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Category: General Language
Why did the post-structuralists ignore linguists such as Chomsky, who is far more important than Ferdinand de Saussure?
I’m not convinced by Michael Minnich‘s account, which makes a French Swiss linguist a Teuton. But it is certainly true that poststructuralism, as a European invention, was always going to draw more inspiration from what was happening in the generation of the European linguists who had trained the first poststructuralists, than in what was happening […]
What does this emoji mean “U0001f60b”?
There are several online dictionaries of emoji meanings. The intended meaning of [math]unicode{x1f60B}[/math] is “Face Savouring Delicious Food”, which is the Unicode name of the emoji. U0001f60b Face Savouring Delicious Food Emoji (Emojipedia) offers “Used to indicate a silly happiness; goofy; hungry.” U0001f60b (Urban Dictionary) offers “thirsty; desperate” Face Savouring Delicious Food Emoji (Emojibase) notes […]
What is the meaning of meaning, philosophically speaking?
I’m going to give the linguistic meaning of meaning; certain (old school) philosophers would accept it as an answer, and Gottlob Frege, who came up with the crucial distinction, is considered a philosopher and not a linguist. (Back in the 1890s, linguists weren’t really doing semantics.) Language is a code. A code is a system […]
Do you think there is a mother language for all the other languages?
Nick Nicholas’ answer to Why are there so many languages in the world? Firstly, because we are not even sure that there was monogenesis of language. That is, we are not sure whether language originated in a single contiguous community of humans, or multiple communities. Myself, I suspect there was monogenesis, but that’s a hunch; […]
How we can differentiate functionalists, cognitivists, and structuralists?
I’m not contradicting Warren M Tang (see Warren M Tang’s answer to How we can differentiate functionalists, cognitivists, and structuralists?), but let me try a different formulation. A functionalist explains language structures by appealing to the communicative function of those structures. (They do linguistics by metaphors.) A cognitivist explains language structures by appealing to general […]
What are the purposes of doing a research study on how dialects impact gender?
As Joe Devney said, depends on the study, but I have a fair guess. That would be gender, presumably, as in grammatical gender, in those languages that have them. The wording would then presumably be something more like how does assignment of entities to particular genders vary from one dialect to another within the same […]
Do words have intrinsic meaning? Does it make sense to argue over the definition of a word?
Do words have intrinsic meaning? No. The meaning of words is negotiated constantly (and mostly unconsciously) within a community. That’s why meanings change. Meaning inheres not in the word but in the community, because language as a code inheres in the community. Where by code, I mean a mapping of forms to meanings, which enables […]
How does the linguistic concept of “time depth” compare to the intuition of “language age”?
Not very well. Linguists have an understanding of some languages being more conservative in certain aspects than others. Informed by history, they also have a notion of how far back two languages branched apart. Linguists are quite reluctant to make the further claim that one language is overall more archaic than another, compared to their […]
Can the U0001f4a6 emoji be used to represent semen?
Yes; see Why is the splashing sweat emoji associated with semen? For evidence that this is happening: Definitions offered by the public under: U0001f4a6 Sweat Droplets Emoji Urban Dictionary: U0001f4a6 A boy sends this emoji when he is horny. ” Hey send nudes?? [math]unicode{x1F4A6}unicode{x1F4A6}[/math]” A girl would send this to her man, basically telling him […]
Is there such a thing as “taking things too literally”?
Yes, and there’s a linguistic pragmatics set of principles at work there, over and above the inherent limitations of language pointed out by Daniel Bamberger : see Daniel Bamberger’s answer to Is there such a thing as “taking things too literally”? The Cooperative principles defined by Grice are a way of making sense of how […]