Transcript Types of signs - University of Waterloo

Historical linguistics
Languages change over time
•
•
External (war, imperialism, trade, …)
Internal (fashion, prestige, isolation, …)
Types of changes
•
Semantic, phonological, lexical, …
Genealogical relationships
•
•
Language families
Reconstructed proto-languages
Language origins
•
•
Lots of guesses, no clear solutions
Lexical and non-lexical variants
(With a side order of semiotics
•
•
•
Index
Icon
Symbol)
English 306A; Harris
Types of signs
Indexical
• A mode defined by relationship of necessity (especially cause and effect).
Prototypically, think fever.
Iconic
• A mode defined by relationship of resemblance. Prototypically, think picture.
Symbolic
• A mode defined by relationship of arbitrariness, convention, and learning.
Prototypically, think word.
English 306A; Harris
Bow-wow-pooh-pooh-yo-he-ho
theories
Index-to-icon-to-symbol
migration theories
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle
concept
form
entity
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle
concept
form
entity
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle
‘dog’
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle
‘dog’
Signified
The (evoked)
world
Signifier
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle
‘dog’
Onomasiology
The (evoked)
world
Semasiology
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle
‘dog’
Sign
(narrow sense)
Sense
Intension
Reference
Extension
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Dimensions of signs
Indexicality
An onomasiological tendency defined by relationship of necessity
(esp. cause and effect).
Iconicity
An onomasiological tendency defined by relationship of resemblance.
Symbolicity
An onomasiological tendency defined by relationship of arbitrariness,
convention, and learning.
English 306A; Harris
Metaphor and metonymy
Indirect representation
Something (called the vehicle) carries the primary signification for something
else (tenor) that ordinarily holds that signification.
Metaphor is iconic
The vehicle/tenor relationship is an asserted resemblance: the tenor is said to
be like the vehicle in some way.
Metonymy is indexical
The vehicle/tenor relationship is (not exactly necessary but) drawn from the
same habitat: the tenor is related to the vehicle in some way.
English 306A; Harris
Metonymy, metaphor
to go tyson
to go ballistic
English 306A; Harris
Metonymy—
The principle of set membership
One element of a set or a relationship (the
vehicle) singled out to represent other
element(s) (the tenor)
•
•
•
•
•
Hollywood loves westerns.
Toronto collapses!
Calgary wins in OT!
All hands on deck.
Thirty head of cattle.
English 306A; Harris
Metaphor—
The principle of comparison
One element (the vehicle) represents another
element (the tenor), to which it is unrelated.
•
•
•
•
•
•
My love is red, red rose.
Homer is a pig.
Toronto is toast.
The table leg is broken.
The orthopedic wing is closed.
Fire kills thousands every year.
(Personification)
English 306A; Harris
Metonym
Attributes are picked out (taken as indexical) to
represent something associated with those
attributes. Like a mascot.
Dancin’
Homer
English 306A; Harris
Metaphor
Attributes are invoked, by way of resemblance
(iconic).
• Homer is a pig.
• Eats a lot
• Noisy
• Not very clean.
•
English 306A; Harris
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
Metaphor
• Tenor = vagina
• Vehicle = cat
• Attributes
• Warm
• Furry
•
English 306A; Harris
!
“Pussy!” Stage 1
Metonymy
• Tenor = woman
• Vehicle = vagina/pussy
The ultimate devaluing of
a (category of a) person:
to a small anatomical
component.
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy!” Stage 2
Metaphor
• Tenor = the insult target
• Vehicle = woman (not vagina)
• Attributes
=
• Weak
• Soft
• Quitter
• Means ‘Opposite of a man’, but
in a wholly evaluative way.
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
Metaphor  Metonymy  Metaphor
Indexicality, Iconicity
• a relatively mundane
example of ordinary
language
• not a fancy literary or
rhetorical device
• these processes, and
figuration generally, are
pervasive
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
Metaphor
=
• Tenor = the insult target
• Vehicle = a particular type of woman
(still not vagina)
• Attributes
• Weak
• Soft
• Quitter
• Means ‘the sort of woman that gives all
of us a bad name for being weak, soft,
quitters’ (?); in a wholly evaluative way.
• Embeds “male” values
English 306A; Harris
“Dick!”
Metonymy  Metonymy/Metaphor
Anatomical label
Insult
Tenor: penis
Tenor: object of
insult
Vehicle: Famously
endowed man
named Dick (?)
Vehicle: penis
Cf. kleenex,
Critical attributes:
sandwich, goldfarb,
• Unthinking
…
• Self-serving
Cf, willy, peter,
• insensitive
johnson, …
English 306A; Harris
“Dick!”
Metonymy  Metonymy/Metaphor
Anatomical label
Insult
Tenor: penis
Tenor: object of
insult
Vehicle: Famously
endowed man
named Dick (?)
Vehicle: penis
Cf. kleenex,
Critical attributes:
sandwich, goldfarb,
• Unthinking
…
• Self-serving
Cf, willy, peter,
• insensitive
johnson, …
English 306A; Harris
“Dick!”
