Analysis of ′two texts′ written by EAL Learners
Michelle_Michy
Week6SemanticsandtheLexiconppt.pptxETL705 Week 6:
Semantics and the Lexicon
Key topics in Semantics
Sense and reference
Literal meaning
Figurative meaning
Lexical Semantics
Speech acts
Gricean maxims
Reference
presupposition
Sense and reference
Sense and reference, as we may simply say, are the two sides of a coin.
Reference (Denotation) is the person, the object, or anything that we are talking about and has a reference in the outside world.
Sense (Meaning) is related to the meaning, and the way the person or the object is referred to.
Activity
Identify the sense and reference of the word ‘unicorn’.
Literal vs. figurative meaning
The meaning that we draw ordinarily is called the literal meaning. The word ‘needle’ is literally defined as ‘a sharp instrument’. The non-literal meaning of ‘pain’ is not included in its dictionary definition. This is the connotative meaning that we get from ‘needle’. The denotation of the word refers (see reference in the previous slide) to the actual needle whereas the connotation, as one type of figurative meaning, is used for the sense (see sense in the previous slide).
Figurative meaning or figurative language is used for different purposes; e.g., for exaggeration, for analogy, and for metaphors, among other things. In literature it is often known as figure of speech.
Metaphors
The sentence ‘He is the apple of my eye’ – doesn’t refer to any kind of fruit; there is, of course, no real apple in a person's eye. The "apple" is someone beloved and held dear.
When we hear this statement, we interpret it metaphorically, that is, we go beyond the literal meaning.
Other examples:
a bubbly personality
feeling blue
a rollercoaster of emotions
it’s raining men
Since our daily use of language is full of metaphors, it is sometimes hard to draw a fine distinction between the literal and the metaphoric meaning. For this reason, some linguists prefer to consider them cognitively and not linguistically.
Activity
Think of 3 metaphors in English (or another language) and discuss
Metonymy
Metonymy is another kind of figure of speech which connotes habituality or association.
e.g.
‘The pen is mightier than the sword’
What about these?
The Crown
The White House
Dish
Ears
A hand
Australia
The semantics of homophony=homonymy
Homonyms:
When two words have the same spelling and pronunciation, but different meanings
I went to the bank (by the river or to withdraw some cash?).
This is an interesting case
Activity
Provide 2 homonyms.
(If the spelling is different but the sound is the same, e.g sea and see, they are homophones)
The semantics of polysemy
Polysemy (adj polysemous):
When a word has several meanings, such as the word ‘run’.
Compare:
He runs.
The paint runs.
The engine runs.
He has a runny nose.
The grass runs for a mile.
He runs this business.
The semantics of hyponymy
The word ‘gum’ or ‘gum tree’ is one kind of tree. The general word ‘tree’ is superordinate or hyponymous to the word ‘gum tree’.
Different types of gum trees like ‘red gum’ and ‘blue gum’ have a co-hyponymous relation.
The whole meaning is known as hyponymy.
The semantics of meronymy
This is a part-whole relation. ‘pedals’ and ‘handles’ are parts of a bicycle; therefore they are in meronymous relation to ‘bicycle’.
Activity 5.
Identify the lexico-semantic relation in the following and justify this relation for an ESL student.
The kettle is boiling.
The semantics of synonymy and antonymy
Synonyms are the words that have a close relation in meaning. There are no two words in any language that are practically 100% synonymous. The words ‘small’, ‘little’ and ‘short’ are examples of synonymy, but there are contexts that only one of these can be practically used.
Antonyms are the words with opposite meanings.
The opposite of tall is short. Antonyms can be either gradable or non-gradable. Dead-alive are the non-gradable opposites. Someone is either dead or alive although sometimes we hear ‘he was half-dead’, which is taken non-literally. The gradable antonyms are, on the hand, flexible. Exit is not exactly the opposite of enter, or tie is not exactly the opposite of untie.
Speech acts
Speech acts: When speech is accompanied by action through verbs. The verbs therefore are performing some action, hence known as performative verbs.
I bet it will rain tomorrow.
Country X has declared war on country Y.
I promise to give you $20.
I pronounce you husband and wife.
In all these examples, an action is performed by the subject in using the verb.
Some conditions have to hold for the verb to take place. If the conditions are met, the act is felicitous, otherwise unsuccessful and infelicitous. The conditions are preparatory (does the person performing a speech act have the authority to do so) and sincerity (the speaker is not lying) conditions.
Activity What are the felicity conditions for the verbs in the previous slide?
Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative
Traditional grammar recognises three classes of speech act, distinguishable in many languages on the basis of their form:
statements or declaratives
questions or interrogatives
commands or imperatives
Declarative:
Henry took her out.
Interrogative:
Did Henry take her out?
Imperative:
Take her out, Henry!
Representatives: speech acts that represent some state of affairs
assertions
claims
descriptions
Commissives: speech acts that commit the speaker to some future course of action
promises
threats
vows
Directives: speech acts whose intention is to get the addressee to carry out some action
commands
requests
dares
entreaties
Declarations: speech acts that themselves bring about a state of affairs
marrying
naming
blessing
arresting
Expressives: speech acts that indicate the speaker's psychological state or mental attitude
greeting
congratulating
thanking
apologising
Verdicatives: speech acts that assess or pass judgment
judging
condoning
permitting
Indirect Speech Acts
A ‘Would you like to meet for coffee?’
B ‘I have class.’
Grice’s maxims (Gricean maxims) or cooperative principles
Grice, a philosopher of language, proposed the following qualities for communication. He said in order for a conversation to be effective, these 4 maxims or cooperative principles have to be observed.
Maxims of Quantity:
Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Maxims of Quality:
Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say things for which you do not have adequate evidence.
Maxim of Relation:
Be relevant.
Maxims of Manner:
Avoid obscurity.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief.
Be orderly.
Do Grice’s maxims have implications for TESOL?
Activity
Which of Grice’s maxims do the following violate?
Speaker 1:Isn't Larry the biggest jerk you ever met?
Speaker 2:Uh, it sure is nice for this time of year, eh?”
B) Miss Singer produced a series of sounds corresponding closely
to the score of “Advance Australia Fair”
C) a. "John and Mary have 2 children”.
“Are they planning on having a third”?
“They already have a third child.”
Presupposition
This is another crucial issue in language. Often, when people write, they presuppose their readers know the facts they are writing, which is not true at times. Using determiner ‘the’ is a case point.
Activity 12.
What is the presupposed information in the following?
Heat the coffee!
Where’s the salt?
ESL learners find ‘the’ very challenging and sometimes apply it inappropriately.
Semantics!
“Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
“Arthur: If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it? Ford: We're safe. Arthur: Oh good. Ford: We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet. Arthur: Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Semantics intersects with a number of language-related fields:
Lexicology
Etymology
Syntax
Pragmatics
Communication
Semiotics
….and don’t forget language teaching
The Lexicon
acronym dysphemism
backformation euphemism
blending hypocorism
borrowing idiom
calque loan translation
clipping narrowing and
coinage broadening of meaning
collocation reduplication
compounding taboo
Lexicon = our mental dictionary
What is ‘scuba’ ?
What about ‘OK”?
AIDS and NASA but not aids and nasa
The pronunciation of the above vs VCR and ATM?
What about ‘television’
Words often come into language with one particular word class (e.g., n or v) and then other word classes are formed. For example, the v ‘televise’ did not exist at the time the n ‘television’ entered English. The longer word ‘television’ was shortened to form the v ‘televise’. Likewise, and on the basis of analogy, the v ‘revise’ was derived from the n ‘revision’. This derivation from longer to shorter form is called ‘backformation’.
Blending
Brunch?
Smog?
Motel?
Spanglish?
Borrowing: Do you know the origin of the following words:
Algebra
boomerang
caravan
caviar
Chicago
dingo
emu
kangaroo
Kayak
koala
pajamas or pyjamas
Texas
bungalow
Honeymoon from Spanish luna de miel {luna ‘moon’ and miel ‘honey’}
Pajamas from Persian päjäme {pä ‘leg’ and jäme ‘shirt’}. Interestingly, the word traveled to other languages and eventually came back to Persian with a slightly different pronunciation; phonetically transcribed as both [piʒamϵ] and [pidʒamϵ].
French gratte-ciel {grattoir ‘scraper’ and ciel ‘sky’} and English skyscraper
This type of loan or borrowing is known as ‘loan translation’ or ‘calque’. The words are borrowed and translated into the target language, unlike direct borrowing which keeps the original form with a slightly different phonetic and phonological variation.
Clipping
Activity
fax is a reduced form of ……………….,
pub a reduction of ………………..,
flu a reduced form of …………..
and Mike, Rob, Sue, and Liz are shortened forms of ……., …….., ………., and ……….. respectively?
Why do we clip words?
In Australian English there is a tendency to add a suffix –y or -ie to the words after they have gone through the clipping process. Words like hankie from …………., telly from ………….., brekky from …………, and bickie from ……….. are examples of this type.
