Answer to Question #300244 in English for Emmanuel Egbuagha

Question

Question 3

Carter and Goddard (2016: 46) acknowledge that although the book How to Analyse Text focuses on verbal language, this language works in conjunction with other signs to make

meaning. Bearing this statement in mind, read the following picture and answer the questions

that follow.

3.1 Which element would you say is the linguistic sign? (2 marks)

3.2 Which element would you consider to be a non-linguistic sign? (2 marks)

3.3 Put together (the linguistic sign and non-linguistic sign), what meaning is being conveyed by the two elements? Your answer must not exceed 40 words. (4 marks)

3.4 Find a text that has a linguistic sign(s) and a non-linguistic sign(s). Identify the linguistic sign and non-linguistic sign in the text you provided. Include the text in your response. Make sure that the text is NOT copyrighted.(4marks)

3.5 Explain the meaning that is conveyed by the linguistic sign(s) and a non linguistic sign(s) combined in the text you have provided. (8 marks)

Answer 1

3.1) Working with Texts: A Core Book for Language Analysis provides a basic foundation for understanding aspects of English language crucial in the analysis of text. The major topics covered include writing, the sound system of spoken English, words, sentence grammar and discourse construction.

The wide range of texts examined include literary extracts from prose fiction (Jeanette Winterson, Anne Tyler), poetry (D. H. Lawrence, Margaret Atwood), drama (John Godber) and graphic novels (Neil Gaiman), but also a huge diversity of texts from contemporary media: newspaper articles, advertisements (Gap, Kelloggs), political speeches and original authentic materials (children's writing, signs, everyday conversation).

3.2) Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest activities in the documentation and  description of language have been attributed to the 4th century BCE  who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit

Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning. Phonetics is the study of speech and non-speech sounds, and delves into their acoustic and articulatory properties. The study of language meaning, on the other hand, deals with how languages encode relations between entities, properties, and other aspects of the world to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as manage and resolve ambigunity. While the study of  semantics typically concerns itself with truth conditions, pragmatics deals with how situational context influences the production of meaning.

3.3) Any language system has to have rules to make it learnable and usable. Grammar refers to the rules that govern how words are used to make phrases and sentences. Someone would likely know what you mean by the question “Where’s the remote control?” But “The control remote where’s?” is likely to be unintelligible or at least confusing. Knowing the rules of grammar is important in order to be able to write and speak to be understood, but knowing these rules isn’t enough to make you an effective communicator.

3.4) We seem as a species to be driven by a desire to make meanings: above all, we are surely Homo significans - meaning-makers. Distinctively, we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of 'signs'. Indeed, according to Peirce, 'we think only in signs' 

3.5) A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a sound pattern. The sound pattern is not actually a sound; for a sound is something physical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses. This sound pattern may be called a ‘mater­ial’ element only in that it is the representation of our sensory impres­sions. The sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the other element associated with it in a linguistic sign.