The sense that sentient creatures have that the various objects of our universe are linked is commonly referred to as a person's sense of "meaning". This is the sense of meaning at work when asking a person when they leave a theater, "What did that movie mean to you?" In short, the word "meaning" can sometimes be used to describe the interpretations that people have of the world. Example: "Chunks are pieces of information linked and bound by meaning. (Remembering details vs. getting an overall meaning) links individual memory traces together, to create conceptual chunks."[1]
Basic or non-idealized meaning as a type of semantics is a branch of psychology and ethics and reflects the original use of the term "meaning" as understood early in the 20th century by Lady Welby after her daughter had translated the term "semantics" from French. On the other hand, meaning, in so far as it was later objectified by not considering particular situations and the real intentions of speakers and writers, examines the ways in which words, phrases, and sentences can seem to have meaning. Objectified semantics is contrasted with communication-focused semantics where understanding the intent and assumptions of particular speakers and writers is primary as in the idea that people mean and not words, sentences or propositions. An underlying difference is that where causes are identified with relations or laws then it is normal to objectify meaning and consider it a branch of linguistics, while if causes are identified with particular agents, objects, or forces as if to cause means to influence as most historians and practical people assume, then real or non-objectified meaning is primary and we are dealing with intent or purpose as an aspect of human psychology, especially since human intent can be and often is independent of language and linguistics.
Connotation, such as good or bad reputation, in contrast to denotation, can be considered a kind of non-linguistic meaning.
The word "meaning" can be used to describe the internal workings of the mind, independently of any linguistic activity. This sort of meaning is deeply psychological. If we look for other uses we can find intent, feeling, implication, importance, value, and signification. Since the negative form "meaningless" challenges and would deny these uses, experts believe that underlying them all are understanding and understandability.
One approach to this way of understanding meaning was the psychosocial theorist Erik Erikson. Erikson had a certain perspective on the role of meaning in the process of human bodily development and socialization. Within his model, a "meaning" is the external source of gratification associated with the human erogenous zones and their respective modes. See imprinting (psychology) for some related topics.
Some communication by body language arises out of bodily signals that follow directly out of human instinct. Blushing, tears, erections and the startle reaction are examples. This type of communication is usually unintentional, but nevertheless conveys certain information to anyone present.
Pragmatics
Non-linguistic meaning may be identified as pragmatics, and include beliefs, implicatures, social factors and other features of the context.[2]:199Paul Grice distinguished natural (i.e. non-linguistic) from non-natural meaning, as the latter is intention-based.[3]:214
This perspective is related to the pragmatists, who insist that the meaning of an expression is its consequences. A proponent of this view was Charles Sanders Peirce, who wrote the following:
The whole function of thought is to produce habits of action... To develop its meaning, we have, therefore, simply to determine what habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it involves. Now, the identity of a habit depends on how it might lead us to act, not merely under such circumstances as are likely to arise, but under such as might possibly occur, no matter how improbable they may be. ...I only desire to point out how impossible it is that we should have an idea in our minds which relates to anything but conceived sensible effects of things. Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects; and if we fancy that we have any other we deceive ourselves.
Outside of the Pragmatic tradition was Canadian 20th century philosopher of media Marshall McLuhan. His famous dictum, "the medium is the message", can be understood to be a consequentialist theory of meaning. His idea was that the medium which is used to communicate carries with it information: namely, the consequences that arise from the fact that the medium has become popular. For example, one "meaning" of the light bulb might be the idea of being able to read during the night.
Some non-linguistic meaning emerges from natural history as a development over vast periods of time. This is the theory behind autopoiesis and self-organization. Some social scientists use autopoiesis as a model for the development of structural coupling in the family.
A typical example of this kind of relationship is the predator-prey relationship. These relations carry strong intrinsic (life and death) meaning for all living organisms, including people.
Observations of child development and of behavioral abnormalities in some people indicate that some innate capabilities of human beings are essential to the process of meaning creation. Two examples are:
rapid language development in children, at a pace that can not be accounted for by the usual learning process.
the functioning of a personal "theory of mind" about other people, or empathy, as an innate capability of most people. (Recently[when?] published research[4] points to a reflex-based "model of mind" that is built upon the mirror neurons - that we share with certain other creatures.)
Ideasthesia
Ideasthesia refers to the capability of our minds to experience meaning. When concepts are activated i.e., when the meaning is extracted, the phenomenal experiences are affected. This tight relationship between meaning and experiences is investigated by research on ideasthesia.
↑ Fantin, Joseph D. (2010). The Greek imperative mood in the New Testament: a cognitive and communicative approach. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN978-9788204749.
↑ Grice, H. P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN9780674852716.
A concept is defined as an abstract idea. It is understood to be a fundamental building block underlying principles, thoughts and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach, cognitive science.
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to linguistics:
Semantics is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and computer science.
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA).
