Ejercicios

Semantics: tries to understand what meaning is as an element of language and how it is constructed by language as well as interpreted. Is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression though language, in other word, is the study of meaning of words, phrases and sentences in the human language.

Linguistics semantics: studies the encoding of meaning in the context of linguistics expressions.

Meaning of meaning: it states that there is no directed connection of symbols and referent, but an indirect connection in our minds. For each word there is a related concept.

Denotation: this is the core or central meaning of a word or lexeme, as far as, it can be described. That is the literal meaning. Ex. It is a donkey.

Connotation: the set of associations that a word evokes is the meaning of the word defined by the images that its users connect to it. (winter meand snow). In other word, connotation is the implied or suggested meaning. Ex. He is a donkey, suggest that he is fool. This phrase has a double meaning.

Extension: the thing in the word that the word refers. Indicates its range of applicability by naming the particular objects that it denotes.

Intension: the concepts/mental that the word evokes. Indicates the internal content of a term or concept that constitutes its formal definition

Homonymy: the same word but different meaning. The same spelling and pronunciation but have different meaning. (leaft- past leave/ left opposite right) the relation between words with identical forms but different meaning.

Polysemy: It has two or more related meaning, it can be used to mean two different things.(mouse-animal-/mouse-computer)

Homophone: is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning (rose-flower/rose past rise/to-too-two).

Synonymy: they can be used to mean the same thing. (beging-start/big-large)

Homograph: same written but different meaning. (wood-sustance/wood-trees.

Psycholinguistics: the study of mental aspects of language and speech. A branch of linguistics and psychology. Study how word meanings are computed and represent in the mind.

Language acquisition: is the process by which human acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use word and sentences to communicate. It refers to first language acquisition.

Language learning: is not communicative. It is the result of direct instruction in the rules of language. In language learning, learners have conscious knowledge of the new language and can talk about that knowledge.

Sociolinguistics: branch of linguistics that studies the use of language in a society. Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society. Sociolinguistics can help us understand why we speak differently in various social contexts, and help uncover the social relationships in a community.

Behaviorism (skinner) believes that environment plays a very important role in the acquiring language, especially during children early language development. This theory emphasized the importance of imitation and repetition in learning process. Its believe, children got “positive reinforcement” during the learning, thus encouraged them to repeat the same word or phrases by forming habits, so that children could acquire language. Children are not only imitating same words or phrases from adults, they also creating the new words and forming the new sentences.

Innatism (Chomsky) believes that human beings were born with language acquisition device (LAD) in the brain which contains language universal. The language development is a biological function development.  This theory suggested that there is no need  to teach children language since all children were born with own innate ability to discover themselves. Innatism view language as a create process.

Universal grammar is the basic upon which all human language are build, it is a internal structure of the human language.

Linguistics Variety.

Lingua Franca: is a language which is used as a means of communication among people who have no native language in common.

Pidgin Language: this has not native speakers. This is a simple field version of one language that combines the vocabulary of a number of different languages.  Pidgin has  a distinct set of characteristics that make them differ from the first and second languages spoken by the pidgin developers. For example, pidgin language lack inflections, they use a complex sentence.

Creole is a stable natural language that has developed from pidgin. Creole have been nativized by children as their primary language, with the result that they have features of natural languages that are normally missing from pidgin, in other words Creole is a pidgin which has become “the mother tongue of a community” and therefore has native speakers. Haiti language was evolution of French language.

Dialect: evolution of language. This is a variation of a given language spoken in a particular place or by a particular group of people. This involves the spelling, sounds, grammar and pronunciation

African American vernacular English. AAVE. Is a systematic language variety. It has own patterns of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Normally it is spoken and it is not written.

Relevance theory (spenber and Wilson) it is a theory which tries to explain the “real” meaning conveyed based on the literal discourse. This theory have two processes named Communicative Process:  first it is a system in relation of the language production, coding (speaker) and decoding (hearer) by a signal or message that is intentional.  Second process:  ostentations That is the meaning of what I want to say (speaker), and inference that is interpretation of what is heard (hearer).

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