英语语言学概论第五章笔记(国外英文资料).docVIP

英语语言学概论第五章笔记(国外英文资料) Chapter 5 Semantics Semantics 1. What is semantics? What is semantics? Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language. Semantics can be defined as the study of linguistic meaning. Some views are concerning the study of meaning Several major theories of semantic research 1) The naming theory It was programs by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. According to this, the linguistic forms or symbols, in other words, the words, informs the in a language are seems to be labels of the objects they stand for. So words are just names or labels for things. Nomenclature is the original semantic theory, which was proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. The theory refers to the word as the name or symbol of what the word means. 2) The conceptualist view of ideas The conceptualist view doesn that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to; Rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. The idea is that there is no direct link between the form of language and the objects it represents (that is, between language and the real world); To be precise, when it comes to understanding semantics, it is linked by the presence of an idea in the brain. 3) Contextualism Contextualism is -based on the presumption that one can derive a fancy the from or reduce a fancy to observables contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized: the situational context and the linguistic context. Contextualism is based on the assumption that people can infer or derive semantics from the obvious context. There are two kinds of context: situational context and linguistic context. Contextualism holds that the meaning of language is dependent on the context of language, which is not abstract, it exists in the context, it comes from the context, it depends on the context. 4) Behaviorism Behaviorists have been trying to define the meaning of a language form as the situation in which the spea