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Word reference

According to Lyons, reference has to do with the relationship which holds


between an expression and what that expression stands for on particular
occasions of its utterance. (Lyons, 1977)
Palmer maintains a position that reference deals with the relationship
between the linguistic elements, words, sentences, etc., and the non-
linguistic world of experience. (Palmer, 1981)
A referent is a person or thing to which a linguistic expression or other
symbol refers. For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the referent of the
word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while
the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.(wikipedia)
"A referent is a person, entity, place, concept, experience and so on in the
real (or an imagined) world which is designated by a word or phrase. For
example, the word cat 'refers to' a feline domestic animal, while hobbit refers
to a small human-like creature with hairy feet and pointed ears (in the
fictional universe of J.R.R. Tolkein).

"Not all linguistic elements 'refer to' objects and entities in the outside world;
some refer to other parts of the text in which they occur: In this section we
summarize our findings.'"(Michael Pearce, The Routledge Dictionary of
English Language Studies. Routledge, 2007)
Another component of words meaning is its reference. In this section,
we briefly examine certain kinds of reference tha words can have.
Proper Names present the simples case. China obviously refers to the
country of China. Arkansas refers to the state of Arkansas. Barack Obama
refers to the individual Barack Obama . White House to the thus named
building in washington, DC . In general proper names refere to the specific
entities in the world- people, place, etc.
Yet, what do nouns such cat as cat or woman refer to? Unlike proper name ,
they do not refer to some specific things all by themselves. Suppose
somebody asks th following question :
1. Does sally have a cat?
They cannot be asking about specific cat. The expression cat in
this section cannot be taken to stand for the particular feline that
Sally has, since who ever uttered the question doesnt even
know wheter there is such a feline.
2. No, Sally has never had a cat
Again, cat cannot be referring to a particular cst since the answer
explicitlystates that there are no cats that sally ever owned.
What is clear from the question is that using the expression cat
intended to restrict the attention of the listener to do a certain set of things
in the world, namely, those things that are cat. If somebody asks. Does Sally
have a cat? They are inquiring about entities in the world that are cats and
wheter sally has one of them.
Thus common nouns like cat do not refer to a specific entitiy in the
world, but rather they focus the attention on all those things in the world that
are cats. i.e the set of all cats. A set just collection of things. A set of cats ,
then, is a collection of precisely those things things that are cats. That is the
reference of the expression cat , and all the individual cats that comprise this
set of cats are its referents.

Similarly , the reference of the expression woman is the sets of all girl
in the world. The diagram depict the reference of the expression woman in a
simple world that contains very few things. Keep in mind that this diagram is
just a visual representation of the reference of the expression woman. That
is, woman doesnt refer to the collection figures in diagram. Instead, woman
refers to the sets of actual individual in the world that are woman.
Just like noun, intransitive verbs also refer to sets of entities . The
reference of an intransitive verb like swim is the set of all swimmers in the
world. If this seems a little counterituitive, suppose somebody asks you, who
swims? You would probably answer the question by trying to list the
swimmer that you can think of e.g Andi, fish and shark. You would be tryingto
identify the set of things in the world that swim. Similarly ,the reference
adjective like purple is the set of alll purple things in the world .
Example:
"In [the transitive verb pattern] (My roommate and I became good
friends), the two noun phrases have the same referent: My roommate
and I and good friends refer to the same people. We could in fact say

My roommate and I are good friends,

using the linking be."


(Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical
Effects. 3rd ed., Allyn and Bacon, 1999)

"[T]he referent of the word 'orange' sometimes is a particular kind of


fruit, and sometimes it is the sum of all members of that class of fruit.
Sometimes it is a particular kind of color, and sometimes such color as
a class."
(William L. Hoerber, A Scientific Foundation of Philosophy, 1952)

Diference bertwen referent and reference

referent is (semantics) the specific entity in the world that a word or phrase
identifies or denotes while
reference is (semantics) a relation between objects in which one object
designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another
object.

Reference: relationship between piece of language and the things in the


world.
Referent: A referent is concrete object or concept that is designated by a
word or expression.
Example:
Princess Diana is the referent of Rose of England.
The relationship between Princess Diana and Rose of England is called
reference.

References

Allan, Keith. (2001). Natural Language Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.


Lyons, John. (1977). Semantics 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Palmer, F.R. (1981). Semantics-Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
The Meaning of Meaning Model

Charles Kay Ogden (18891957) and Ivor Armstrong Richards (1893 1979)
was an English linguistic and English literary critic. Both of them were
recognized by their book called The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the
Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism.
Ogden worked as philosopher, writer and linguist. He was a founder and
editor of weekly Cambridge Magazine in 1912 and later it ceased in 1922.
Richards was working as a Professor in Magdalene College at Cambridge.
This theory emphasis that the meanings are not residing with words it
resides with the people.

Theory

Charles Kay Ogden and Ivor Armstrong Richards identified that


understanding comes from within the people rather than from the words they
just interpret. They set a model called The Triangle of Meaning for better
understanding how language works and basically it is a theory of signs. The
triangle is meant to show the words relationship between thoughts and
things.

