Meaning memory and recognition

Asked to Fulfill Structured Assignment

Course : Psycho Linguistic

Lecturer : Dr. Hj. Huriyah Saleh, M.Pd

Arranged by 13th group :

Nurul fauziah (1908103233)

Tiwirah (1908103020)

TBI 5A

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING DEPARTMENT

TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY

THE STATE INSTITUTE OF ISLAMIC STUDIES SYEKH NURJATI CIREBON

2021/2022
FORWARD

Praise and gratitude to Allah SWT for the abundance of His grace and gifts, so that we

can complete this paper. Sholawat and greetings may always be poured out to our great prophet,

Prophet Muhammad SAW who has shown us all the straight path in the form of perfect Islamic

teachings and became the greatest gift for the entire universe.

The author is very grateful for being able to complete a paper that became a group

assignment with the title “Meaning memory and recognition”. In addition, we would

like to thanks Mrs Dr. Hj. Huriyah Saleh, M.Pd who has given this task so that we can add

knowledge and broader insight.

So that we can convey, hopefully this paper can be useful for readers. We expect

criticism and suggestions on this paper, so that we can improve it in the future. Because we are

aware that this paper we have made still has many shortcomings.

Cirebon, 05 Desember 2021

 Author

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1. Background study

The problem of meaning has not yet been solved in psychology. Books on psycholinguistics
generally offer several proposals [e.g. Clark and Clark (1977); Foss and Hakes (1978);
Glucksberg and Danks (1975)], but none of them is really satisfactory, and psychologists who
want to study the meaning of words or their development in childhood are thus in a difficult
situation. Our relative ignorance of what word meaning actually is increases the probability of
following a futile path in studying the meaning of single words or their development. The aim of
this contribution is, therefore, to sketch some of the lines of research on word meaning and word
processing that seem essential and promising for future work. It is useful to look at the
processing of words in order to learn more about what their meaning might be.

1.1 Questions of the problem

1. What is word : meaning and recognition ?

2. What is words and morpheme as unit ?

3. What is categories of object ?

4. What is word meaning decomposed ?

5. How dictionaries define words ?

6. What is semantic markers ?

7. What is correlation meaning ?

8. What is word meaning in content and ambiguous words ?

1.2 Object

1. Know word : meaning and recognition

2. Know words and morpheme as unit

3. Know categories of object

4. Know word meaning decomposed

5. know dictionaries define words

6. Know semantic markers

7. Know correlation meaning

8. Know word meaning in content and ambiguous words

 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Meaning, Memory and Recognation

1. Words Meaning

Talk about words meaning, in linguistics a word of a spoken language can be defined as the
smallest sequence of phonemes that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical
meaning. In Semantics, a word is a string of characters that can have different meanings,
maenwhile commonly people defined a word as a letter or group of letters that has meaning
when spoken or written. Some words refer to concrete things, that is things that can be perceived
through sensory input. But, there is also other words which refer to abstract things such as
racism, love, philosophy, etc. Words can not be defined in a explanation because words are not
static but dynamic, it means that their meanings can change, divide, merge, and disappear.
Words are controlled by all competent speakers of the language, and as a very fluent medium of
communication and interaction.

2. Words Memory

As we know that human beings are born with a complex, interrelated system for categorizing and
storing every event experienced throughout life. There are consists of audio, visual, sensory, and
emotional information is integrated, yielding images that are linked to the lexical items as events.
These are stored in memory. Not all information is equally easy to recall, since different types of
events are stored in different parts of memory, based on significance. The most current and
widely accepted model of memory consists of three general stages: sensory (events that are
experienced in real time), short term (which holds a limited amount of information for a limited
time period), and long term (which stores events and is composed of layers of levels, based on
the nature of the input. As an event is experienced, neurons are fired, encoded, and stored in the
area of the brain responsible for the corresponding type of information. During a memory search
(lexical retrieval), encoded neurons are activated in order to reconstruct the past event. Lexical
retrieval and discourse comprehension are highly dependent upon both short-term and long-term
memory.

3. Words Recognition

Word recognition refers to a component process of language. Word recognition transforms

written and spoken forms of words into linguistics representations. Historically, word
recognition also referred to lexical decision performance. In lexical decision, participants judge
whether individually presented letter-strings actually spell words (with respect to a target
language). Here, words recognition in the fields of pscholinguistics is known as spoken word
recognition.

