In fact, almost all the words in language are polysemous to a greater or lesser extent. Polysemy traditionally, two types of lexical amibiguity are distinguished. Metaphorical language and polysemy of the religious texts ioana claudia horea1 and cristian dorin horea2 abstract the current study undertook to compare two paradigms of interpretation, paralleling multiple senses in religious and literary texts and analyzing them. The adjective forms of the word include polysemous or polysemic. These are the sources and citations used to research advertising. Polysemous definition of polysemous by merriamwebster. Absolute vs partial homonymy 3 criteria for absolute homonyms. The book deals with the topic from a wide variety of viewpoints. Polysemy article about polysemy by the free dictionary. It is different from homonymy, polysemy is the phenomenon when a single word has two or more meanings, no matter how meaning is defined in a given approach petho, 1999. Polysemy is the existence of different senses andor meanings for a single word, expression, or phrase. Nov 01, 2012 polysemy is one of the central issues in the psychology of word meaning.
In this way, blends harness existing words in order to express the new meanings that arise in the blend. The routledge reader in rhetorical criticism 1st edition. Unidirectional polysemy unidirectional polysemy is polysemy that produces two meanings that face a single direction. Although the specific focus is on rhetorical criticism, the essay applies to critical claims more generally. Chapter 5 intercategorial polysemy in english in chapter 4, the not ion of a mentally represented c oncept as the basis for lexical meaning was explored and critiqued on the basis of shanon 1992. Polysemy is pervasive in natural languages, and affects both content and function words.
Different people experience the same text and come away with different statements of fact about that texts meaning. Polysemy, intertextuality, symbolism businessmarketing bibliographies in harvard style. Polysemy polysemy is the ability of a lexical unit to have two or more meanings. Polysemy, according to leah ceccarelli, is the existence of determinate but nonsingular denotational meanings in a text 399. Words are singlevalued and polysemantic polysemantic. Polysemy has always become a significant issue in interdisciplinary studies, mainly because particular words or phrases tend to have multiple meanings and the way to decide on the intended meanings involves cultural understanding that may be problematic for different groups of people. Bringing together 50 key readings on rhetorical criticism in a single accessible format, the rhetorical criticism reader furnishes instructors with an ideal resource for teaching and practicing the art of rhetorical criticism. It is usually regarded as distinct from homonymy, in which the multiple meanings of a word may be unconnected or unrelated.
Mar 25, 2012 these categories are radial polysemy and chain polysemy. Reprinted in landmark essays on rhetoric of science. This etymology led soft being used to describe pillows, voices, drinks, and even people. Polysemy definition of polysemy by the free dictionary. Polysemy is thus distinct from homonymyor homophonywhich is an accidental similarity between two words such as bear the. Multiple meanings in rhetorical criticism 1998 quarterly journal of speech. Good and polysemy the good is spoken of in as many ways as being is 1 david conan wolfsdorf introduction polysemy is the property of a single word having multiple, but proximate meanings or senses. Thus, the coexistence of several meanings in one, which is quite common, is found in polysemy. Figure 1 lists only a sampling of the different senses of the useful, onesyllable english word set. Most common content words do not have a single, simple meaning but instead pick out a number of related meanings, or senses.
This bibliography was generated on cite this for me on friday, december 30, 2016. Polysemy one word having several closely related senses native speaker has clear intuition that the different senses are related to each other polysemy close relatedness in m. Through selective projection, expressions applied to an input can be projected to apply to counterparts in the blend. Several rhetoricians have recently called for an increased interest in the polysemy of the text, but ironically, they are not all talking about the. Whether read as stilled or disturbed, ra book description.
Metaphorical language and polysemy of the religious texts. Knowledge claims in rhetorical criticism springerlink. Benson published by university of south carolina press haskins, ekaterina v. Polysemy the existence of more than one meaning for a given word, that is, the capability of a word to convey different information about objects and phenomena of extralinguistic reality. All ads are open to different interpretations advertasing polysemy the occurence of multiple meanings for the same advertising message 2. While deciding which sense is intended on a given occasion of. Contrary to traditional research into polysemy and ambiguity, we argue that.