The Semantic Triangle shows the direct relationship between Words &
Thoughts and Thoughts & Thing. But the dotted lines represent the word
(sign) is not the Thing (a referent) and there is no any direct relation
between words and thing. The referent needs some prior experience and
reference about the word or sign to be comprehensive.

The word means different things to different people in different situations.


Any sign or word which has its own meaning is grasped with certain
references to it. The process of grasping or understanding words or signs,
which already have meaning, with the asserted meanings given by the
references is called the meaning of meaning.

Any sign or word have their own meaning even though we need certain
reference to understand is called The Meaning of Meaning. (1- Dictionary: If
a word is new, a people need reference to understand the word. 2- Mayan
Code: These codes are signs only. No one cannot understand meaning of the
Mayan codes without any reference. So the signs have a direct relationship
with reference and reference has direct relationship with referent)

Example 1:

The Word love makes a different sense to different people. The way in
which they understand this word must be in reference with their
experiences and ideas relating to this word

In America, socialism and communism are considered as a negative


word. People even use the word communist to degrade other people.
whereas in china the word communism is much of a great word and
idea

Example 2:

The word Book A people (referent) have some kind of reference


(thoughts) in their mind about the shape, size etc. so they can able to
visualize it. But the same word book is written in some other language will
not understandable and they cant visualize it. The referent needs some kind
of previous experience or reference to understand the words otherwise they
cannot understand.

Conclusion

Ogden and Richard were improved the Saussures dyadic semiotics. The
analysis of major psychoanalyzing theories can be seen in this model. This
theory is more about misunderstanding and its remedies. Charles Kay Ogden
and Ivor Armstrong Richards studied about the misunderstanding that
happens due to the difference in understanding worked forward for the
remedies. This theory is the product of their working towards the remedy
rather than a remedy.
REFERENCE
Kata refer sering digunakan untuk mengacu pada apa yang pembicara lakukan.
Sedangkan istilah denote atau semantic reference digunakan untuk mengacu pada
apa yang dilakukan oleh kata atau frase tersebut. Objek yang dijelaskan oleh
pembicara (orang) disebut referent. Sedangkan objek yang dijelaskan secara
semantic disebut denotation.
Reference itu terbagi atas dua, yaitu speakers reference dan linguistic reference.
Speakers reference mencakup apa yang pembicara tujukan ketika menyampaikan
sesuatu, dan speakers reference bisa saja sama dengan apa yang pembicara
indikasikan. Seperti contoh, sesuatu ditujukkan kepada George Washington dengan
menggunakan The First President. Ini dapat terjadi walaupun sesuatu yang
diindikasikan tidak sama dengan semantic reference. Yang perlu ditekankan bahwa
denotations merupakan segala sesuatu dan kejadian yang ada di dunia ini. Dengan
kata lain word or phrase denotes adalah segala sesuatu dan peristiwa yang dapat
dijelaskan dengan kata-kata.
Perhatikan contoh (4) HALAMAN 425.
Contoh a&b adalah singular expression. Sedangkan contoh C&D adalah General
expression.
Perbedaan antara general expressions dengan singular expression yaitu :
- General expression yang terdiri dari nouns, verbs, adjective, dan frase dapat
menjelaskan berbagai macam sesuatu atau peristiwa. Misalnya kata red dapat
mengindikasikan kepada sesuatu yang berwarna merah.
- Singular expression yang terdiri dari proper name seperti Julius Caesar, frase
seperti the dents on the fender, dan pronoun seperti she, he, dan they. Singular
expression memiliki property yang digunakan pada kejadian tertentu, dan mengacu
pada single thing atau collection of things.

WHAT IS REFERENCE?

Ada dua teori mengenai reference yaitu :


Description Theory
Konsep yang ada pada teori ini yaitu suatu ekspresi mengacu tentang apa yang
diacukan karena ia menjelaskan tentang acuan tersebut. Misalnya pada contoh
frase the first person to walk on our moon yang mengacu kepada Neil Amstrong
atas berdasarkan fakta yang pantas untuk menjelaskannya. Lalu bagaimana dengan
pronoun dan proper name? Teori ini mengatasinya dengan mengatakan bahwa
orang-orang menggunakan eksperesi yang ada dalam pikirannya untuk mengacu
pada objek yang ia maksudkan. Jadi teori ini berdasarkan dari speakers reference,
bukan dari linguistic reference.
The Historical Chain Theory
Konsep dari teori ini bahwa suatu ekspresi mengacu pada apa yang diacukannya
berdasarkan atas suatu hubungan historis antara kata yang diucapkan dan memberi
gelar pada objek dengan nama tersebut. Ini menunjukkan bahwa penggunaannya
diteruskan dari satu pembicara ke pembicara lain dari generasi ke generasi.
Kedua teoti tersebut memiliki kekurangan dan kelebihannya. The Description Theory
banyak digunakan untuk menjelaskan kata yang termasuk dalam Noun dan
Adjective. Sedangkan The Historical Chain Theory lebih banyak digunakan pada
proper names, dan dapat digunakan dalam ekspresi seperti she, he, that, dll.

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