General language

General language

Use this category for general terms related to languages.

Contributors in General language

General language

Although signs may be discerned in the material form of words, images, sounds, acts or objects, such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. Signs as ...

Mass communication

Language; General language

In contrast to interpersonal communication ('one-to-one' communication), this term is typically used to refer to 'one-to-many' communication, although this dictinction tends to overlook the ...

Literalism

Language; General language

The fallacy that the meaning of a text is contained within it and is completely determined by it so that all the reader must do is to 'extract' this meaning from the signs within it. This stance ...

Markedness

Language; General language

The concept of markedness introduced by Jakobson can be applied to the poles of a paradigmatic opposition (e.g. male/female). Paired signifiers (such as male/female) consist of an 'unmarked' form ...

Referent

Language; General language

What the sign 'stands for'. In Peirce's triadic model of the sign this is called the object. In Saussure's dyadic model of the sign a referent in the world is not explicitly featured - only the ...

Reductionism

Language; General language

Reductionism involves the reduction of explanatory factors involved in some phenomenon to a single primary function or cause.

Objectivism

Language; General language

A philosophical (specifically epistemological) stance on 'what is real?' For those drawn towards philosophical realism, an objective and knowable reality exists indisputably 'outside' us and ...