Recent examples on the web in one of the more extreme polysemous developments, a word can take on an opposite meaning, as dust v. Complicates assumptions about the critical judgment of polysemous texts and suggests that some types of polysemy are best identified through the adoption of a new critical approach. Multiple meanings in rhetorical criticism, quarterly journal of speech 84 november 1998. This meaning connects all the other ones to eachother. Polysemy in and of the science fiction film arrival 2016. A neglected concept in wordplay had to have unique sounds for every concept. Reprinted in the routledge reader in rhetorical criticism, 2012. About fifty years ago, stephen ullmann wrote that polysemy is the pivot of semantic analysis. Homonymy and polysemy in semantic analysis, the theoretical distinction between homonymy and polysemy creates a problem that has captivated the attention of many linguists. The word polysemy comes from the greek for many signs. For a commonplace example, consider the meaning of the adjective good in the following sentences.
Selectively activate the multiple meanings of metaphors, quarterly journal of speech 88. Oct 23, 2015 polysemy, according to leah ceccarelli, is the existence of determinate but nonsingular denotational meanings in a text 399. E book or pdf edited book email encyclopedia article. With regard to special lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time. While studying polysemy in a language it is observed that multiplicity of sense of words is a general characteristic feature of a language palmer, 1995. A rhetorical history, jenell johnson deftly analyzes how the meanings of lobotomy emerged, accrued, and transformed as they circulated between medicine and public culture and explains the role of a rhetorical historian not as a seeker after the divine glare of universal truth but as. By analyzing highly circulated texts from figures representing three of the major ideological positions on sex and sexual education in the midtolate 19th century i. Two important questions are how those senses are represented in the lexicon and how they are processed during language comprehension.
There are two principle approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material. Polysemy is one of the central issues in the psychology of word meaning. The analysis shows that examining the phenomena of cognitive linguistic meanings from the 30 microunit polysemy to the rhetorical criticism of. Winner of the national communication association golden anniversary monograph award, 1999.
These categories are radial polysemy and chain polysemy. In contrast, a onetoone match between a word and a meaning is called monosemy. Polysemy pollyseamus in latin is defined roughly as the existence of one lexeme with many related meanings. Multiple meanings in rhetorical criticism, quarterly journal of speech, 84 4, 395415.
The effects of homonymy and polysemy on lexical access. Ceccarelli 1998 calls this polysemy generated by critics. Jan 24, 20 it is different from homonymy, polysemy is the phenomenon when a single word has two or more meanings, no matter how meaning is defined in a given approach petho, 1999. Polysemous words can cause difficulty in contexts where the meaning is other than the primary meaning of the word. Lopatina, it can be found that approximately 300 words with the letter a 230 75% are singlevalued, and 70 25% are multivalued.
Almost all the natural languages have a set of words that are capable in conveying multiple objects, ideas, and sensesboth in their contextbound and context. This essay originally was published in the journal of communication, 58 december, 2008, 629640, as part of a symposium about how different methods of inquiry can enrich and benefit from one another. There are, however, several critical disadvantages in assuming a multiple separate entry model for polysemy, according to nunberg 23, pustejovsky 27, and others, among them their failure to. Polysemy is an aspect of semantic ambiguity that concerns the multiplicity of word meanings. Homonyms are spelled the same, but have different meanings from totally separate etymologies. Argues that rhetorical scholars should recognize resistive reading, strategic ambiguity, and hermeneutic depth as three types of polysemy that support different scholarly purposes.
Interperting an ad isinherently different from liking it. Polyseme is a word with multiple meanings, but all the meanings come from the same etymology. Having or characterized by many meanings, as the words play and table. The cognitive approach is supplemented and supported by diachronic, psycholinguistic, developmental, comparative, and. For example, the russian word gorlo has four meanings. Unlike existing readers and textbooks, which rely on cookiecutter approaches to rhetorical criticism, the rhetorical criticism reader organizes the.
Multiple meanings in rhetorical criticism, quarterly. Polysemy and consciousness theories and practices of. E book or pdf edited book email encyclopedia article govt. This paper divides the main research questions into two inquiries. In radial polysemy, you have one specific definition of the term at the center of a whole group of other meanings. A standard textbook definition of polysemy is the association of two or more related. Some words develop an entire gamut of meanings, each new meaning. Cognitive linguistics eva kovacs 1 introduction polysemy, the phenomenon whereby a linguistic unit exhibits multiple distinct yet related meanings is a very common feature of any language. Polysemy is the association of one word with two or more distinct meanings, and a polyseme is a word or phrase with multiple meanings.
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