Posted: Feb 14, 2014 1:08 pm
A few extra views, so I guess that some are still reading.
I'll look at some of the other ways that researchers look at meanings, besides corpus driven endeavors.
Firstly, apologies for not including sources here. I'm in the process of moving jobs for the start of the new academic year in April and consequently, most of my library of reference books and articles is boxed up at the moment. I'll dig them out later.
And so to business.
I was reading a series of articles that dealt with meanings of the word 'Break', as it is used in various different languages.
The word 'break' has a variety of different meanings when used by speakers of a language.
One central part of the meaning seems to revolve around changing the form of an object which nullifies its functionality.
'He dropped the wine bottle on the floor and broke it.' This sentence indicates a change in form (shattered glass) which nullifies the function of the bottle, i.e. holding liquid contents.
However, there are other nuances of meaning that are also covered by the word.
'He dropped his iPad in the bath and broke it.' In this case the change in form is backgrounded (in fact, there is no discernible change of form), while the loss of functionality is foregrounded.
Or, in the sentence 'He broke the branch in half and used the two parts to prop up the tarpaulin.' the change in form is foremost, and functionality is actually brought about by the change in form.
And then there may be sentences which involve a change of form and a loss of functionality, but are not described by using the word break. Screwing a sheet of paper into a ball, changes its form and renders it non-functional for use in a printer, but such a case would not usually be described by saying, 'He broke the paper.'
Then come the metaphorical meanings. For example, in English one breaks a promise, but in Japanese one tears (or rips) (็ ดใ)a promise. In English one breaks a bone, but in Japanese one only ever snaps (ๆใ) a bone.
These are some of the kinds of things that may come into play when looking into central, marginal and impossible meanings of the word 'break'.
What the researchers were interested in was looking at these different meanings and asking respondents to rate a usage of the word in a sentence on a Likert scale in terms of its representativeness of meaning. The respondents were given a large numbers of sentences containing the word and asked to indicate whether they felt it was very good or very poor, or somewhere in between.
The papers I read looked at the meanings of versions of the word in German and Japanese and English, and found subtle differences in the ways speakers conceived of the central and representative instances of the words in those languages. By such means researchers can uncover subtle variations in the ways different languages describe reality.
I'll look at some of the other ways that researchers look at meanings, besides corpus driven endeavors.
Firstly, apologies for not including sources here. I'm in the process of moving jobs for the start of the new academic year in April and consequently, most of my library of reference books and articles is boxed up at the moment. I'll dig them out later.
And so to business.
I was reading a series of articles that dealt with meanings of the word 'Break', as it is used in various different languages.
The word 'break' has a variety of different meanings when used by speakers of a language.
One central part of the meaning seems to revolve around changing the form of an object which nullifies its functionality.
'He dropped the wine bottle on the floor and broke it.' This sentence indicates a change in form (shattered glass) which nullifies the function of the bottle, i.e. holding liquid contents.
However, there are other nuances of meaning that are also covered by the word.
'He dropped his iPad in the bath and broke it.' In this case the change in form is backgrounded (in fact, there is no discernible change of form), while the loss of functionality is foregrounded.
Or, in the sentence 'He broke the branch in half and used the two parts to prop up the tarpaulin.' the change in form is foremost, and functionality is actually brought about by the change in form.
And then there may be sentences which involve a change of form and a loss of functionality, but are not described by using the word break. Screwing a sheet of paper into a ball, changes its form and renders it non-functional for use in a printer, but such a case would not usually be described by saying, 'He broke the paper.'
Then come the metaphorical meanings. For example, in English one breaks a promise, but in Japanese one tears (or rips) (็ ดใ)a promise. In English one breaks a bone, but in Japanese one only ever snaps (ๆใ) a bone.
These are some of the kinds of things that may come into play when looking into central, marginal and impossible meanings of the word 'break'.
What the researchers were interested in was looking at these different meanings and asking respondents to rate a usage of the word in a sentence on a Likert scale in terms of its representativeness of meaning. The respondents were given a large numbers of sentences containing the word and asked to indicate whether they felt it was very good or very poor, or somewhere in between.
The papers I read looked at the meanings of versions of the word in German and Japanese and English, and found subtle differences in the ways speakers conceived of the central and representative instances of the words in those languages. By such means researchers can uncover subtle variations in the ways different languages describe reality.