Language, Semantics and Ideology Language, Semantics and Ideology
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Structuralism 1. the Nature of Meaning Or Understanding
Structuralism 1. The nature of meaning or understanding. A. The role of structure as the system of relationships Something can only be understood (i.e., a meaning can be constructed) within a certain system of relationships (or structure). For example, a word which is a linguistic sign (something that stands for something else) can only be understood within a certain conventional system of signs, which is language, and not by itself (cf. the word / sound and “shark” in English and Arabic). A particular relationship within a شرق combination society (e.g., between a male offspring and his maternal uncle) can only be understood in the context of the whole system of kinship (e.g., matrilineal or patrilineal). Structuralism holds that, according to the human way of understanding things, particular elements have no absolute meaning or value: their meaning or value is relative to other elements. Everything makes sense only in relation to something else. An element cannot be perceived by itself. In order to understand a particular element we need to study the whole system of relationships or structure (this approach is also exactly the same as Malinowski’s: one cannot understand particular elements of culture out of the context of that culture). A particular element can only be studied as part of a greater structure. In fact, the only thing that can be studied is not particular elements or objects but relationships within a system. Our human world, so to speak, is made up of relationships, which make up permanent structures of the human mind. B. The role of oppositions / pairs of binary oppositions Structuralism holds that understanding can only happen if clearly defined or “significant” (= essential) differences are present which are called oppositions (or binary oppositions since they come in pairs). -
The Role of Dualism in Environmental Discourse: an Analysis of Documentary Films That Address the Agriculture Issue Matrizes, Vol
Matrizes ISSN: 1982-2073 ISSN: 1982-8160 [email protected] Universidade de São Paulo Brasil Muniz de Medeiros, Priscila; de Azevedo Mello Gomes, Isaltina Maria The role of dualism in environmental discourse: an analysis of documentary films that address the agriculture issue Matrizes, vol. 12, no. 3, 2018, pp. 277-296 Universidade de São Paulo Brasil DOI: https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1982-8160.v12i3p277-296 Available in: https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=143065736014 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System Redalyc More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Journal's webpage in redalyc.org Portugal Project academic non-profit, developed under the open access initiative 277 The role of dualism in environmental discourse: an analysis of documentary films that address the agriculture issue O papel do dualismo no discurso ambiental: uma análise a partir de filmes documentários sobre a questão agrícola PRISCILA MUNIZ DE MEDEIROSa Universidade Federal de Alagoas. Maceió – AL, Brazil ISALTINA MARIA DE AZEVEDO MELLO GOMESb Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Graduate Program in Communication. Recife – PE, Brazil ABSTRACT Focusing on the concept of discursive formation, in this study we tested the hypothesis a Assistant professor of Universidade Federal de that dualism would play a central role within what we called an anti-industrial agriculture Alagoas (Ufal). Orcid: https:// discursive formation. Therefore, we analyzed the presence of several binary schemes orcid.org/0000-0003-3173-8596. E-mail: [email protected] shared by the six documentary films that composed the corpus of the study. -
The Syntax–Semantics Interface in Systemic Functional Grammar: Halliday’S Interpretation of the Hjelmslevian Model of Stratification
PREPRINT NOTICE This is a PREPRINT of an article to be published in Journal of Pragmatics. Copyright © Elsevier 2011. For citation, please consult the published version. ↓ P U B L I S H E D Full reference: VERSION Taverniers, Miriam (2011) The syntax–semantics interface in Systemic Functional Grammar: Halliday’s interpretation of the Hjelmslevian model of stratification. Journal of Pragmatics 43(4): 1100–1126. DOI:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.003 F U R T H E R http://users.UGent.be/~mtaverni/ INFORMATION & C ONTACT [email protected] The syntax–semantics interface in Systemic Functional Grammar: Halliday’s interpretation of the Hjelmslevian model of stratification Miriam Taverniers (Ghent University) English Department Ghent University Rozier 44 9000 Gent Belgium [email protected] Phone: + 32 9 264 3789 Fax: + 32 9 264 4179 PREPRINT. Taverniers, Miriam (2011) The syntax–semantics interface in Systemic Functional Grammar: Halliday’s interpretation of the Hjelmslevian model of stratification. Journal of Pragmatics 43(4): 1100–1126. Abstract The aim of this article is to explore how exactly the idea of distinguishing different coding levels in language has been theorized in different stages of Hallidayan systemic functional grammar (SFG), focusing on its view of the syntax–semantics interface. This is done by juxtaposing the levels of the Hallidayan model and the various components of Hjelmslev’s model of stratification, on the basis of Halliday’s re-interpretation of Hjelmslev’s theory at various stages in the development of SFG. In this exploration, specific attention is paid to two important theoretical aspects of the design of Hjelmslev’s and Halliday’s models: (1) the different dimensions along which semiotic distinctions are made in the two models, i.e. -
