General language

General language

Use this category for general terms related to languages.

Contributors in General language

General language

This is a term adopted from Althusserian Marxism, where it refers to the relative independence of the 'superstructure' of society (including ideology) from the economic (or techno-economic) 'base' ...

Representational codes

Language; General language

These are textual codes which represent reality. Those which are perceived as 'realistic' (especially in film and television) are routinely experienced as if they were recordings or direct ...

Media determinism

Language; General language

What is sometimes called the 'Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics' was founded in the 1960s by Yuri Lotman (1922-1993), who worked in Tartu University, Estonia. Lotman worked within the tradition of ...

Tokens and types

Language; General language

Peirce made a distinction between tokens and types. In relation to words in a text, a count of the tokens would be a count of the total number of words used (regardless of type), whilst a count of ...

Transformation

Language; General language

Analogously to Chomsky's notion of 'transformational grammar', European structuralists such as Lévi-Strauss argued that new structural patterns within a culture are generated from existing ones ...

Trascendental signified

Language; General language

Derrida argued that dominant ideological discourse relies on the metaphysical illusion of a transcendental signified - an ultimate referent at the heart of a signifying system which is portrayed ...

Textual determinism

Language; General language

This is a stance that the form and content of a text determines how it is decoded. Critics of this stance argue that decoders may bring to the text codes of their own which may not match those used ...