.185). The basic interpretation process model depends upon input of the source language over which the interpre...
From the most basic of functions like recognition and storage to the complexities of discourse and cultural expression, language functions are an integral and pervasive component of the human experience. In these pages I have sought to describe the operation of the six language functions through the analogy of a figure skater and a dancer. Each skill builds upon the next to weave the intricate set of skills and abilities that humans have uniquely developed to share information and each other’s experiences of the world.
In the field of Modern Languages and Linguistics, words are of great importance. A language’s phonology (study of how sounds are organized and used), morphology (study of the form and structure of words), syntax (study of the rules that govern sentence structure), semantics (study of meaning of words, sentences, and expressions), pragmatics (study of aspects of meaning and language use and context), and phonetics (study of human speech sounds) all play an important part in everyday life. These have a major impact in understanding the intent of what is spoken or heard. Due to the importance of communication, literary elements such as metaphors (which are defined as a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea that is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them), takes on greater cultural significance. This is especially true of the Spanish language.
This chapter presents how languages create a system in which one entity or con-cept functions as a reference point or an anchor for another concept (Talmy, 2000).
This classical view on categorisation was taken for granted, from Aristotle to late Wittgenstein. He was one of the cognitive anthropologists who initiated the Cognitive Revolution. He made research into human categorization, observed that human categorization does not abide by the principles of the Aristotelian model of categorization. Wittgenstein’s research showed that classical theory of categorisation is not sufficient as an explanation for categorisation mechanisms and is only small part of the story. “(…) the classical theory of categories is inadequate for the study of natural language as well as other aspects of the mind and that the new philosophical assumptions are required in order to make sense of linguistic phenomena and other
Studying language reveals one aspect of culture which is organized systematically. The relationship between categories, cognition, language, culture, and truth can be analytically examined in Metaphors We Live By. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that dictionary definitions do not adequately describe concepts, especially ambiguous concepts. Rather, we use concepts from a source domain (which are more basic and empirically real) to make sense of concepts within the target domain (which are less tangible and clearly defined ex: emotions, time, and morality). An experiential basis for both domains links the two together. Experiential bases include our bodies, our interaction with the physical environment, and interactions with other people and institutions.
In his Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein makes the following claim “…only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning” (TLP 3.3). This claim is a version of what has come to be known in the literature as the context principle and is taken to assert simply that a word has meaning only when it is within a sentence. An intuitive objection to this principle is that it conflicts with a trait of language called compositionality. Compositionality describes the ability we possess to form new sentences, with new meanings, using familiar words. This is the characteristic of language that Wittgenstein is clearly alluding to when he tells us that “A proposition must use old expressions to communicate a new sense” (TLP 4.03). The conflict between compositionality and the context principle is the matter of how we are able to form meaningful sentences out of words when words, when they stand on their own, do not have any meaning. Since Wittgenstein asserts a version of the context principle while acknowledging compositionality, it would seem that he is holding on to a problematic account of meaning.
One of the more interesting concepts is the "Chain of signifiers", in which the signifier itself points not to the signified, or concept, but rather points to another set of signifiers, which each point to another set of signifiers, ad infinitum. It is this idea that "the word...never reaches the point when it refers to a signified" (Tyson 252) that positions language as nonreferential, with no end-game where a signified is met and all the supplements provided by the signifiers are resolves. There is no point at which language "refer[s] to things in the world" (252) instead relying on how we, through our own structures of signification, view concepts. Each chain of signifiers is dependent upon the structure that acts upon the creation of meaning and experience, and no longer dependent on the signified itself. For instance, a text never reaches the point where it relays the disparate ideas that formulated the text in the mind of the author - it instead is formulated of supplements that point to poten...
Paying attention to the connotative meaning of words means that when writing a paper or any kind of message you have to be careful to use/not use words that have their deffinition along with a different meaning. There are negative and positive connotative meanings and you should always be careful that you are getting the correct meaning across.
"Iraqi Head Seeks Arms." (Pinker, p. 69) Quiproquo, double entendre, pun. These are instances of finding more than one possible meaning to an event, most often a phrase. We can't read Shakespeare, or Molière, or the works of many other authors if we don't believe that something can have more than one meaning. "There is no topic in philosophy that has received more attention than meaning, in its multifarious manifestations." (Dennett, p. 401) Meaning is one of our most intimate bedfellows – it is always in our minds. In Webster's Third New International Dictionary, meaning is defined as follows;
The Subject Condition, is called the Final I Low in Relational Grammar (Fraantz 1981; Perlmutter and Postal 1983a) and the Extended Projections Principle in Gov- ernment and Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981), was reviewed by Bresnan and Kanerva (1989), who attribute it initially to Baker (1983) (see also Andrews 1985; Levin 1987; Butt et al. 1999):
Actual meaning comes from the thing itself, rather than our word for it. Jacques Lacan modified Saussure's original algorithm so that the signifier dominated the signified. We have many words for the same object. For example, the adjectives ugly, unattractive, hideous, revolting, and homely describe a less-than-desirable state of physical beauty. Why choose one word over another? The signification is roughly the same. Yet subtle differences exist between these signifiers - differences which relate as much to the speaker as to the object being described.
To begin, we shall define language. The way to define language can be quite intricate but is important to understand for the sake of human communication. Language possesses many different elements that are needed for one to understand it. Understanding how the language processing in cognitive psychology works, one should examine it and have a clear view on cognitive psychology (Boroditsky 2001). Basically, language is an intricate process of communication that flows with ones’ thoughts. Lexicon can be defined as somewhat of a mental dictionary. It can hold many depictions of known words which are spelling, part of speech for each word, and the way a word is pronounced (Boroditsky 2001). Lexicons help in matching the spoken word with that of the meaning of the word. Therefore, people will start to see words through this way of doing things because spoken words are similar with a lexicon (Boroditsky 2001).