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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Arbitrariness and Complex Signs: A Thesis on the Relation between Arbitrariness and Motivation within Complex Linguistic Signs

Arbitrariness and Complex Signs: A Thesis on the Relation between Arbitrariness and Motivation within Complex Linguistic Signs

Voltz, Tilo

Paperback

Literary CriticismGeneral Reference

ISBN10: 3640238419
ISBN13: 9783640238415
Publisher: Grin Verlag
Published: Jan 6 2009
Pages: 20
Weight: 0.09
Height: 0.05 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English
Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Leipzig (Institut für Anglistik), course: Motivation and Arbitrariness in the English Language, language: English, abstract: The following essay wants to draw attention to the relation between motivation and ar-bitrariness within complex linguistic signs. Modern linguistics tries to establish motivation within the language system and by this often seems to negotiate arbitrariness. Bolinger claimed in 1980: Arbitrary and conventional is a fitting description of distinctive sounds, less so of words, even less of sentences, and beyond that scarcely fits at all (Fischer & Nänny, 1999, p. xxi). Dirven and Verspoor proclaim that most of the complex forms of lan-guage...are...not arbitrary, but transparent or motivated (Dirven & Verspoor, p. 21). Motivation is used to construct convincing explanations for sometimes mystified phe-nomena in a language. Motivated by C.S. Peirce's sign system, linguistic signs are recently moved from a box signed 'symbol' into a box signed 'icon'. Language by this is meant to be a more or less predictable act, which is based on translucent regularities and ordering princi-ples. Structural similarities are the basis of motivation, which examines and proclaims ordeing principles in all spheres of the language: phonology, morphology, lexicon and semantics Motivation even obstructs the syntax of a language. Three main ideas underlie the principle of motivation: (i) sequential ordering, (ii) quan-tity and (iii) proximity. Simplified, the ideas can be summarized as follows: (i) arrangement of linguistic elements according to temporal events, like he opened the door and came in or veni, vidi, vici; (ii) the amount of meaning is reflected in the amount of linguistic form, like I go - I went - I had gone or a car - a green car - a green convertible; (iii) conceptual distance is reflected in formal distance, like I mad

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