Style and Register

Phonology

TRUTH CONDITION THEORY

Key issues:
What is sentence?
What is sentential semantics?
What is truth?
What is truth condition theory?
What is componential analysis?


Constative Sentence

Performative Sentence

Tarsky's (1933) postulate:



S is true, iff p Sentence is true if and only if P

S: sentence

p: a condition which can guarantee the truth of the sentence

e.g. "snow is white"

Componential analysis
Explaining the meaning of lexicon by presenting as many components as possible which construct totality of meaning of lexicon.

Can you define and differentiate these words?
Man, woman, boy, girl, bachelor, and spinster.

Perfected by
Ruth M. Kempson (1977)

S means that p necessarily, S is true iff p

: equal and only equal

e.g. "A boy hurried home"

Weaknesses:
1. The theory is circular;
2. It is restricted only on constative/ factual statement

Meaning Relations

1. Synonymy is a meaning relation which involves two or more expression having the same interpretation. Synonymy will always mean one of two or more words in the English language which have the same or very nearly the same essential meaning.
Synonym: words which have the same meaning.

Three kinds of synonymy

• True synonymy is a meaning relation which involves two or more sentences having the same exact meaning.

e.g.

"Uncle is a true synonymy of the brother of one’s father or mother, or the husband of one’s aunt."

• Close synonymy is a meaning relation which involves two or more expressions of which the interpretation is not entirely the same but very close.

e.g. war, battle, combat, fight, struggle.

• Partial synonymy is a meaning relation in which the meaning or interpretation of one lexicon only a part of the meaning of the other.

e.g. hen is partial meaning of chicken.


2. Antonymy: a meaning relation which involves two or more lexicons having opposite interpretations/ meanings.

Four kinds of antonymy

• True antonymy: the meaning relation which involves two or more lexicons having true opposite meaning.

e.g. - male vs. female

      - true vs. false

• Reciprocal antonymy: the meaning relation which involves two or more lexicons having reciprocal opposite meaning. Usually, it is in the form of actions.

e.g. - close vs. open

       - sleep vs. awake

• Gradual antonymy: the meaning relation which involves two or more lexicons having gradual opposite meaning.

e.g. - uninjured- barely injured –injured- badly wounded- died

      - big – medium – small

• One- to- many antonymy: the meaning relation in which one lexicons has many opposite meanings.

e.g. . sweet vs. bitter

                      salty

                      sour

                      hot

                      etc.

3. Hyponymy: a relationship between two words, in which the meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of the other words
e.g. ‘Eagle’, ‘swallow’, ‘parrot’, etc. are hyponyms of the super ordinate ‘bird’

4. Ambiguity: a meaning relation which involve only one expression having more than one interpretation.

• Lexical ambiguity arises when context is insufficient to determine the sense of a single word that has more than one meaning.

e.g. can, bank, duck etc.

• Syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can be parsed in more than one way.

e.g. The chicken is ready to eat

5. Polysemy is a word or phrase with multiple, related meanings
e.g.

The house is at the foot of the mountains

One of his shoes felt too tight for his foot

'Foot' here refers to the bottom part of the mountains in the first sentence and the bottom part of the leg in the second.

Definition of Semantics

Key issues:
Do you know what is the definition of language?
Do you know what are the language feature?
Do you know what is meaning?

Language:

Linguistics:

Semantics:

Lexical meaning
Lexical meaning is the meaning of a word in isolation. The term 'lexical meaning' is to be interpreted as the meaning of lexemes depends upon the meaning of the sentences in which they occur.
Lexical meaning covers among other things the discussion about
Ambiguity:
Synonymy:
Antonymy:
Hyponymy:
Polysemy:
Homophony:
and homonymy:

Can you define for each term?

Sentential Meaning
A sentence is a set of words expressing a statement, a question, or a command. Sentence can be defined as a group of words that forms a statement, command, exclamation or question, it usually contains a subject and a verb and (in writing begins with a capital letter and ends of the mark (.,!,?) (Procter in Ahmadin, 1998: 12)
Theories in sentential semantic:
1. theory of truth condition:
2. theory of deep structure:

Discourse Meaning/ speech act
Discourse is a term used in linguistics to refer to a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence. In addition, according to Fromkin in Ahmadin (2002: 22) linguistic knowledge accounts for speaker's ability to combine phonemes into morphemes, morphemes into words and words into sentences. Knowing a language also permits combining sentences together to express complex thought and ideas. This linguistic ability makes language an excellent medium for communication. These larger linguistic units are called discourse.