Spoken Word Recognition, is the study of how lexical representations are accessed from
phonological patterns in the speech signal. Spoken word recognition covers the entire range of
processes involved in recognizing spoken-words both in and out of context. It brings together a
number of essays dealing with important theoritical questions raised by the study of spoken word
recognition among them, how do we understand fluent speech as efficiently and effortlessly as
we do? What are the mental processes and representations involved when we recognize spoken
words? How do these differ from those involved in reading written words? What information is
stored in our mental lexicon and how is it structured? What do linguistic and computational
theories tell us about these psychological processes and representations? The multidisciplinary
presentationof work by phoneticians, linguists, psychologists, and computer scientists reflects the
growing interest in spoken word recognition from a number of different perspectives. It is a
natural consequence of the mediating role that lexical representations and processes play in
language understanding, linking sound with meaning.

B. Words and Morpheme as Unit

Words are an important part of linguistic knowledge and constitute a component of our mental
grammars. But one can learn thousands of words in a language and still do not know the
language. Anyone who has tried to be understood in a foreign country by merely using a
dictionary knows this is true. On the other hand, without words we would be unable to convey
our thoughts through language. Thus, what is a word? What do you know when you know a
word? Suppose you hear someone say morpheme and don’t have the slightest idea what it means,
and you don’t know what the “smallest unit of linguistic meaning” is called. Then you don’t
know the word morpheme. A particular string of sounds must be united with a meaning, and a
meaning must be united with specific sounds in order for the sounds or the meaning to be a word
in our mental dictionaries. Once you learn both the sounds and their related meaning, you know
the word. It becomes an entry in your mental lexicon (the Greek word for dictionary), part of
your linguistic knowledge. This shows that in a particular language, the form (sounds or
pronunciation) and the meaning of a word are like two sides of a coin. A morpheme, designated
with braces, { }, is smallest meaning bearing unit of language. For example, {re-} is not a word,
but it does carry meaning. A morpheme ordinarily consists of a sequence of one or more
phonemes. Yule (2002) states that a morpheme is the minimal linguistic unit which has a
meaning or grammatical function. Morphemes are segments of the grammatical word which
represent choices from a set of options forming a grammatical category. As an example let us see
the article “a” and “an”. We see that both “a” and “an” (and the other sets) are ‘the same thing’.
Then we will say that these various sets of morphs realise the same morpheme. Units of
grammatical function include forms used to indicate past tense or plural. In the sentence The
police reopened the investigation, the word reopened consists of three morphemes, a minimal
unit is {open}, a minimal unit of meaning is {re-} (meaning ‘again’), and a minimal unit of
grammatical function is {-ed} (indicating past-tense’).

The concept of a morpheme is acknowledged

amongst linguists and psycholinguists to refer to the smallest functional unit within a word
(where ‘‘function’’ refers to meaning, syntax, or both). However, while linguistic arguments may
be presented to establish the morphological structure of a word, it is not necessarily the case that
the average language user shares this understanding. For example, there would be general
agreement that softness is built up from soft plus -ness, that actor is built up from act plus -or,
and that coastal is built up from coast and -al, but some doubt might be raised when the stem is
modified either orthographically (e.g., tidal from tide plus -al) or phonologically (e.g., solidify
from solid plus -ify). Indeed, I have informally observed that some people think that tidal
incorporates the word tide when it is spoken, but not when it is written, and that solidify
incorporates solid when it is written, but not when it is spoken. When this is the case,the
language user istivity to functional information when establishing theinternal structure of a word
clearly demonstrating an insensi.

C. Categories of Object

Harely (2005) states that the main object of research in the psycholinguistics field is the study of
the cognitive process that underlies the comphrehension and production of language and the
cultural environment interacts with these two. In addition, psycholinguistics areas are divided
into spoken word recognition, sentence comphrehension, sentence production, message
construction, memory limitations, and cross-linguistic comparisona.

