The role of meaning in the sentence matching task Item type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) (original) (raw)
Related papers
A probe into the meaning of "Meaning
When a language is studied systematically,then meaning becomes crucial.As human beingsstart acquiring a language they naturally learn the meanings but as flexibility with language grows more complex meanings emerge.Students learn language by replicating the sounds for speech andsymbols for written. Ultimately,meaning has to be associated to the sounds and images.Thus,language acquisition is directly proportional to the study of Semantics.The area of Semantics is thus, concerned with various types of meaning that exists within a language providing insight into how a person is acquainted with the ability and understanding of the language.Key words
On the Notion of Intended Meaning (2010) - Article in Proc. of the Cogsci conference
The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper presents a notion of intended meaning based on the idea of speaker's preference for a state of affairs to which a sentence refers. Its argument has two components. The first is the conception of meaning developed by analytic philosophy of language; that is, the meaning of a sentence depends on the truth conditions of the sentence, and the meaning of an expression depends on contribution of that expression to the truth value of the sentence in which it appears. The second is the notion of agent's interest, as a state of affairs which implies a goal of agent, as developed by cognitive social theory. The paper maintains that a speaker's intended meaning establishes when the truth conditions of a sentence and the possibility conditions of the state of affairs preferred by the agent match. The last part of the paper illustrates three linguistic disputes to support its theoretical intuitions. The first dispute concerns syntactic ambiguity, while the other two disputes concern semantic ambiguity. The paper deals with the general problem of the semantic underdeterminacy of the conventional meaning of natural language sentences. Its specific contribution relates to the problem of intended meaning in communicative processes and to meaning negotiation processes in conflicting interactions.
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.
Introduction to the Science of Meaning
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018
This Introduction aims to acquaint the reader with some of the main views on the foundations of natural language semantics, to discuss the type of phenomena semanticists study, and to give some basic technical background in compositional model-theoretic semantics necessary to understand the chapters in this collection. Topics discussed include truth conditions, compositionality, context-sensitivity, dynamic semantics, the relation of formal semantic theories to the theoretical apparatus of reference and propositions current in much philosophy of language, what semantic theories aim to explain, realism, the metaphysics of language and different views of the relation between languages and speakers, and the epistemology of semantics.
Intended Meaning and Situational Interest
The problem of determining intended meaning is a key topic in the study of linguistic processes. This paper is part of a research that attempts to answer the question: how do agents involved in a linguistic controversy determine the intended meaning of a sentence? The main thesis of the research is that the determination of meaning is driven by agents' situational interests. The process is analyzed in two phases (individual and contractual), and the thesis is respectively declined in two hypotheses. Here I analyze the first phase. The hypothesis is that an agent's situational interest drives the individual choice of meaning for ambiguous sentences. It is argued in particular that formal semantics, the dictionary, context of use and domain knowledge are not sufficiently powerful to determine a unique meaning (condition of legitimacy). From this it follows that an agent can legitimately choose a meaning (i.e. make a decision) given a set of contextually admissible interpreta...
Researching Meaning, Context and Cognition Editorial to Ril Special Issue
Research in Language, 2000
The present issue of Research in Language has been inspired by discussions conducted during the meetings of the annual international conference "Meaning, Context & Cognition" (MCC), held in University of Łódź, Poland, since 2011. MCC, organised by the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, focuses on topics relevant to the fields of speech actions and natural language processing. The goal of the conference has been to integrate and promote both theoretical and applied research from the interface of semantics and pragmatics. The papers included in the volume, even though few in number, reflect the wide range of interests represented by MCC participants and complement other collections inspired by MCC meetings (cf. Witczak-Plisiecka 2013). They are diverse in the choice of particular research programmes, but well integrated by the authors' interest in the processes hidden behind linguistic action. The papers explore how meaning arises in particular contexts, and how language studies intersect with other fields of human action. Among the languages discussed in the articles there are: Basque, Czech, French, English, Polish, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Italian. The cognitive-pragmatic research frameworks include, inter alia, relevance theory, Langacker's cognitive grammar, critical pragmatics, and conversation analysis. The first paper "(Non-)Determining the original speaker: reportative particles versus verbs", by Larraitz Zubeldia, focuses on the Basque reportative particle omen. The discussion is based on Korta and Perry's (2007, 2011) conception of propositional content, on the basis of which the author claims that the presence of "omen" contributes to the propositional content of the utterance. The author also explicitly subscribes to relevance theoretic framework (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995). With data obtained from an assent/dissent test and a controlled experiment, it is argued, against the received view, that the function of both "omen" and a relater verb, "esan" ("to say"), goes beyond that of an illocutionary force indicator and that there is a theoretically important difference between the meaning of omen-sentences and the contents of omen-utterances. The nature of "omen", as well as its relation to "esan", is discussed with reference to varied methodological tools, not only experiments, but also native speakers' intuitions and corpora. The paper is also a contribution in the field of research focused on evidentiality, respecting Wilson's proposal (2011) to distinguish between lexicalized and grammaticalised evidentials and epistemic modals. It reports facts from the Basque language and poses Basque-related questions.
Toward a Discovery of Truth in the Study of Verbal Meaning
ATHENS JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY
The question in focus is the reliability of the analysis of imaginative literature for truth or referential meaning and the validity of the method. The paper is a work in stylistics supported with basic references. While truth in language is a matter of propositional logic, truth in literature is a side question, as the notion of truth in literature is gleaned from evaluative meaning in the analysis of which intuition and subjective opinion matter. Yet the assessment of truth in literature is subject to faultless logic and credible literary material. What is methodologically new belongs to recent studies of style and encompasses qualitative analysis and a functional method derived from a study of uses of language. The analysis is based on the method of close reading and includes Method II described by Stephen Ullman. This method focuses on sense effects and traces them down to the devices that produce them; it is thus in line with recent linguistic theory. Other methodological principles include the concept of three levels of meaning in stylistics-the semantic, the metasemiotic and the metametasemiotic-and the criterion of relevance in the analysis. Research material in overview reveals how representation of routine matters, science and scientists, the popular press, and people and places are evaluated and what this signifies to the analyst. It is found that evaluation in the above descriptions is credible as it can be confirmed by experience, which ultimately means that referential truth can be gleaned in fiction analytically, yet can be confirmed only experientially or logically. The method based on the tracing of evaluative meaning is viable, but the experiential criterion is temporary. Representation in the novel under analysis has national and cross-cultural significance through universal and culturally shared evaluative senses.
On the Notion of Intended Meaning
2010
The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper presents a notion of intended meaning based on the idea of speaker's preference for a state of affairs to which a sentence refers. Its argument has two components. The first is the conception of meaning developed by analytic philosophy of language; that is, the meaning of a sentence depends on the truth conditions of the sentence, and the meaning of an expression depends on contribution of that expression to the truth value of the sentence in which it appears. The second is the notion of agent's interest, as a state of affairs which implies a goal of agent, as developed by cognitive social theory. The paper maintains that a speaker's intended meaning establishes when the truth conditions of a sentence and the possibility conditions of the state of affairs preferred by the agent match. The last part of the paper illustrates three linguistic disputes to support its theoretical intuitions. The first dispute concerns syntactic ambiguity, while the other two disputes concern semantic ambiguity. The paper deals with the general problem of the semantic underdeterminacy of the conventional meaning of natural language sentences. Its specific contribution relates to the problem of intended meaning in communicative processes and to meaning negotiation processes in conflicting interactions.
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).