Live Meanings (original) (raw)
On “Interactional Semantics” and Problems of Meaning
Human Studies, 2011
This article is a comment on papers being published in this special issue concerned with interactional semantics. As these papers are concerned with abstractions, formulations, generalizations, and other uses of categorizations whereby participants' everyday understandings and interpretations come to the foreground of analysis, I explore the wider issue with which the papers wrestle. That issue is whether problems of meaning-related to subjectivity, intersubjectivity, mutual comprehension, and the like-are pervasive in interaction, or are limited and situational. I examine problems of meaning through the lenses of social theory and ethnomethodology, and take the position that analytic preoccupation with interpretation should be one that follows participants' own orientations to problems of meaning. This is different from but related to what each author argues in his own paper. Keywords Verstehen Á Mutual understanding Á Interpretation Á Semantics Á Ethnomethodology Á Conversation analysis Á Social theory This special issue takes up a provocative topic-the problem of ''semantics in interaction''. The papers are concerned with abstractions, formulations, generalizations, and other uses of categorizations whereby participants' everyday understandings and interpretations come to the foreground of analysis. The papers merit inspection in their own right, and in my brief comment I cannot do justice to each of them; rather I wish to explore the wider issue with which they wrestle. That issue-''semantics in interaction''-consists in whether the so-called problem of meaning is a pervasive one for participants in interaction or whether it is a more limited
Abstract Meaning has been the center of debates in the study of language for centuries. From classical Greek to Cognitive Linguistics. From been partially ignored by modern linguists like Bloomfield, Chomsky, and many others, to been “empirically” studied by Cognitive Linguists. The study of meaning still remain open ended in its conclusions. The open-endedness of the study of meaning has left many questions in its wake than it sets out to answer. That is one of the reasons why Bloomfield called it “weak” and Chomsky ignored it in his “Generative Grammar”. It is as a result of this weak background that Cognitive Linguistics emerged. From its traditional approach (Semantics) to its modern approach (Cognitive Linguistics), the study of meaning is yet to be boldly called an empirical study of language. This article aims at highlighting the weakness of Semantics and Cognitive Linguistics as an introduction to both fields (Semantics and Cognitive Linguistics). This is because both fields are obsessed with meaning in language. Furthermore, because Cognitive Linguistics is an advanced study of Semantics, this article will focus on its weaknesses to highlight the weakness of the study of meaning in general. From there, solutions to some of the problems will be recommended.
This paper examines meaning in language. It is therefore a study in semantics. Semantics is the study of meaning in terms of the linguistics. Semantics begins from the stopping point of syntax and ends from where pragmatics begins. A separate discipline in the study of language, semantics has existed for decades. The term semantics was first used by Breal in 1987 and it does not suggest that there had never been speculations about the nature of meaning (Ogbulogo (2005). Words, phrases and sentences are used to convey messages in natural languages. Semantics is the study of meaning systems in language. If meaning is a system, then language is systematic in nature. In this paper, we investigate the nature of meaning to locate the significance of semantics in contemporary linguistics. Frege, cited in Sandt (1988:1) rightly notes that “... [If ] anything is asserted there is always an obvious presupposition that the simple or compound proper names used have reference.” Hinging on different submissions in the literature, we conclude that meaning is: socio-cultural, dynamic, grammar-driven, conventional, representative (referential), individualistic (non-conventional) and is not exhaustive.
