General language

General language

Use this category for general terms related to languages.

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General language

message

Language; General language

This term variously refers either to a text or to the meaning of a text - referents which literalists tend to conflate.

metalingual function

Language; General language

In Jakobson's model of linguistic communication this is deemed to be one of the key functions of a sign. This function refers to the codes within which the sign may be interpreted.

metaphor

Language; General language

Metaphor expresses the unfamiliar (known in literary jargon as the 'tenor') in terms of the familiar (the 'vehicle'). The tenor and the vehicle are normally unrelated: we must make an imaginative ...

This term refers to a tendency for the represented part to be taken as an accurate reflection of the whole of that which it is taken as standing for. It might more accurately be referred to as the ...

metonymy

Language; General language

A metonym is a figure of speech involving using one signified to stand for another signified which is directly related to it or closely associated with it in some way, notably the substitution of ...

mimesis

Language; General language

The mimetic purpose in representation involves an attempt to closely imitate or simulate observable features of an external reality as if this is being experienced directly and without mediation.

modality

Language; General language

Modality refers to the reality status accorded to or claimed by a sign, text or genre. Peirce's classification of signs in terms of the mode of relationship of the sign vehicle to its referent ...