Hjelmslev's Glossematics and Linguistic Realism
Workshop The Foundations of Linguistics – Languages as Abstract Objects 26. – 27. June 2015, Braunschweig University of Technology Predecessors: Hjelmslev’s Glossematics and Linguistic Realism Ellen Fricke & Martin Siefkes Chemnitz University of Technology [email protected] www.ellenfricke.de [email protected] www.siefkes.de Overview 1. Louis Hjelmslev 2. Hjelmslev‘s demands on a theory of language 3. Some important distinctions of glossematics 4. Hjelmslev and multimodal grammar Louis Hjelmslev Louis Hjelmslev (1899 – 1965) • Danish linguist • Co-founder of the Copenhagen school • Other members were: Viggo Brøndal (1887 – 1942), Hans Jørgen Uldall (1907 – 1957) • One of the most important theoreticians of structuralism Louis Hjelmslev (1899 – 1965) • Together with Uldall, he developed a theory of language called “glossematics” • An outline of Glossematics (1936) • Prolegomena to a theory of language (1963; Orig: Omkring sprogteoriens grundlæggelse, 1943) • Further development of Saussure’s analysis, explicating Saussure’s notions • Glosseme = smallest units of language: e.g. phonological and semantic features • not identical with Leonard Bloomfield’s “glossemes”, which corresponds to morphemes Hjelmslev’s demands on a theory of language Hjelmslev‘s basic assumptions 1) What makes something a language? 2) When is a language identical with itself in various manifestations? • In Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, Hjelmslev criticised earlier schools of linguistics that concentrated on language change (such as the Young Grammarians) • Hjelmslev argues against the “humanist tradition”, which claims that no general regularities can be found • Anti-descriptivist stance Demands on a linguistic theory • For every process, linguists should look for an underlying system; for fluctuations, they should search for underlying constancy (cf. -
Philosophical Problems in Child Language Research the Naive
Philosophical Problems in Child Language Research The Naive Realism of Traditional Semantics John Lyons, Oxford linguist, writes in his book (1995) on linguistic semantics: “in my view, it is impossible to evaluate even the most down-to-earth and apparently unphilosophical works in descriptive semantics unless one has some notion of the general philosophical framework within which they are written. This holds true regardless of whether the authors themselves are aware of the philosophical origins or implications of their working principles” (p. 88). One can only agree with Lyons’ position. And one can only admire his honesty when, later, he acknowledges: “throughout this book I have adopted the viewpoint of naive realism, according to which the ontological structure of the world is objectively independent both of perception and cognition and also of language. As we have dealt with particular topics, this view has been gradually elaborated (and to some degree modified); and a more technical metalanguage has been developed in order to formulate with greater precision than is possible in the everyday metalanguage the relations of reference and denotation that hold between language and the world. According to the viewpoint adopted here, the world contains a number of first-order entities (with first-order properties) which fall into certain ontological categories (or natural kinds); it also contains aggregates of stuff or matter(with first-order properties), portions of which can be individuated, quantified, enumerated—and thus treated linguistically as entities—by using the lexical and grammatical resources of particular natural languages. All natural languages, it may be assumed, provide their users with the means of referring to first-order entities and expressing propositions which describe them in terms of their (first-order) properties, actual or ascribed, essential or contingent: such languages have the expressive power of first-order formal languages” (p. -
And a Remote Literature Literat
Maria Oikonomou OnOnOn thethethe Clinical Picture ofofof NostalgiaNostalgia———— aaandandndnd aaa Remote Literature Nowhere does one find better somatization than among foreigners... (Julia Kristeva: Strangers to Ourselves ) When speaking of homesickness, Odysseus comes to mind as the first great nostalgist, who is fated to force his return against insurmountable resistance – not only against all the external adversities, but also against inner deviations and the ebbing of all motivation. Later on, in Tomis on the Black Sea, Ovid finds plaintive words for his longing for Rome, for his desiderium patriae . In his epistles Cicero laments the loss of his homeland, while Dante’s Divine Comedy speaks of the hour “that turns back desire in the sailors, and softens their hearts.”1 For the ancient and pre-modern world, homesickness – a longing for that which is lost and a profound desire to ease this deficiency – was at base a spiritual orientation, and only the use of metaphors could make this emotional state palpable. Sometimes, metaphors pertaining to the body seem to presage the path of homesickness through the history of the discourse. While Odysseus’ homesickness is soothed by the smoke of Ithaca, transient and incorporeal, for Dante it is the heart of the sailor, which seems to transfer homesickness not only into the material, but even the somatic realm. In that sense it is no longer a vague yearning, not scattered signs in the heavens, but an organ whose tissues and pulse are inscribed with emotion. This shift of a previously disembodied feeling of longing, which now enters the subject and its anatomy, presages the reconceptualizations of homesickness during the early modern differentiation of discourses. -
