What are the basic elements of the relationship between a language and extralinguistic world?

The relation of language to the extralinguistic world involves three basic sets of elements: language signs, mental concepts and denotata

2. What is a language sign, a concept and a denotatum? Give defini­tions. Show the relation between them?

The language sign is a sequence of sounds (in spoken language) or symbols (in written language) which is associated with a single concept in the minds of speakers of that or another language.

The mental concept is an array of mental images and associations related to a particular part of the extralinguistic world (both really exist­ing and imaginary), on the one hand, and connected with a particular language sign, on the other.

The denotata are parts of the extralinguistic world (not necessarily material or physically really existing)

The relation between a language sign (word or word combination) and the fragment of the real world it denotes is indirect and intermediated by the mental concept. the mental concept of a given language sign is usually rather broad and complex, consisting of a lexical meaning or meanings, a grammatical meaning or meanings, con­notations and associations the mental concept of a word (and word combination) is almost never precisely out­lined and may be different even in the minds of different speakers of the same language, not to mention the speakers of different languages.

3. What is a lexical meaning, a connotation and an association? Give definitions and examples.

a lexical meaning is the general mental concept corresponding to a word or a combination of words.

A connotation is an additional, contrastive value of the basic usually designative function of the lexical meaning.

An association is a more or less regular connection established between the given and other mental concepts in the minds of the language speakers.

4. What is the range of application of a word? Give examples.

The peculiarities of conceptual fragmentation of the world by the language speakers are manifested by the range of application of the lexi­cal meanings (reflected in limitations in the combination of words and stylistic peculiarities).

5. What are the main sources of translation ambiguity stemming from the sign-concept relationship?

polysemantic nature of the language signs, the range of application of the lexi­cal meanings, the concepts being strongly subjective and largely different in dif­ferent languages for similar denotata

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 3625