Lecture 7

1. Lecture 7 From Meaning to Function

2. ^ _ ^ Smile Sterling Sign/symbol and meaning • Human trace Icon index

3. Icon of peace

4. Chinese Icons of Fortune

5. Natural index lightning --> thunder

6. 1. The Symbolic System • A. Natural Symbols. They are part of natural phenomena, e.g. lightning in the thunderstorm. • B. Artificial Symbols. They are mental representations of entities.

8. Saussurean arbitrarinessAn association of concepts with abstract representations of sound

9. In any language the relation between sounds and meaning is arbitrary. There are only a small number of words whose relation can be explained, but whose pronunciation still cannot be uniform among languages. e.g. onomatopoeia (echo words): "cuckoo" (English), "coucou" (French), "Kuckuck" (German) "Kakuk" (Hungarian) "Kokkyx" (Greek) "bugu" (Chinese)

10. Language is a symbolic system in which the relation between signs (signified) and sounds (signifier) is arbitrary. Arbitrariness comes from having to code a whole universe of meanings.

11. Semantics 语义学 The study of meaning communicated through language. Ogden & Richards’ Semantic Triangle

12. Semantic Triangle Concept There is not a direct link between the sound of the word dog and the object it refers to. What is called the signified is not actually what we have been shown but an abstract concept formed in our mind. Refers to evokes symbol Stands for Referent

13. More widely, can anyone guarantee that a concept coming to his mind when he uses a word is going to be the same as the one brought to his reader’s mind? • Therefore, a concept so produced cannot be regarded simply as the word’s meaning. • Pierce’sSemiotic Triangle is also useful in analyzing semantic relationships.

14. Semiotics 符号学 The study of the relationships between a sign and the object it represents. Pierce’sSemiotic Triangle

15. A sign is a pattern of data which, when perceived, brings to mind something other than itself. • Although this definition appears simple on the surface, it has complex implications. Please pause to look at the following picture for a moment.

17. Now, describe briefly to yourself the thoughts that the picture brought to your mind.

18. a semiotic system.

19. At the beginning of the exercise, did this sign: , bring to your mind a large, African or Indian animal? • Or memories of a trip to the zoo? • Or images recalled from a favorite book read as a child, or a television show, or a movie...?

20. Variable signified • Perhaps it brings to your mind an American political party; or perhaps the notion of memory (as in: "a large animal with a trunk and big ears"). Notice that whatever the sign brings to mind, the concept is related to the reader's past experience with the object.

21. convention Pierce’s Semiotic Triangle

22. Each of the lines in the Semiotic Triangle represents a two-way negotiation, i.e. • Perception -- the ongoing group of bodily processes by which human beings receive data about their environments, • Experience-- the memory of previous perceptions and concepts, which is constantly being altered or "updated" by new experience, • Convention -- the constantly changing social "rules of meaning" that unify groups of people within their communication environments.

23. Floating signifier • Male voice: Should I put more fire into my poems? • Female voice: You should put more of your poems into the fire. • Question: What does the man mean? signifier/sign signified/concept object

24. fire 激情 fire 火 浮动的能指

25. Break down meaning

26. Semantic features • Semantic features are defined as a class of theoretical constructs developed in analogy to the distinctive features of phonology – they are considered to be the smallest semantic units for the description of linguistic expressions and their semantic relations.

27. Matrix ofsemantic features for some nouns

28. Matrix ofsemantic features for some verbs

29. Criticism • To exhaust all the semantic features of a word is not an easy thing, and sometimes even impossible, because, in philosophical parlance, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, so how can the whole word be represented by its components?

30. SHE WAS THE ONLY MAN IN HER CABINET Indira Ganghi

31. Denotation vs. connotation

32. A concept in an individual’s mind is mostly the connotative meaning, formed through one’s perception of some features of the object a sign refers to. The denotative meaning is not necessarily generated in such a process, but has long been an agreement among all the people in a community. perception convention

33. Suppose the library has two copies of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Peter takes out one, and John the other. Did Peter and John take out the same book, or different books? Chomsky on meaning (2000) What is the meaning of "book"?

34. if we focus on its abstract component, they took out the same book. If we attend to the material factor of the lexical item, they took out different books;

35. When we say The book that he is planning will weigh at least five pounds if he ever write it We attend to both material and abstract factors simultaneously

36. Chomsky’s conclusion • The semantic properties of words are used to think and talk about the world in terms of the perspectives made available by the resources of the mind...

37. I-meaning The relation of rhyme that holds between “chase” and “lace” is based on properties of I-sound; The relation of entailment that holds between “chase” and “follow” is based on properties of I-meaning.

38. He knocked at the window. He jumped out of the window. The morning light was stealing through the window. The window is material. The window is abstract. The window can either be material or abstract. I-meaning

39. Internal semantic knowledge a) telling that the following sentences describe the same situation: • You can’t imagine how I miss you. • You can imagine how I miss you. synonymy

40. Internal semantic knowledge b) noticing that the following sentences contradict each other: • My father has just come from Paris. • My father has never been to Paris. contradiction

41. Internal semantic knowledge c) judging that of the following two sentences, the first entails the second: • The anarchist assassinated the emperor. • The emperor is dead. entailment

42. Internal semantic knowledge d) deciding that of the following two sentences, the first presupposes the second: • The Mayor of London is a tall man. • There is a Mayor of London. presupposition

43. Internal semantic knowledge e) finding that the sentence below has more than one possible meaning: • If I’m a priest, I’ll marry you. ambiguity

44. Internal semantic knowledge f) discovering that let’s is different from let us in the sentence below because the latter does not involve the addressee: • Let’s beg the monster to let us go. inclusive-exclusive distinction

45. Internal semantic knowledge g) understanding the metaphoric expression in the sentence below: • He is a storehouse of repartee. metaphorical interpretation

46. Internal semantic knowledge h) feeling the sentence below infelicitous: • I promise to forget my name. infelicity

47. Meaning versus Function/ Use • That’ll be John. He calls everyday at this time. • You have been going all day. You must be tired. • He should be here somewhere. He said he was coming. • You’ll pick up your room now! • You must take better care of yourself. • He’s shy. You should ask him out. • from Dr. Diane Larsen-Freeman

48. The scope of semantics • The real meaning in communication is contextual meaning. Without context, a sentence conveys only literal information. • Researches related to context pertain to another discipline – pragmatics. • Semanticists tend to confine their work to an arena away from context. What they are interested in is the logic of meaning.

49. So much for today