Linguistic Signs, Meaning, and Communication
The Significance of Signs
Kinds of Signs
Signs
Signs are created by human beings to communicate (words, numbers, signs).
Symptoms or Signals
Symptoms, or signals, are signs that refer to natural phenomena and are not intended to communicate anything, although they do inform us about something (e.g., fever is a symptom that indicates illness).
The Linguistic Sign
Linguistic signs are a type of signal used to create messages in a language (e.g., finger, horse, box).
Components of the Linguistic Sign
The linguistic sign has two levels: the signifier and the signified.
- The signifier has two dimensions: physical and mental.
- The sound is the physical aspect.
- The mental image is the psychological imprint of the sound.
The signified (meaning) also has two dimensions:
- The reality referred to, e.g., ‘home’ (a building with doors, windows, rooms, etc.) is the physical aspect.
- The concept of “home” is the mental image we have in our brain, which is the mental aspect.
Types of Meaning
The meaning of a linguistic sign can be denotative or connotative.
The denotative meaning is conceptual, based on the features that serve to distinguish one concept from another.
The connotative meaning is associated with words based on feelings or ideas (e.g., lynx = intelligence, speed, and cunning).
The Signifier and the Meaning
Differences in the interpretation of the same linguistic utterance depend on the speaker’s intention (e.g., saying “cold” may express low temperature or a request to turn on the heating).
Communication
Elements of Communication
In a communicative act, there are six elements: source, transmitter, receiver, message, channel, and context.
Code
The code consists of a set of signs and rules that allow messages to be constructed.
The Transmitter and Receiver
The sender and receiver know the signs and rules of their code and thus encode and decode the message.
- Coding: The transmitter uses signs and rules of their code to transmit messages.
- Decoding: The receiver decodes the incoming messages.
The Message
Emissions are encrypted by the sender to transmit what they want to communicate to the receiver. The issuer may have different intentions (“I am hungry” can mean “I want to eat” or “Let’s go home”).
The Channel
It is the medium through which the message is transmitted.
The Immediate and Mediate Context
The immediate context refers to the spatiotemporal circumstances.
The mediate context refers to the historical and social circumstances.
Language Functions
Referential or Representational Function
The issuer reports on an objective fact without expressing their feelings.
Emotive or Expressive Function
It is used for the expression of feelings or experiences.
Phatic Function or Contact
It is used to initiate, maintain, or break contact between the transmitter and receiver.
Conative or Appellative Function
Used to influence the receiver.
Metalinguistic Function
Used to provide information about language itself.
Poetic Function
Used to embellish what we communicate to achieve aesthetic purposes or to attract the attention of the recipient.
The lexeme carries the lexical meaning of the word.
Morphemes carry grammatical meaning.
Derived Words
Derived words are formed from simple words. Types:
- Homogeneous: The word does not change its grammatical category.
- Heterogeneous: The word changes its grammatical category.
- Simple: It uses only one derivational morpheme.
- Multiple: It uses more than one derivational morpheme.
Composition
It involves obtaining a new word by joining two or more words. It can be perfect or imperfect.
- Perfect: the resulting word is a unit in meaning and writing.
- Imperfect: the word is not a unit in writing.
Parasynthesis
A word is parasynthetic when it is formed by composition and derivation.
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Abbreviations: Are formed with the initial letters of several words.
Acronyms: Words formed by the union of elements from two or more words.
Abbreviations: Formed by shortening (partially removing the end) or by deleting (removing one or more letters in the word).