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TOPIC 11. THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY. ANTONYMY.…
TOPIC 11. THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY. ANTONYMY. "FALSE FRIENDS" LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Semiotics and structural linguistics describe the meaning of words or linguistic expressions as signification in the sense that words and other parts of speech constitute signs that represent things. 
The central tenet of structuralism is that the phenomena of human life become intelligible because of their network of relationships, making the sign and the system/structure (in which the sign is embedded) primary concepts
Saussure's structuralism revolutionised the study of language. Saussure's main assumptions are:
- language is primarily a social activity and the basic elements of language can only be studied in relation to their functions.
- Signs are the basic unit of language composed by the signifier/sound and the signified/thought.
- The linguistic sign is formed by the associative link between signifier and signified, an arbitrary relationship. In Saussure's words: "A sign is a link between a concept and a sound pattern".
- Signs can exist only in opposition to other signs which together constitute a structured system (i. e. signs are created by their value relationships). The contrasts that form between signs of the same nature in a network of relationships is how signs derive their meaning. The components of a sign are:
Hjelmslev sustained that the elements of thought and sound realm must be mediated by the form of languages. He introduced the concept of a sign function, which he defined as a dependence that exists between two absolutely inseparable terminals, which he termed 'expression' and 'content' . These terminals, which he also referred to as 'functives', are mutually correlated, and this correlation is what constitutes the sign function. His theory of glossematics described language as a system of signs that can be broken down into smaller units called glossemes. According to him, these glossemes can be analysed to understand the relationship between the aforementioned functives.
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2.3.COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS tries to represent a word's intention by breaking it down into smaller semantic components or markers of meaning, from which semantic differences and equivalences between words can be deduced. These semantic differences lead to assuming the following facts about semantic components:
- they can be easily identifiable among languages
- they're syntactically relevant and can be grammaticalised and lexicalised
- they're distributed throughout the lexicon
- They usually come in pairs called semantic oppositions, thanks to which words can be analysed and described.
A word can have different layers of meaning, which may have diverse effects on our comprehension of textual reference. The basic layer of a word is provided by its denotation: Denotative meaning is the literal or objective meaning conventionally ascribed to a word. It's relatively stable and can be listed in dictionaries. The existence of this layer is essential in our reconstruction of textual meaning, as it forms part of the shared knowledge required to make communication possible. Denotative meaning can be implemented by connotation as the result from the addition of an evaluative attribution to the denotative reference of a word. Context or shared knowledge between speakers can be helpful for the understanding of connotative meanings, which are subjective and relative to the individuals' experiences.
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REFERENCES
- Cruse, G. R. (2000). Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics
- Lehrer, A. (1990). Polysemy, Lexical Relations, and Cognition
- Hjelmslev, L. (1963). Prolegomena to a Theory of Language
- Saussure, F. de. (1916). Course in General Linguistics.
- Koessler, M., & Derocquigny, J. (1928). "Other Perfidious English words"
- Rossiter, A. (2021). "The Importance of Grammar"
- Crystal, D. (2008). A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics
2.2. CHARACTERISTICS OF LINGUISTICS SIGNS: OLADI PT
- oral character: human language transmits a message of direct communication
- linearity: Clarify that signs develop sequentially, and this allows for differentiation between signs and symbols. Language can be analysed into units that are situated at different levels in its structure.
- Arbitrariness: the union between a signifier and a signified is motiveless, it's the result of a social convention.
- Discreteness: Malmberg understands discrete elements as those which are delimited between each other with precision. This means that in a language everything works through contrasts like the presence/absence of an element.
- Immutability: synchronically the linguistic sign is immutable. There's a need for the language to function as a communication system. None of the speakers modify consciously any of the linguistic signs organised in the system of communication of the society they belong to. However, since time changes the linguistic signs, some changes are seen in these signs.
- Productivity: language's dynamic nature allows for the creation of new words and expressions to convey complex ideas
- Two-Dimensionality: both acoustic and graphic dimensions are necessary are essential for understanding and using signs.
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According to Crystal (2008), HOMONYMY is a term to refer to lexical items which have the same form, in pronunciation (homophones) and spelling (homography), but that differ in meaning. They cannot have common etymology since there's a lack of meaning affinity, which usually gives rise to the meaning affinity. They must present identity in grammatical function.
POLYSEMY is one more case of lexical ambiguity. It refers to a single word having multiple related meanings.
- The contrast between them lies in the fact that polysemy keeps some affinity of meaning, whereas in homonymy the meanings do not keep any referential affinity.
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SYNONYMS are words whose different morphological forms share the same meaning (same sense, but not to make the same reference).
2 expressions are synonyms if they're mutually interchangeable without affecting their descriptive meaning.
PLESIONYMS are words that are close in meaning, although they're not fully inter-substitutable but varying in their shades of denotation, connotation, implicature, emphasis or register. They often differ in several ways at once.
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HYPONYMY is the semantic relationship between a hypernym (generic term) and a hyponym (specific term)
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ANTONYMY is the same as opposition, and it has been applied to many types of semantic opposition, from prototypical antonyms to pair of words which show only a vague or limited type of semantic contrasts.
Antonyms are pairs of words which simultaneously seem close and yet far apart in meaning.
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Cruse and Lehrer identified some factors to determine whether 2 words are antonyms or near-opposites:
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6.FALSE FRIENDS: or bilingual homophones are words or expressions in (+)2 languages that look/sound similar but differ significantly in meaning, leading to potential misunderstandings. An example is constipated/constipado
Origin of the term: shortened version of the phrase "false friend of a translator", English translation of a French expression introduced by Maxime Koessler and Jules Derocquigny in their book "Other perfidious English words".
False Friends are often associated with historically or culturally related languages (such as Spanish and French) but in fact they also abound among totally unrelated languages like Japanese and English.
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