Language and Media Flashcards
Saussurean concepts
Distinguishes between image acoustique (signifer) and concept (signied)
Peircean concepts
How a representamen refers to its object is dependent on its context and use.
Three most famous types of signs: Icon, Index and Symbol
Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis
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)
lexicalization and world making
lexicalization: process by which part of the potential human experience is expressed by a specific lecial item (and, hence, another part remains unlexicalized)
Language in politics - entextualization
involves decontextualization and recontextualization
eg. let’s go Brandon -> fuck Joe Biden, making things acceptable in public discourse that weren’t acceptable before
Social dimension of language
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)
Cultural dimension of language
Provides us with categories hence shapes our worldview (the way we perceive and experience the world)
Political and economic dimension of language
1) Language has economic value through linguistic capital
2) Is used and abused in politics
Signifier
often the physical form (eg. letters, icon, sound) eg say “ the tree is tall”
Signified
mental concept the signifier evokes “a mental picture of a tall tree”
Sign
Signifier + signified = a sign
Icon (Peirce)
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
Index (Peirce)
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.
Symbol (Peirce)
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
Representamen
The form the sign takes (sign vehicle)
Interpretant
The sense made of the representamen by user
Object
To which the sign refers (referent)
Linguism
Discrimination on the basis of how people speak. Can affect how much employees are paid for instance.
Function of labels in language
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)
Languaculture
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.
Whorf: Habitual thought
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.