D. Word Meaning Decomposed

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. In semantic analysis,
there is always an attempt to focus on what the words conventionally mean, rather than on what
an individual speaker (like George Carlin) might want them to mean on a particular occasion
(Carlin, 1997). The purpose of semantics is to propose exact meanings of words and phrases, and
remove confusion, which might lead the readers to believe a word has many possible meanings.
It makes a relationship between a word and the sentence through their meanings.

Semantic decomposition is the task of understanding the meaning of an individual word by

decomposing it into various aspects (factors, constituents, components) that are latent in the
meaning of the word. The result of a semantic decomposition is a representation of meaning.
This representation can be used for tasks, such as those related to artificial intelligence or
machine learning. Semantic decomposition is common in natural language processing
applications.

The basic idea of a semantic decomposition is taken from the learning skills of adult humans,
where words are explained using other words. It is based on Meaning-text theory. Meaning-text
theory is used as a theoretical linguistic framework to describe the meaning of concepts with
other concepts.

A connectionist knowledge representation is created as a semantic network consisting of

concepts and their relations to serve as the basis for the representation of meaning. This graph is
built out of different knowledge sources like WordNet, Wiktionary, and BabelNET. Future work
uses the created representation of meaning to build heuristics and evaluate them through
capability matching and agent planning, chatbots or other applications of natural language
understanding.

E. How dictionaries define words

Dictionary is important tool in learning a foreign language. Walz and Cubillo in Koca et all
(2014) state; "Dictionaries provide leamers with useful linguistic and cultural information,
especially when teachers are unavailable and learners are responsible for their own learning".
While Marckwardt (1973), comments, Dictionaries often supply information about the language
not found elsewhere. Dictionaries often supply information about grammar, usage, status,
synonym discrimination, application of derivative affixes, and distinctions between spoken and
written English not generally treated in textbooks, even in a rudimentary fashion" (cited in
Bensoussan, Sim and Weiss, 1984: 263).

Lew (2010: 292) states his point of view about traditional printed dictionary, he says that
traditional printed dictionary have used a repertoire of devices for presenting meaning in paper
dictionary, most of them having to do with words. From the definition above, it can be inferred
that dictionary is alphabetical lists of words presenting meaning and consists of pronunciation
information, definitions and etymology.

The dictionary is an institution which enables language learners to check their own knowledge,
and to eliminate weaknesses in spelling, pronunciation, grammar and meaning. The dictionary is
a tool that will when learners away from the classroom teacher and guide them towards further
independent study. It can be concluded that dictionary is a tool to learn language independently
which can be used to check their own language and avoid some weaknesses in spelling,
pronunciation, grammar and meaning.

A word gets into a dictionary when it is used by many people who all agree that it means the
same thing. If your toddler nephew invented a great word that the English language simply can’t
do without, don’t write to us to recommend that it be added to the dictionary. Use it. You drop
the word into your conversation and writing, then others pick it up; the more its use spreads, the
more likely it will be noticed by dictionary editors, or lexicographers. If your nephew’s word is
one that English speakers decide we need, it has a good chance of getting into the dictionary.
Most dictionaries, including Webster's, do not quote passages from which a meaning is elicited.
The dictionaries which print a sentence necessarily omit paragraph or context. Counsel is unable
to determine whether the usage is ironic, mistaken, or perhaps more intended to link to an
antecedent or subsequent element than to stand on its own. Lexicography requires judgment, and
in the absence of agreement by trial counsel it may be that such judgments cannot be consulted
any more than a Court can privately select and consult its own expert. Words sometimes are used
with clear and distinct meaning, and sometimes not. Some usages are incorrect, and there are
degrees and shades of precision ranging from the most predictable usage (jargon) to the most
unusual and imaginative (poetry). All may agree that a particular word is employed with certain
meanings, but there may be disagreement whether other meanings are merely less common or
are wrong. In the result, dictionaries may be consulted more for directions of inquiry than for the
clear, distinct, and certain meaning of words. Dictionaries in the courtroom should be consulted
on notice to counsel and with great care.

F. Semantic markers

Essential Meaning of semantics as Linguistics is “The meanings of words and phrases in a

particular context” The whole controversy is a matter of semantics. [=the controversy was caused
by people understanding the same words in different ways] Semantic markers are Words and
phrases that help signal the progression of ideas in a text. Semantic markers can perform various
functions, such as showing the chronology of events (firstly, then, eventually, in the end), a cause
and effect relationship (since, because, so, consequently), summing up (in short, to sum up),
rephrasing (in other words) and so on. These expressions help a reader to navigate easily through
a text.