The Twilight of Structuralism in Linguistics?*
Ewa Jędrzejko Univesity of Silesia in Katowice nr 3, 2016 The Twilight of Structuralism in Linguistics?* Key words: structuralism, linguistics, methodological principles, evolution of studies on language I would like to start with some general remarks in order to avoid misunderstandings due to the title of this paper. “The question that our title / has cast in deathless bronze”1 is just a mere trigger, and a signal of reference to animated discussions held in many disci- plines of modern liberal arts: philosophy, literary studies, social sciences, aesthetics, cultural studies (just to mention areas closest to linguistics), concerning their current methodologi- cal state and future perspectives regarding theoretical research. What I mean by that is, among others, the dispute around deconstructionism being in opposition to neo-positivistic stance, as well as some views on the current situation in art expressed in the volume called Zmierzch estetyki – rzekomy czy autentyczny? [The twilight of aesthetics – alleged or true?] (Morawski, 1987),2 or problems signalled by the literary scholars in the tellingly entitled Po strukturalizmie [After structuralism] (Nycz, 1992).3 The statements included in this article are for me one out of many voices in the discus- sion on the changes observed in linguistics in the context of questions about the future of structuralism. Since in a way the situation in contemporary linguistics (including Polish linguistics) is similar. The shift in the scope of interest of linguistics and the way it is presented may -
What Literature Knows: Forays Into Literary Knowledge Production
Antje Kley What Literature Knows: An Introduction The nexus of literature and knowledge is an underdetermined and capacious one� Both popular and culturally distinguished forms of literary writing ex- hibit a whole range of relations to knowledge landscapes, be they scientific, political, or administrative� Karl Richter, Jörg Schonert, and Michael Titz- mann have distinguished four general types of relation between literature and knowledge: first, literature may integrate bodies of knowledge in order to confirm, modify, or criticize them� Second, literature may entertain fields of knowledge that scientific discourses have not taken up (yet)� Third, literature may produce knowledge that is taken up and authorized later by academic discourses (e�g� psychoanalysis)� And fourth, specialized bodies of knowledge might remain difficult to mediate or even inaccessible for literary writing (30)� In all four types of relation literature functions as an ‘interdiscourse’ (Link, “Interdiscourse”) which may participate in and selectively connect other more specialized discursive formations�1 The contributions to this volume address all four types of interconnection, and they all insist that literature’s interdiscursive relation with specific areas of knowledge is fundamentally twofold, involving both the level of content and the level of discursive form, to selectively tap bodies of knowledge for representation and to produce knowledge in its own right� The essays collected here trace what the Münster research training group on “Literary Form: History -
7. Pragmatics
Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics, 2nd edn. Drafted Apr 20, 2011; revised Mar 4, 2014 7. Pragmatics Christopher Potts Department of Linguistics, Stanford University Abstract This chapter reviews core empirical phenomena and technical concepts from linguistic pragmatics, including context dependence, common ground, indexicality, conversational implicature, presupposition, and speech acts. I seek to identify unifying themes among these concepts, provide a high-level guide to the primary literature, and relate the phenomena to issues in computational linguistics. Keywords context dependence, common ground, indexicality, conversational implica- ture, presupposition, speech acts 7.1 Introduction The linguistic objects that speakers use in their utterances vastly underdetermine the contributions that those utterances make to discourse. To borrow an analogy from Levinson(2000: 4), “an utterance is not [... ] a veridical model or ‘snapshot’ of the scene it describes”. Rather, the encoded content merely sketches what speakers intend and hearers perceive. The fundamental questions of pragmatics concern how semantic content, contextual information, and general communicative pressures interact to guide discourse participants in filling in these sketches: (i) How do language users represent the context of utterance, and which aspects of the context are central to communication? (ii) We often “mean more than we say”. What principles guide this pragmatic enrichment, and how do semantic values (conventional aspects of meaning) enable and constrain -
