General language

General language

Use this category for general terms related to languages.

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General language

retronym

Language; General language

A word that is coined and applied to an object that already existed, as technological or societal change has meant that it now needs to be differentiated from a newer object. A classic example is ...

open and closed texts

Language; General language

Eco describes as 'closed' those texts which show a strong tendency to encourage a particular interpretation - in contrast to more 'open' texts. He argues that mass media texts tend to be 'closed ...

Within Stuart Hall's framework, this is an ideological code in which the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred ...

orders of signification

Language; General language

Barthes adopted from Hjelmslev the notion that there are different orders of signification (levels of meaning) in semiotic systems. The first order of signification is that of denotation: at this ...

overcoding

Language; General language

'Overcoding' refers to structurally simple, conventional and repetitive texts having what information theorists call a high degree of redundancy.

overdetermination

Language; General language

A phenomenon is said to be overdetermined when it can be attributed to multiple determining factors. Overdetermined readings of texts are those in which the preferred reading is very clear from the ...

paradigmatic analysis

Language; General language

Paradigmatic analysis is a structuralist technique which seeks to identify the various paradigms which underlie the 'surface structure' of a text. This aspect of structural analysis involves a ...