Outline of a theory of meaning: semantical and contextual
Philosophica, 1977
There are several reasons, to some of which I shall refer later, to take meaning serious, i.e. to take it as distinct from syntactically expressible formal properties of linguistic entities, as distinct from denotation or extension, and the like. Among the possible approaches to the study of meaning three seem to be especially important for the philosopher : (a) The study of the meaning of linguistic entities with respect to communication processes properly. This approach is concerned with questions about the relevant belief and knowledge contents on the part of the speaker and hearer respectively, with questions about how to arrive at a consistent interpretation of a "text", etc. (b) The study of the meanings of sentences, respectively propositions, in terms of the observations and actions of the person (individttal, community) who accepts or beliefs them to be true (connected with the dispositional interpretation of belief). Here the meaning of a sentence p is seen as (or at least seen in relation to) a functioll of the verification procedure for p-a procedure which will usually contain observations as well as actions-and a function of the actions that a person will or will not perform, relative to a problem situation and relative to a set of background beliefs, accordillg as he does or does not believe (accept) that p. (c) The study of the meaning of linguistic entities with respect to parts of the world (facts, objects, relations, ...) or possible parts of the world (more accurately: parts of possible worlds). It is with this approacll, i.e. with semantics, that we shall mainly be concerned in this paper. It goes without saying that the philosopher is not interested in 138, Diderik BATENS
On the Very Idea of a Theory of Meaning for a Natural Language
Synthese, 1997
A certain orthodoxy has it that understanding is essentially computational: that information about what a sentence means is something that may be generated by means of a derivational process from information about the significance of the sentence’s constituent parts and of the ways in which they are put together. And that it is therefore fruitful to study formal theories acceptable as compositional theories of meaning for natural languages: theories that deliver for each sentence of their object-language a theorem acceptable as statement of its meaning and derivable from axioms characterizing subsentential expressions and operations forming that sentence. This paper is to show that there is something deeply wrong with these ideas, namely that they are based on a certain confusion about ascriptions of semantic knowledge. The paper is to make this point by considering a semantic theorist who has explicit knowledge of a theory of truth for L. And by showing that all the theorist needs ...
EKitis-Semantics. Meaning in Language; Reviewed by David Holdcroft; proof-final-IRP_2014
As its title, Semantics: Meaning in Language, indicates the focus of this book is on context-less meaning ("narrow semantics"), for all that the intention is to throw light on issues of language use. Two main approaches are discussed in detail. The first has its origin in the philosophy of language, and is concerned with the extra-linguistic relations between units of language and items in the world; key concepts are reference, denotation and truth. The second originates in linguistics and concentrates on intra-linguistic relations such as antonymy and synonymy. However, at many points the question arises whether these approaches to narrow semantics need to be supplemented by pragmatics.
Meanings as conceptual structures
1995
Cognitive semantics relates linguistic expressions to conceptual structures. The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for such a cognitive structure. As a preparation, Putnam's argument against intensional semantics as a theory of meaning is presented. Some of the main tenets of cognitive semantics as it has developed during the last years are outlined. The notion of a conceptual space is proposed as a central tool for representing semantic information. It is outlined how conceptual spaces can be used as a basis for a formal cognitive semantics.The model is then applied to some problems in lexical semantics, such as the effect of varying contrast classes.
A New Approach to the Study of Meaning
International Research Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences (RCHSS-2016) July 28-29, 2016 London (UK), 2016
This paper tries to shed light on an initiative taken by the researcher to author an introductory textbook for the study of meaning (Semantics and Pragmatics) for students majoring in English. The approach adopted in writing the book is communicatively and interactively oriented. It is an approach which heavily depends on interactive teaching by employing a variety of teaching strategies and activities, such as video and picture watching (as brainstorming and edutainment facilitators), discussion groups, pair work, PowerPoint presentations, opinion-sharing, in addition to extra exercises which aim at extending and reinforcing the students' knowledge and understanding of meaning in language. The main objective behind this initiative is to transfer the study of Semantics and Pragmatics from the traditional setting which mainly depends on lecturing, as one-sided process, to a more effective one, a multi-sided process, that depends on interaction, between the teacher and students, among students themselves and between students and the material included in the textbook. This kind of interaction breaks the monotony and introduces new mechanisms instead of the stereotyped and traditional practices. This makes the study of meaning a dynamic process and an interesting experience through the balanced combination of knowledge and entertainment (edutainment).