A Closer Look At I.a. Richards

Words are like vessels—they are merely novel constructions of sounds empty of meaning until we fill them. They mean only what we discern in them, and nothing more.

Changes over the last two hundred years has seen a marked increase in the evolution of semantics in the

“Hi, Nick! This is Shepard with the University of Oklahoma and I was just giving you a call—I wanted to first congratulate you. We’re going to be sending you a contract offer of admissions.” (Shepard). It was this voicemail that started my journey here at the University of Oklahoma. When I arrived at the University of Oklahoma, I was unsure what to expect in an academic setting. However, after experiencing several discussion sections of varying classes, I developed a better understanding of how language played a role in academics. Although I knew that my social language would be different in an academic setting as compared to a social setting, it was not until I took English composition that I was fully able to understand the significance of that language plays in education. Because of my experiences at the University of Oklahoma, I now comprehend that, in an academic setting, patience, professionalism, and interaction are all necessary forms of language that must be used in order to fully grasp elements of education that are not written inside of textbooks.

In recent weeks all of us have been introduced to the essay “What is Literacy” written by Linguist James Paul Gee in 1987. Within this document we learn Gee is going to employ his learned linguistic skills to provide a ‘useful’ definition for the word literacy. Prior to providing us this insight, however, Gee must educate the reader on various definitions, ideas and numerous theories in an effort to provide support for his conclusions and ultimately woo the reader into believing the postulations he makes. Initially this is all fine and well, as Gee does an admirable job of laying out these foundations, up and until he begins to explain how an individual obtains knowledge. It is here Gee’s

‘Ideas (or meanings) are perceived as objects’, ‘Linguistic expressions are perceived as containers’ and ‘communication is perceived as sending’. This means that when someone wants to say an expression (the object), he puts concepts into words (which are the container) and sends them along a conduit to the person who is hearing him and who takes the concept out of the words which means out of the containers. Examples of the ‘conduit metaphor’ are: “I gave you that idea”, “it is difficult to put my ideas into words”, “Her words carry little meaning”.

or phrases. They can trick the mind’s interpretation of one thing into something more than what

He did thorough research on other essays and wrote many works of literature. He has emphasized the impact of language in one of his novels, 1984. The intended audience was for a magazine that dealt with English and composition, so he did not take this essay lightly. He wrote this essay with the idea that there was a person who was writing a lot, but was not aware of many common mistake that we make. The topic of this essay is very serious, as it has to do with the decadence of linguistics.

In a world full of all kinds of languages, they don’t always mean the same thing. In the passage Words Don’t Always Mean What They Mean by Steven Pinker, he writes about the nature of language and cognitive science. In his passage, he is analytical and straightforward with analyzing multiple examples of how euphemisms are used and why. He always makes his examples to prove his points and by getting his audience involved and thinking by including rhetorical questions. Words don’t mean what they mean because of different interpretations, the complex and euphemism human language, and the manipulation of people 's intent.

Language is the acquisition and implementation of rules that govern translation of thought into communication; whereas literacy is the ability to decipher said information. Language originally conveyed concrete ideas through the use of body language and symbols; however, the development of language, now, allows the use of abstract ideas. Language is shared through such ways as, written, graphic and spoken communication. Without correct understanding as to the rules of language, a person’s ability to be literate is diminished; therefore, a person can only be literate if the understand the rules. In the development of language, the rules were not written; yet, today, many of the rules are

Although the words do have some type of meaning, just from listening to the sounds no truth can be uncovered. The words themselves only hold metaphorical truth in context of actually knowing how to translate the language. Therefore, the words that humans speak in everyday life are filled with no real truth, just metaphorical truth. On top of this, humans use language to form concepts, attempting to explain the phenomena observed in every day life. Using language, something metaphorical, to formulate a concept portrays how humans are just distancing themselves more from the genuine truth.

This book commits critical time in looking at the centrality of language – explicitly, through Goldstein's statement, or logic, as in when Syme and Winston discuss the Newspeak dictionary – to history, society, life, conduct, concepts, ideas and power.

words and sentences signify, but perceives only that which is specified. When one reads "See

During a conversation, people use verbal messages both denotatively and connotatively. The denotative meaning is the one that appears in the dictionary (objective meaning), while the connotative meaning is the emotional or subjective meaning that people give to a word. We have to be very careful before we speak because the connotative meaning of a word for one individual does not necessarily have to be the same for other individuals. For example, two people may understand what the word cat means. However, one person may love cats, so the meaning of the word cat for he or she is going to be positive, while the other person may hate them and therefore, she or he can have a negative meaning of that word. Another example is the word dog. The connotative

I do agree that there is no true meaning for any words, but we ascribe meaning to those words. For example, when I hear the word police on the news, I sometimes ascribed the meaning of “corruption and brutality” when I see videos of police not being charged with murder, and police abusing their power. I also ascribed the meaning of police as “honor and duty”, when I see videos of them risking their lives to save others. I might feel that police abuse their power, but I also can’t hide the fact that I’m not in their situation. If I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t know my perception and ascription of the word of police would change.

Originally from the Germanic fōt, and used to describe the lowest extremity of the human form, the link was made around the 1300s to describe imagined ‘feet’ of objects such as the foot of the hill . This can also be shown in words of a similar lexical field, such as head, linking to head of the table etcetera. The fact these words are related and their new meanings are linked would have been significant to Stephen Ullmann. Whilst several scholars have attempted to theorise the nature of semantics, it is Ulmann ‘s structuralism approach (1957, 1962) that is most recently notable. His belief was that words can be divided into semantic fields and if a word fell into the same field as one whose meaning had changed, the former word’s change could be predicted to be similar . Whilst there are flaws in Ulmann’s theory (such as it is difficult to differentiate between why a word changes and how it changes in a lexical field), it can be applied to situations where the metaphorical link exists over an extended period of time. A key established example of a semantic field cited by George Walkden is that of time as money . In this case a stimulus- the saying ‘time is money’ - has prompted growth of multiple meanings of cost, spend and borrow in recent years, relating not only to financial transactions but also gains and losses in time. A further example is the word wit. Whilst it stemmed from the Old English gewit(t), it was centered around the