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English Structures Understanding the Features of Language
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Understanding Meaningfulness The last section just described the three types of signs: iconic signs, indexical/symptomatic signs, and symbolic signs. Language is based on symbols, which are signs that have an arbitrary relationship to their referents. Because a word is arbitrarily related to its meaning, speakers of a language can make any word refer to anything we want it to, as Shakespeare pointed out, a rose could actually be given another name. Language carries meaning, then, only because the speakers of any one language all agree to use the same symbol (word) to refer to the same thing. This also means that if all speakers agree, they can change the meaning of a word. This, in fact, does happen. All languages change over time, and change is possible because of the arbitrary nature of language. Activity: Seeing Meaningfulness as Agreement Consider how the meaning of the word gay has changed over time. Look at the meaning of gay in the the lyrics of the song I Feel Pretty from the movie version of West Side Story, made in 1961. What does gay mean here?
Now look at the meaning of the word gay that is listed as the final definition in the online Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Now consider the following:
The word glick has no meaning in English. If you're like most people, you came up with a meaning for chick and for stick, but couldn't think of anything for glick. Just to be sure, you might have looked it up in a dictionary and discovered that there this word has no meaning. But why doesn't it? If chick and stick can have meanings, why not glick? The only reason is that the speakers of English have agreed not to give this combination of sounds any meaning. That's the only reason that chick and stick are meaningful, but glick is meaningless. The changing meanings of words show that the relationship between a word and its meaning is arbitrary. They also show that the meanings in language exist as long as the speakers of the language agree that these should be the meanings. Further evidence that the meaningfulness of words is tied to agreement among speakers is the fact that some combinations of sounds are given meanings, but others aren't. Even if the meaningless combinations follow the rules for putting sounds together, they might not be assigned meaning by speakers of the language. Meaningfulness The meanings in language exist as long as the speakers of the language agree that these should be the meanings. Understanding Creativity Language has other characteristics, too. The arbitrariness it contains allows for great creativity as well as for changing meanings. In one way, of course, changing meanings is being creative, but there are more ways that language allows for creativity. Let's look at some of these ways. Activity: Seeing Creativity Consider the word weird in the following sentences, and think about what part of speech weird is:
What part of speech is weird? Now consider the word weird in this sentence:
Usually people use weird as an adjective. However, users of English have the freedom to create new uses for a word, and as the Calvin and Hobbes quotation shows, speakers of English can use an adjective as a verb and other speakers will understand it. At this point, some people might say, "Well, wait a minute. I've heard weird used as a verb a lot. I hear people say, 'That weirded me ou.t' Using weird as a verb doesn't seem very creative at all." Look at what happens in the following sentence, though.
When presented with the example above, no one in my classes has yet claimed that they have heard the word weirdable before. Yet they are able to rephrase this and explain its meaning. This demonstrates the creative quality of language. Languages allow for novelty and innovation as speakers respond to new thoughts, experiences, and situations. Users of a language can create new words and new sentences never spoken before and still maintain meaningful communication with others. There is no limit within the language itself on how many different words and how many different sentences we can make. That is: the output of language is infinite. Creativity Languages allow for novelty and innovation as speakers respond to new thoughts, experiences, and situations. There is no limit within the language itself on how many different words and how many different sentences we can make. Understanding Systematicity The descriptions of meaningfulness and creativity are based on the arbitrary nature of the relationship between langauge signs and their meanings, but while we can see the creativity and meaningfulness, we can also see potential problems with using an arbitrary relationship. Follow the following line of reasoning. If words can have any meanings we want them to, and we can change the meanings that words have, obviously we can create new words. Also we can use old words in new ways. Doesn't all this flexibility result in confusion rather than communication, though? Imagine if one person just decides to change the meaning of a word one day, and then uses it with a different meaning the next. How can anyone figure out what is meant? Shouldn't we have chaos? Doesn't that suggest that every statement we make has infinite meanings? What makes it possible for communication to happen when chaos seems more likely a result of using arbitrary relationships? Activity: Seeing Systematicity Read each sentence aloud and fill in the blank at the end of the second sentence.
Did you say "two wugs?" Why did you decide to add an -s at the end of the word? Did you know that word already? Read each sentence aloud and fill in the blank at the end of the second sentence.
Did you say "two geese?" or did you say "two gooses?" You know that the plural for goose is geese. Your choices filling in the blanks in the sentences above demonstrate that while users of a language can create new words and give new meanings to old words, they choose to follow rules even while being creative. As you saw, you know that the rule for making plural nouns in English is to add an -s, even though wug is a new word for the language and you have never heard its plural before. Even though there are other choices available in English, such as irregular plural forms, you chose not to use the irregular forms for the new word. This means that speakers of a language fit innovation into an existing system, choosing to follow the most predominant features of that system. Systematicity Even though meaning is arbitrarily attached to words and speakers have the creativity to make new words and an infinite number of sentences, there are rules that speakers follow when they use a language. These rules create a system that puts boundaries on the arbitrariness and the creativity that language has. This creates stability instead of chaos in a language. |
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