Politeness strategies

According to Brown and Levinson (1990) politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face" Face refers to the respect that an individual has and maintenance that "self-esteem" in public or in private situations. Or simply we can say that 'face' refers to the image that a person projects in his social contacts with others. Usually you try to avoid embarrassing the other person, or making them feel uncomfortable. Since every participant in the social process has the need to be appreciated by others and the need to be free and not interfered with. The need to be appreciated is called 'positive face' and the need to not be disturbed refers to 'negative face. Face Threatening Acts (FTA's) are acts that infringe on the hearers' need to maintain his/her self esteem, and be respected.

• The bald on-record strategy does nothing to minimize threats to the hearer's “face”

• The positive politeness strategy shows you recognize that your hearer has a desire to be respected. It also confirms that the relationship is friendly and expresses group reciprocity

• The negative politeness strategy also recognizes the hearer's face. But it also recognizes that you are in some way imposing on them. Some other examples would be to say, “I don't want to bother you but...” or “I was wondering if...”

• Off-record indirect strategies the main purpose is to take some of the pressure off of you. You are trying to avoid the direct Face Threatening Act of asking something.

Code Choice

Key terms:
• Diglossia
• Bilingualism
• Multilingualism
• Code-Switching,
• and Code Mixing

Diglossia vs. Digraphia

Charles Ferguson (1959)

“Situations where two varieties of the same language are used for different social functions”

Janet Holmes defines diglossia as having three crucial features:
1. In the same language, used in the same community, there are two distinct varieties. One is regarded as high (H) and the other low (L).
2. Each is used for distinct functions.
3. No one uses the high (H) in everyday conversation.

• The "High" form (called "Modern Standard Arabic") is normally used in FORMAL situations.
• The "Low" form (referred to as "dialects," such as Cairene, Levantine, etc.) is used in INFORMAL situations, such as conversations, etc.

Digraphia??

Bilingualism??
Multilingualism??

It is important to note from the outset that "diglossia" and "bilingualism/multilingualism" refer to different, although similar, sociolinguistic situations.

• The key difference is that in a bilingual situation certain INDIVIDUALS (communities, etc.) will use Language A, while other INDIVIDUALS (communities, etc.) will use Language B, but EVERYONE will use the SAME LANGUAGE for all situations.

• Code-Switching??
In conversation
• Code Mixing??
In single utterance

Language, Dialect, and Varieties

Key terms:
Language variations
Language
Dialect
Accent
Idiolect
Sociolect

Internal Variation: the property of languages having different ways of expressing the same meaning. Importantly, this refers to within language, not across language, differences. (Phones, words, sentences)

External Variation?

Always remember DIALECT is NOT synonymous with accent

Regional Dialect

What are Isogloss, Dialect boundary, and Dialect continuum?
Criterion of mutual intelligibility

 Language issues and non linguistics factors
Prestige (standard vs. non-standard) Overt Prestige vs. Covert Prestige
The standard dialect is the dialect that is associated with prestige in the society at large.

Register (Class)
Politic

 Kinds of variation
• Phonological variations
• Morphological variations
• Syntactic variations
• Semantic variations


Can you give the examples for each?

What is Sociolinguistics?

Key Terms:
What is Sociology?
What is Linguistics?
What is the different between Sociolinguistics and. Sociology of Language?
What is Sociolinguistics concerned about?

Sociology: a study of the characteristics, behaviors, and developments of society. The branch of Social Science which studies about a society and its influences to the human life.

Who is August Comte?

Language:
Linguistics:
Who is Ferdinand De Saussure? (Structuralism)
Language
Langue
Parole

Sociolinguistics vs. Sociology of Language

Sociolinguistics: Language  Society

Sociology of Language: Society  Language

Sociolinguistics (Currie, 1952)

The Areas of Sociolinguistics
1. The influence of society as institutions and its members on the use of language.
Internal vs. External Variety
Internal  Phones, letters, morphemes, sentences
External Dialect, Sociolect, Chronolect.

2. The functions of language in society
- Instrumental
- Interaction
- Personality
- Problem solving
- Imaginative
- Informative

3. The way the language is used by and in society
How language develops culture.