Language and Media

Question 1

Saussurean concepts

Answer 1

Distinguishes between image acoustique (signifer) and concept (signied)

Question 2

Peircean concepts

Answer 2

How a representamen refers to its object is dependent on its context and use.

Three most famous types of signs: Icon, Index and Symbol

Question 3

Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis

Answer 3

A linguistic relativity principle.
Claims that users of markedly different grammars are pointed to by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world (strong linguistic determinism)

Question 4

lexicalization and world making

Answer 4

lexicalization: process by which part of the potential human experience is expressed by a specific lecial item (and, hence, another part remains unlexicalized)

Question 5

Language in politics - entextualization

Answer 5

involves decontextualization and recontextualization
eg. let’s go Brandon -> fuck Joe Biden, making things acceptable in public discourse that weren’t acceptable before

Question 6

Social dimension of language

Answer 6

Language
1) enables human to communicate
2) is a medium for socialisation
3) has social meaning and makes social meaning (a dialect can reveal class, region, induce generalisations etc)

Question 7

Cultural dimension of language

Answer 7

Provides us with categories hence shapes our worldview (the way we perceive and experience the world)

Question 8

Political and economic dimension of language

Answer 8

1) Language has economic value through linguistic capital
2) Is used and abused in politics

Question 9

Signifier

Answer 9

often the physical form (eg. letters, icon, sound) eg say “ the tree is tall”

Question 10

Signified

Answer 10

mental concept the signifier evokes “a mental picture of a tall tree”

Question 11

Sign

Answer 11

Signifier + signified = a sign

Question 12

Icon (Peirce)

Answer 12

Refers to, or stands for its object ‘mainly by its similarity’.
Eg a sign of a pedestrian by a overgangsfelt or sign of a woman at a women’s bathroom

Question 13

Index (Peirce)

Answer 13

Refers to, or stands for its object by means of a physical or causal link in between them.
Eg finding a cigarette butt tells you somebody smoked, seeing smoke indicates a fire.

Question 14

Symbol (Peirce)

Answer 14

A sign which refers to the object that it denotes by virtue of a law, which operates to cause the symbol to be interpreted as referring to that object

Question 15

Representamen

Answer 15

The form the sign takes (sign vehicle)

Question 16

Interpretant

Answer 16

The sense made of the representamen by user

Question 17

Object

Answer 17

To which the sign refers (referent)

Question 18

Linguism

Answer 18

Discrimination on the basis of how people speak. Can affect how much employees are paid for instance.

Question 19

Function of labels in language

Answer 19

1) Essentialises and stereotypes
2) Creates contradictory pairs without a grey zone
3) Those who do not fit into a label must fight for their recognition (eg LGBTQ++which continuously expands and becomes more inclusive)

Question 20

Languaculture

Answer 20

Term that combines language and culture because one cannot be understood without the other.
Boas and Sapir, (American anthropolgy) emphasised this.
Culture is always mediated and reproduced in and through language. How a language is valued and used in different ways is culture specific and refers to language ideology. eg some cultures do not talk to babies because they do not see them as social persons until they speak, others instantly speak to babies.

Question 21

Whorf: Habitual thought

Answer 21

A concept of weak linguistic determinism. Argues that our routine of thinking is conditioned by the structures of our language, BUT we are also able to think outside the box and escape this frame.