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THE ENCYCLOPAEDIC VIEW OF MEANING - Coggle Diagram
THE ENCYCLOPAEDIC VIEW OF MEANING
The encyclopaedic view represents a model of the system of conceptual knowledge that underlies linguistic meaning.
Encyclopaedias (all sorts of scientific, cultural, historical information about things).
Relates to the discipline semantics
Concerns reference (what speakers do with words)
Is governed by principles of language use
CL = Encyclopaedic view
Model for conceptual knowledge underlying ling meaning
Concerns reference (what speakers do w/ words)
Pragmatics (world/encyclopaedic) knowledge
Governed by principles of language use
Word meaning (dictionary view) subset encyclopaedic knowledge
Encyclopaedic knowledge is structured
Network where some aspects of knowledge = more central than others b/c of how salient aspects are
Encyclopaedic knowledge is dynamic
Central meaning = stable but network = dynamic
According to Langacker (1987),
centrality relates to how salient certain aspects of the encyclopaedic knowledge associated with a word are to the meaning of that word.
Langacker divides the types of knowledge that make up the encyclopaedic network into four types:
(1) conventional;
(2) generic;
(3) intrinsic;
(4) characteristic
The encyclopaedic view, however, claims that encyclopaedic knowledge is included in semantics, and meaning is determined by context.
In the encyclopaedic view, lexical items are “points of access” to encyclopaedic knowledge (Langacker 1987). Consequently, words are not “containers” (cf. Reddy 1979) that present neat, pre-packaged bundles of information (Evans 2006). Instead, they selectively provide access to particular parts of the huge network of encyclopaedic knowledge.