A Study of Glossematics Critical Survey of Its Fundamental Concepts a Study of Glossema Tics Critical Survey of Its Fundamental Concepts
A STUDY OF GLOSSEMATICS CRITICAL SURVEY OF ITS FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS A STUDY OF GLOSSEMA TICS CRITICAL SURVEY OF ITS FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS BY B. SIERTSEMA PH. D. (AMSTERDAM) SECOND EDITION • THE HAGUE MARTIN US NI]HOFF 1965 ISBN 978-94-011-8161-7 ISBN 978-94-011-8796-1 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-94-011-8796-1 COPYright .1965 by Maytinus Nijhoff. The Hague. Holland. All rights yeseYVed. including the Yight to tyanslate OY to yepyodflce this book OY payts thereof in any foym_ PREFACE This book owes its .existence to the encouragement and help of many others. In the first place I mention Prof. Dr. A.]. B. N. Reichling, who was my supervisor at Amsterdam University and who from the beginning helped me on, through his most stimulating teaching and above all through his encouragement, his friendly advice and his sincere interest. The readiness with which he was always prepared to spend hours and hours of his valuable time on the discussion of the many problems with which the study of Glossematics confronts one, has often inspired me with wonder and deep gratitude. It is hardly possible to do justice in a preface to a supervisor to whom one owes so much, and from whose keen insight one has learned so much. One can only feel profoundly thankful for having been brought up in the linguistic atmosphere which Prof. Reichling creates about him, an atmosphere characterized by a persistent desire for an empirical approach to the facts of language, which desire he knows how to instill into his pupils. -
A Case of Parrhesia: Courage in Discourse and Its Effects
Original Article A CASE OF PARRHESIA: COURAGE IN DISCOURSE AND ITS EFFECTS Thiago Barbosa SOARES* ▪ ABSTRACT: This article aims to analyze the meanings of parrhesia and its effects in a statement by a Brazilian federal representative, that breaks with hegemonic discourse. More precisely, we describe and interpret how the production and emergence of parrhesia functions to configure meanings in a statement constituted and developed within the vote regarding the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff’s mandate in 2016, delivered by Jean Wyllys. In this way, considering the postulate of Discourse Analysis, developed by Pêcheux, in which subject and meaning are constructed simultaneously in the historical movement, we hold that parrhesia, as Foucault observes it in his final works, produces, simultaneously, certain meanings and subjects circulating in the social space. Given this conceptual framework, we employ the theoretical and methodological tools of Discourse Analysis to investigate how truth-telling is constructed and what its effects are on the treadmill of resistance against discursive hegemony. ▪ KEYWORDS: discourse analysis; parrhesia; Jean Wyllys. Introduction A ‘discourse’ is not an infrastructure; nor is it another word for ‘ideology’. In fact, it is, rather, the opposite, despite what is often claimed either in writing or by word of mouth. (VEYNE, 2008, p.28) Paul Veyne is right in saying what discourse is not, in order to dispel certain existing interpretations about discourse. Likewise, eschewing generic readings of discourse is desirable and even necessary in the scope of our object of investigation, since the exercise of parrhesia - which “implies speech equality, the right to speak”, that is, isegory -, as understood by Michel Foucault, it is more than truth-telling, it is an ethical act whose implication is the conjuration of the effects of the discourse. -
Unit 3 Looking at Data-2
UNIT 3 LOOKING AT DATA-2 Structure Objectives Formal Linguistics - An Introduction Generative Grammar 3.2.1 Principal Goals Generativists and Structuralists 3.3.1 Generativists and Bloomfieldians Tranformational Generative Grammar Let Us Sum Up Key Words Questions Suggested Readings 3.0 OBJECTIVES , In this unit, we will discuss o the Generative framework of grammar o its differences with the Structuralists We will also briefly talk about Transformational Generative Grammar. Some of these ideas may appear difficult but they will be clear to you as you read the course. Don't get discouraged if some concepts appear difficult and complex. They will be clarified as we proceed along. 3.1 FORMAL LINGLTISTICS - AN INTRODUCTION In the early 1950fs,signs of restiveness began to disturb the calm of structuralism, and by the end of the decahe new ideas emerged in a big way. Chomsky, a student of Zellig Harris was concerned with discovering a general theory of grammatical structure. He believed that an adequate grammar should provide a basis for explaining how sentences are used and understood. He reproaches the Bloonlfieldeans for "their satisfaction with description [and] their refusal to explain" ( 198 1:38). According to him, as other 'developing sciences, linguistics should also endeavour to establish a more ambitious goal than mere description and classification. Linguists should aim at developing methods not just for the description of language but also for understanding the nature of language. And this was possible only if one takes recourse to intuition of native speakers. Intuition had, however, remained a source of discomfiture for Bloomfield.