Language Theory

Ahmed, Ankita & Hiral

 What is language?

A language is a
particular kind of
system for encoding
and decoding
information. It is a
pre-conceived idea of
an individual about
entire world around
him, in an
understandable form.
Semiotics
• Everything is a sign

• Signs can be read

• Signs exist in a structure and context

• Looking at the structure of signs allows you to get to

the meaning

• For each text what is being said, by whom and why?

Relativity
• Human cognitive facility of
creating and using language.
• Systematic creation and
usage of systems of symbols.
• Pairing a specific sign with
an intended meaning,
established through social
conventions.
Facts

• Human language is not my private language.

• It does not originate in me.

• It is conventional.

• It belongs in the public sphere to all of us….

• And that’s what allows it to be communicative.

• A system of science that we can make use of, and recognize

because it exists among us, something that can be shared in

common.
Understanding
• Study of how information is
represented and transformed in the
brain.
• Semiotics , signs are everywhere
and everything is a sign - words,
images, sounds, and absence of
them - in short, anything from
which some meanings may be
generated.
• We give our "reading" to everything
we see.
 Its Positive & Negative

• It exists as an aggregate for all it wants.

• It is something virtual and it expresses.

• We infer the unconscious from the erratic behavior of

consciousness.

• It evolve into structuralism.

• Relationship between speech and language.

• It relates to any object before its understanding.

Semiotics
 Ferdinand de Saussure Charles Sanders Peirce
Linguist (French) Mathematician
1857 –1913 (American)
1839 –1914

Claude Levi-Strauss
Anthropologist (French)
1908 -

Structuralists
The Theory
• There are three main components to remember: The (1)sign is

composed of a (2)signifier -- the material form of the sign -- and (3)the

signified -- the concept it represents.

• [ ... ]

• ... Sign -- The written word STOP

• Signifier -- The letters S-T-O-P

• Signified concept -- The motion category "stop"

hund
canis
DOG
Inu
gau
Some Jargon
▫ SYNTAGMATIC
▫ PARADIGMATIC

▫ DENOTATION
▫ CONNOTATION
MAN + BITES + DOG
Syntagmatic
WOMAN
MAN + BITES + DOG
Paradigmatic
DENOTION

July 3 rd
CONNOTATION
September 11 th
 The concept tree
A Sign: Its Negative Knowledge (arbitrary or
differential) I think of
Something……

Signified
A Concept
An Arbitrary An Binary
Relationship Relationship
A sound
It
image corresponds….

Signifier
Signs
Three categories of signs:
1. Iconic - A sign which resembles the signified (portrait, photo,
diagram, map)
2. Symbolic - A sign which does not resemble the signified but which is
purely conventional (the word stop, a red traffic light, or a
national flag)
3. Indexical - A sign which is inherently connected in some way
(existentially or causally) to the signified (e.g. smoke signifies fire;
and all the little symbols you see on web pages -- mailboxes,
envelopes, arrows).
In Media
• A picture of for actual printer, is a symbol in your computer. It says "print"

(not printer) to signify the action.

• See a close up, you RECOGNIZE it again on screen as a sign of the same

character. You don't have to know or remember the names!

• If you saw tree before, you can recognize it on the screen. The art of film

language is not in iconic signification....

• In film, on the contrary, every image seems to be an iconic sign. Since there

is no learning of conventional connections between the sign and signified

involved, we recognize screen images in every culture. At its birth film

offered us a new "international" language.

The Paradigm Pictures
Newspaper Set Employed Words
Times of India Terrorist, Map, Leopold Café, War
Injured Child, Cop

DNA The Burning Taj, Map of Bloodbath

Mumbai, The Terrorist, Railway
Station

Hindustan Times The Burning Taj Flames, Fighting

Deccan Chronicle Ambulance – people injured Attack, Night of Terror

The Telegraph The Taj under Hostage War, Foreigners Hostage

Dawn, Pakistan Map of Mumbai, People Detestable Act, Blame Game,

escaping cross fire Peace Agenda,
References
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsMfaIOsT3
M
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_langua
ge
• http://ezshabd.com/index.php?txtSearch