This process is called ‘hypocorism’.
But then why is it ‘arvo’ or ‘smoko’ ?
Creating new words is not an easy process in language. Languages try to use the existing words and make some alterations such as adding something to them, combining them and so on to create novel words. Creating new words in various forms is known as ‘coinage’.
These are updates from the Oxford English Dictionary for February 2013. What word-formation features do you recognise?
“Having a mare of a week? With hump day over, the weekend is in sight and it’s time to start thinking about getting blootered on appletinis! Or do you prefer to put on your schlumpy clothes and curl up with a tray bake? My tortie has a more tweetable Friday night than that. But you could take one for the team and be our DD for the night; we’ll call you on your dumbphone later. Thx!”
Compounding
bookcase = …….. + ………
textbook = …….. + ………
Combination of two nouns like the above is called ‘compounding’. Compounding is a common process in English.
Collocation
Activity
Some words are compatible with some other words but not so friendly with others. A word like pen likes to sit close to paper, hence pen and paper, salt and …….., fork and ……, up and ……. Such binomial combination is known as ‘collocation’.
Q. Why do you think this pairing occurs?
Euphemism
In Orwell’s 1984 the term pacifying when used by a dictator leader can mean………...
a) pass away is a vp for the v ……..
b) bathroom is often used by Americans as a replacement for ………
What about the Australian word for b?
……….
Sometimes out of anger or some similar moods, people might swear and use words that are reverse to euphemistic expressions. Words such as pig and bitch that are used for insult and words like boghouse for toilet are referred to as ‘dysphemistic’ expressions.
Idioms
The meaning of kick + the + bucket is not the sum of meaning of every word in this sequence. This and similar expressions are somewhat fixed expressions whose meanings are not inferable from the combination of the individual words forming that sequence. This is referred to as ‘idioms’.
Can you think of three more idioms with their meanings?
……………….
……………….
……………….
When a brand word is created and used for some time, that word may extend its domain
Hoover
Biro
Jacuzzi
What brand name is still used for tissue, photocopy and non-sticky kitchen utensils?
This is referred to as ‘broadening’ or ‘extension of meaning’.
Narrowing
The word ‘meat’ was used at a time in English to mean food or solid things. The meaning has now been narrowed to one type of food (e.g. the meat of animals that is served in restaurants). This is known as ‘narrowing’.
What do you think of the words holiday and cool?
Reduplication
Speakers of some languages prefer repetition of the same word successively. Although this is limited in English, words such as fifty-fifty and sometimes a slightly different phonological combination like hanky-panky, teeny-…….., ……-……. or nitty-……. are not uncommon.
This process is known as ‘reduplication’.
Different styles
A message in any linguistic form, being it a word, a phrase, or a sentence, can be communicated in many ways. This ranges from a very formalised or officialese style to a very unformalised style including slang and taboo.
Compare the following sentences, taken from Newmark (1988):
The consumption of any nutrients whatsoever is categorically prohibited in this establishment!
You are requested not to consume food in this establishment!
Eating is not allowed here!
You can’t feed your face here!
Lay off the nosh!
Lay off the fucking nosh!
All of these have the same meaning with the first one very formalised, the last one ‘taboo’, and one to the last slang. Taboo words or phrases are not recommended for use, and that’s why most dictionaries, particularly those written for ESL learners, put a danger or cautious sign in front of them. ESL students should be alerted against the use of these words, as sometimes unknowingly they may use these words in their speech or writing.
A sample of new words and phrases from the OED 2011
auto-complete n. A software feature that uses text already entered in a given field to predict or generate the characters the user is likely to enter next; familiar to anyone who has used predictive text or search boxes on websites. [First recorded in 1992]
babe n . Used to describe an attractive man [1973] and, in the plural, as a familiar or affectionate form of address for a person of either sex [1918].
brain candy n. Broadly appealing, undemanding entertainment which is not intellectually stimulating. OED already has eye-candy and ear candy. [1968]
environmentally unfriendly adj . designed, produced, or operating in a way that causes, or does not minimize, harm to the natural environment; opposed to environmentally friendly. [1988]
green fuel n . (a type of) fuel, esp. biofuel, which is regarded as less harmful to the environment than conventional fuels. [1979]
to laugh it up at laugh v. Used in imperative (with ironic or sarcastic force) to suggest an impending reversal of fortune: ‘laugh while you can.’ [1971]
urb n. An urban area, a city. Frequently contrasted with suburb. [1952]
use it or lose it at use v
