Name: Varinia Charlin Rojas Conde

Date: 23/02/16

Subject: Thesis Workshop I

Linguistic Theories
1) Structural Linguistics
the underlying system of language and called his theory semiotics
The study of signs, symbols, and signification is called semiotics. Its mainly interest
is how meaning is created, not what it is.
Signifier: any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial
expression, an image.
Signified: The concept that a signifier refers to.
QUESTIONS
How is pragmatics, semiotics and semantic interrelated?
2) The Kantian backraound
what defines the form of human experiences?
1. Substance: The experience of any change requires not only the perception of
the altered qualities that constitute the change but also the concept of an
underlying substance which persists through this alteration.
2. Cause: What is more, the experience of events requires not only awareness of
their intrinsic features but also that they be regarded as occurring one after
another, in an invariable regularity determined by the concept of causality.
Question
How are the intrinsic features related to the human experiences?
3) Summary of SaussuresStructural Linguistics
a sign is composed by a signifier and a signified
The relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary (Saussure called
this 'unmotivated'). A real object need not actually exist 'out there'. Whilst the letters
'c-a-t' spell cat, they do not embody 'catness'. The French 'chat' is not identical to
the English 'cat' in the signified that it creates (to the French, 'chat' has differences
of meaning). In French, 'mouton' means both 'mutton' and a living 'sheep', whilst

the English does not differentiate.

Saussure inverts the usual reflectionist view that the signifier reflects the signified:
the signifier creates the signified in terms of the meaning it triggers for us. The
meaning of a sign needs both the signifier and the signified as created by an
interpreter. A signifier without a signified is noise. A signified without a signifier is
impossible.
Language is a series of 'negative' values in that each sign marks a divergence of
meaning betweens signs. Words have meaning in
the difference and relationships with other words.
The language forms a 'conceptual grid', as defined by structural anthropologist
Edmund Leach, which we impose on the world in order to make sense.
QUESTION
Why does Edmund leach thinks that the language forms a conceptual grid?
4) From Pre-structuralism to Structuralism to Post-Structuralism
Originally labelled a structuralist, the French philosopher and historian Michel
Foucault came to be seen as the most important representative of the poststructuralist movement. He agreed that language and society were shaped by rule
governed systems, but he disagreed with the structuralists on two counts. Firstly,
he did not think that there were definite underlying structures that could explain the
human condition and secondly he thought that it was impossible to step outside of
discourse and survey the situation objectively.
QUESTION
Why did Michael Foucalt thought that it was impossible to step outside of
discourse?
5) Systemic-Functional Linguistics
Systemic semantics includes what is usually called pragmatics.
Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics, which is the study of language. Pragmatics
focuses on conversational implicature, which is a process in which the speaker
implies and a listener infers. Simply put, pragmatics studies language that is not
directly spoken. Instead, the speaker hints at or suggests a meaning, and the
listener assumes the correct intention.
In a sense, pragmatics is seen as an understanding between people to obey
certain rules of interaction. In everyday language, the meanings of words and

phrases are constantly implied and not explicitly stated. In certain situations, words
can have a certain meaning. You might think that words always have a specifically
defined meaning, but that is not always the case. Pragmatics studies how words
can be interpreted in different ways based on the situation.
QUESTION
Is the meaning of a word unique?
6) Generative Linguistics
The term generative grammar is used in different ways by different people
A signature feature of generative grammar is the view that humans have an innate
"language faculty" and that the universal principles of human language reflect
intrinsic properties of this language faculty. In learning their native languages,
children acquire specific rules that determine the sound and meaning of utterances
in the language. These rules interact with each other in complex ways, and the
entire system is learned in a relatively short time and with little or no apparent
conscious effort. The most plausible explanation for the success of human
language learners is that they have access to a highly restrictive set of principles
which does not require (or permit) them to consider many alternatives in order to
account for a particular construction, but instead limits them to a few possible rules
from which a choice can be made -- if necessary, without much further evidence.
Since there is no evidence that the principles that define the class of possible rules
and systems of rules are learned, it is thought that these principles serve as the
preconditions for language learning, forming part of the innate capacity of every
normal child. Viewed in this light, the principles we are attempting to discover are
part of the genetic endowment of all humans. It follows that an understanding of
these principles is necessary to an understanding of the mental makeup of the
human species.
QUESTION
What is the mental makeup of the human beings?