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Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
what it refers to, or names, is often called referential theory or naming theory.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
The word
names the in the real world
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
Name objects and events Name properties of those objects and events
Name actions Name properties of actions
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
Of course, there some problems with this view. It is not always immediately obvious what is being named.
What do conjunctions but and and refer to?
What do prepossitions like for and to stand for?
This theory suggests that any particular sound image is pshychologically associated with a particular concept.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
is spoken,
the concept of
the hearer.
Everyone of us who knows the word or expressions has a concept or idea in his mind associated with it.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
proposed by Ogden & Richards in their The Meaning of Meaning. They saw the relationship between words and things as a
triangle.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
( thought)
evokes
is no direct or natural
link and between referent, symbol that is,
(the word)
stands for
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
The SYMBOL refers to the linguistic elements (word, sentence, etc.), the REFERENT refers to the object in the world of experience, and THOUGHT or REFERENCE refers to concept.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
The symbol or a word signifies things by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the minds of the speaker of the language, and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
The word dog is directly associated with a certain concept in our mind, i.e. what a dog
is like, but it is not directly linked to the referent (the particular dog) in this particular case.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
This theory avoids many of the problems of naming. However, to state the meaning is a
concept does not overcome all the problems that naming theory has .
linguistic form is defined as observable behavior. Leonard Bloomfiled lillustrated this view by the
well-known story of Jack and Jill
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
"Suppose Jack and Jill are walking down a lane. Jill is hungry. She sees an apple in a tree.
She makes a noise with her larynx, tongue, and lips. Jack vaults the fence, climbs the tree, takes the apple, brings it to Jill, and places it in her hand. Jill eats the apple
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
we will naturally distinguish between the act of speech and the other occurrences, which we shall call practical events."
SPEECH
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
"Language enables one person to make a reaction (R) when another person has the
stimulus (S).
speechless reaction:: S >> R
S >>
rs
>> R
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
received a STIMULUS (S) (hunger) which have produced a speechless reaction, RESPONSE (R) that would have made a move to get the apple.
S >> R
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
However, since Jack was with her, the stimulus produced not the response R, but a linguistic response, that of saying to Jack, (r). The sound
waves reculting from this in turn created a stimulus for Jack, a linguistic stimulus (s), which results in his non-linguistic response R of getting the apple.
S >> r .. s >> R
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
However, there are some significant practical difficulties with this viewpoint.
For example, since the practical stimulus S is not always obvious, so how do we identify it?
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
suggests that we can derive meaning from, or reduce it to, the observable context.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
The interpretation of what meanings the speaker wanted to convey using particular words is often
influenced by factors such as the listeners assumptions or the context. Although the study of pragmatics, two types contexts belong to of context can be
context.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
Every utterance occurs in a particular spatiotemporal situation. Each utterance is limited by various factors of the situational context. These factors include:
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
The linguistic context alone is the weaker form of contextual views. It is principally concerned with the probability of words or expressions coocurring or collocating with each other. This is
obviously an aspect of meaning.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
given proposition in terms of the truth conditions under which it obtains in the real world.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
The meaning of conditional statements can be described by making reference to the truth conditions of the statement in an a priori unbounded number of "possible worlds."
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
We know the meaning of both sentences equally well, and knowing their meaning means knowing their sense of truth conditions. The sense of a declarative
sentence
permits
you
to
know
under
what
Those
circumstances
are
called
truth
We compare their truth conditions with the real world or some historical fact, and can thus say
which one is true and which one is false.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
If this theory is adopted, we limit semantics to being concerned principally about meaning in
relation to truth and falsehood. Some linguists have objected that this is too narrow of a view.
How can we discussed the meaning of interrogatives or imperatives?
How can we discussed the truth or falsehood of a question or a command?
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Run-Qing, Liu. 2006. Linguistics: A New Coursebook.
Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Luis Octavio Canseco Garca / Escuela de Idiomas / Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) / Oaxaca