In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another. An example of this is the understanding of quantity in terms of directionality or the understanding of time in terms of money.
Herbert Paul Grice, usually publishing under the name H. P. Grice, H. Paul Grice, or Paul Grice, was a British philosopher of language who created the theory of implicature and the cooperative principle, which became foundational concepts in the linguistic field of pragmatics. His work on meaning has also influenced the philosophical study of semantics.
In semiotics, a sign is anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the interpreter of the sign. The meaning can be intentional, as when a word is uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, as when a symptom is taken as a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or taste.
The study of how language influences thought, and vice-versa, has a long history in a variety of fields. There are two bodies of thought forming around this debate. One body of thought stems from linguistics and is known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. There is a strong and a weak version of the hypothesis which argue for more or less influence of language on thought. The strong version, linguistic determinism, argues that without language there is and can be no thought, while the weak version, linguistic relativity, supports the idea that there are some influences from language on thought. And on the opposing side, there are 'language of thought' theories (LOTH) which believe that public language is inessential to private thought. LOTH theories address the debate of whether thought is possible without language which is related to the question of whether language evolved for thought. These ideas are difficult to study because it proves challenging to parse the effects of culture versus thought versus language in all academic fields.
A linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all of them. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is spoken, it has consonants and vowels. Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to the study of linguistic typology, and intends to reveal generalizations across languages, likely tied to cognition, perception, or other abilities of the mind. The field originates from discussions influenced by Noam Chomsky's proposal of a Universal Grammar, but was largely pioneered by the linguist Joseph Greenberg, who derived a set of forty-five basic universals, mostly dealing with syntax, from a study of some thirty languages.
Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people's native languages will affect their thought process and therefore people will have different thought processes based on their mother tongues.
Course in General Linguistics is a book compiled by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye from notes on lectures given by historical-comparative linguist Ferdinand de Saussure at the University of Geneva between 1906 and 1911. It was published in 1916, after Saussure's death, and is generally regarded as the starting point of structural linguistics, an approach to linguistics that was established in the first half of the 20th century by the Prague linguistic circle. One of Saussure's translators, Roy Harris, summarized Saussure's contribution to linguistics and the study of language in the following way:
Language is no longer regarded as peripheral to our grasp of the world we live in, but as central to it. Words are not mere vocal labels or communicational adjuncts superimposed upon an already given order of things. They are collective products of social interaction, essential instruments through which human beings constitute and articulate their world. This typically twentieth-century view of language has profoundly influenced developments throughout the whole range of human sciences. It is particularly marked in linguistics, philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology.
Cognitive semantics is part of the cognitive linguistics movement. Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. Cognitive semantics holds that language is part of a more general human cognitive ability, and can therefore only describe the world as people conceive of it. It is implicit that different linguistic communities conceive of simple things and processes in the world differently, not necessarily some difference between a person's conceptual world and the real world.
Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements. Signs are arranged in order to form semantic constructions and express relations.
In philosophy—more specifically, in its sub-fields semantics, semiotics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metasemantics—meaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify".
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning, and thought.
Social semiotics is a branch of the field of semiotics which investigates human signifying practices in specific social and cultural circumstances, and which tries to explain meaning-making as a social practice. Semiotics, as originally defined by Ferdinand de Saussure, is "the science of the life of signs in society". Social semiotics expands on Saussure's founding insights by exploring the implications of the fact that the "codes" of language and communication are formed by social processes. The crucial implication here is that meanings and semiotic systems are shaped by relations of power, and that as power shifts in society, our languages and other systems of socially accepted meanings can and do change.
Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within the system. It is derived from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and is part of the overall approach of structuralism. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a dynamic system of interconnected units. Saussure is also known for introducing several basic dimensions of semiotic analysis that are still important today. Two of these are his key methods of syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis, which define units syntactically and lexically, respectively, according to their contrast with the other units in the system.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguistics is based on a theoretical as well as a descriptive study of language and is also interlinked with the applied fields of language studies and language learning, which entails the study of specific languages. Before the 20th century, linguistics evolved in conjunction with literary study and did not exclusively employ scientific methods.
In linguistics, the term formalism is used in a variety of meanings which relate to formal linguistics in different ways. In common usage, it is merely synonymous with a grammatical model or a syntactic model: a method for analyzing sentence structures. Such formalisms include different methodologies of generative grammar which are especially designed to produce grammatically correct strings of words; or the likes of Functional Discourse Grammar which builds on predicate logic.
Theory of language is a topic in philosophy of language and theoretical linguistics. It has the goal of answering the questions "What is language?"; "Why do languages have the properties they do?"; or "What is the origin of language?". In addition to these fundamental questions, the theory of language also seeks to understand how language is acquired and used by individuals and communities. This involves investigating the cognitive and neural processes involved in language processing and production, as well as the social and cultural factors that shape linguistic behavior.
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