Metonymy  Metonymy/Metaphor
Anatomical label
Insult
Tenor: penis
Tenor: object of
insult
Vehicle: Famously
endowed man
named Dick (?)
Vehicle: penis
Cf. kleenex,
Critical attributes:
sandwich, goldfarb,
• Unthinking
…
• Self-serving
Cf, willy, peter,
• insensitive
johnson, …
English 306A; Harris
We now return you to regular
programming
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Defined by necessity
There must be a certain
physical, temporal, or
metaphorical relation
between referential objects
for the words/expressions
to function
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Egocentricity
Speaker-oriented
• Deixis (pointing words)
Anthropocentrism
Human-oriented
• Inherent orientation
(human-body orientation
projected to objects)
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Deictics
Gk. deiktos ≈ “to show”
• Pointing words
Work by ‘gesturing
outward’ from speaker, the
EGO, to other objects
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Deictics
Pronouns
• Pick out attributes relative
to EGO (speaker, hearer,
not-speaker-or-hearer;
speaker+others,
hearer+others, …)
Proximals
• Speaking location of EGO
(this, that; here, there; …)
• Speaking time of EGO
(now, then; today,
tomorrow; …)
English 306A; Harris
Indexical orientation — Deictic centre
Lexical egocentricity
Pronouns
• EGO = 1st person (I, me, …)
• EGO+others = 1st person
plural (we, us, …)
• Hearer-of-EGO = 2nd person
(you, your, …)
• Hearer-of-EGO+others = 2nd
person plural (you, your, …)
• Not-EGO-and-not-hearer-ofEGO = 3rd person (he, she, it,
…)
• Not-EGO-and-not-hearer-ofEGO+others = 3rd person
plural (they, them, …)
English 306A; Harris
Indexical orientation — Deictic centre
Lexical egocentricity
Proximals
• Speaking location
• Where-EGO-is: here, near, …
• Where-EGO-is-not: there, far, …
• Speaking time
• When-EGO-is: now, today, …
• When-EGO-is-not: then, tomorrow,
…
• Relative location to speaker
• Close-to-EGO: this, these, …
• Not-close-to-EGO: that, those, ..
English 306A; Harris
Indexical orientation — Deictic centre
Expressive egocentricity
The speaker (or, in a
rhetorical extention, the
hearer) as the (default)
reference point for
everything else.
• “The squirrel is behind the
tree.”
• “Mount Pinotubo is on the
left” (compare “your left”)
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Anthropocentricity
Gk. anthropos ≈ “man”
(hu)man-centred
Inherent orientation: human
orientation projected onto
artefacts and entities)
• front, back
• left, right
• before, behind
English 306A; Harris
Deictic (egocentric) vs. Inherent
(anthropocentric) Orientation
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Defined by resemblance
Sequential order
“Don’t drink and drive”
Distance
Immediacy of action
Quantity
Reduplication
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Principle of sequential order
Unless marked, the order
of words (by default)
mirrors the order of
events.
• He kicked sand in my face and
I got mad.
• I got mad and he kicked sand
in my face.
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Principle of distance
Linguistic distance
(proximity) tends to mirror
conceptual distance.
• She squeezed me.
• She gave me a squeeze.
• She gave a squeeze to me.
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Principle of quantity
Length of utterance correlates
with (speaker’s perception of)
quantity of concept.
• Dinosaurs lived a l o o o n g
time ago.
• Dinosaurs lived a long, long,
long, … time ago.
• Lawyerese.
• Political speeches.
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Reduplication
Japanese
hito 'person'
hitobito ’group of people'
kami 'god'
kamigami ’group of gods'
Mandarin
xiao 'small'
xiaoxiao 'very small'
gaoxing 'happy'
gaogaoxingxing 'very happy'
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Reduplication
/ora¯/ = man
/ ora¯ ora¯/ = all sorts of men
/anak/ = child
/anak anak/ = all sorts of children
/ma¯a/ = mango
/ ma¯a ma¯a / = all sorts of mangoes
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Reduplication
Download
the
/ ora¯ ora¯/
= allSIL
sorts of men
to =see
/anak/ = childIPA fonts
/anak anak/
all sorts of children
these
/ma¯a/ = mango
/ ma¯a ma¯a / = all sorts of mangoes
transcriptions in
PPS files
/ora¯/ = man
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
• yes-we?
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
• yes-we?
• yes-whee?
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
• yes-we?
• yes-whee?
• yes-oui!
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Quantity or distance?
Politeness/Face preservation
No smoking.
Please, don’t smoke.
Would you mind not smoking?
I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t
smoke.
Customers are requested to refrain from
smoking if they can.
It would be appreciated deeply by all of
us here at Rapperswill Clothiers if you
observe our no-smoking policy.
English 306A; Harris
Any questions?
Semiotic triangle
Metaphoricity, metonymy
Symbolicity (arbitrariness, convention, learning)
Indexicality (relation of necessity)
• Egocentricity (deixis)
• Anthropocentricity (inherent orientation)
Iconicity (relation of resemblance)
• Sequential order
• Distance
• Quantity
English 306A; Harris