The Function of semantic makers :

1. In Context. The context of a word can be either physical or linguistic. The physical context
refers to the real-world situation in which the word is used, as in “horrible weather” (i.e., bad
weather — when it’s raining heavily). The linguistic context refers to the words or sentences
surrounding the word that help to make its meaning clear,
Example : “I don’t know what’s happening to me... I seem to be making mistakes all the time!
It’s horrible! I think I need to take a break” (horrible here referring to some unhappy
circumstances).

2. In Narative. A written text that may be a fictional or factual account of an event described in
chronological order. A narrative usually has a clear beginning, middle and end, and includes
descriptions, dialogues and comments.

Example : As in Novels, short stories, travelogues and biographies are some examples of
narratives.

3. In Collocational restrictions. When two words cannot be used together to make a meaningful
unit, we say that they have collocational restrictions. For example : the collocation married
spinster is unacceptable, as are the phrases smiling computer or manicured hair. These
combinations ignore

collocational restrictions on grammar and meaning. A spinster is an unmarried woman, a

computer is inanimate and hence cannot smile, and unlike nails or gardens, hair cannot be
manicured. Collocation therefore refers to the appropriate use of a combination of words.

G. Connotative Meaning

Leech (1974:7) stated that connotative meaning is the communicative value and expression by
virtue of what it refers to, over and above its conceptual meaning. While the denotation is the
straightforward, neutral relation between a word and its referent, the connotation brings in the
associations that a word may have for a speaker or a community of speakers (Jackson,2013). It is
created when writers mean something else, something which is initially hidden. The connotative
meaning of a word is based on implication, or shared emotional association with a word. It
brings out the emotion of the writers to the readers. Sometimes connotation uses figurative
language to make the words more poetic so that the readers can feel the emotion which the
writers feel when they were writing (Sesanti et al, 2021; Prastikawati et al, 2021). For example,
sentence “The baby sleeps in piece” is the connotation of “The baby sleeps quietly without
making any sound or move that makes the writer also feel peaceful”.
The feeling the writer feels is also an emotion which is expressed by the sentence. According to
Riemer (2010:3), connotation has to do withsecondary factors such as its emotional force, its
level of formality, its character as a euphemism, etc. For example, “police officer” and “cop”
denotatively mean a male or female member of the police force. However, in connotation, “cop”
is the slang version of “police officer”, which makes the word “cop” less formal than the word
“police officer.” Another example is the word “die” and “pass away” denotatively mean to stop
living or existing, either suddenly or slowly. However, in connotation, the word “pass away” is
considered more pleasant or milder than the word “die.”

Example in song lyric ;

I don't feel blue Literally, the word “blue” cited from Merriam Webster means kind of color, to
dye, tint, or paint (something) blue, color seems like the clear sky: the color blue. Connotatively,
it means sad, feeling sad, depressed, to miss something or someone to a great extent. In this song,
the song’s writer has not got sad, or missed someone anymore since he foundhis true love.

H. Connotative Meaning and Word Meaning in Context

Language is one of the important part in human’s life. Language is the system of sound and word
used by human for interaction each other. Actually, it is called communication. Communication
is basically a social process. Laswell (1948) Connotative has implicit meaning. meaning. what
people think about two words and find whether it is possible or impossible for the word to have
two different meanings from its denotative meaning.

Connotation can implied meaning of a word that make the word have more than one meaning. It
appears based on people’s thought. The words that used connotative meaning also related to
feeling, either positive nor negative feeling.

Connotative meaning is a term commonly used in linguistics; it is also used to beautifully a

sentence expression in a word. The connotative meaning is influenced by the values and norms
held by society. This results in differences in the social function of words with almost the same
meaning, because they are related to the value of taste.

Connotative meaning is the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to,
over and above its purely conceptual content. It will be clear if we are talking about connotation,
we are in fact talking about the “real word experience”. It was also relatively unstable as it varies
according to culture, historical periods and experience of the individual. Connotative meaning
was indeterminate and open ended.

Ambiguous is a word or sentence that has two or more meanings. Ambiguity sometimes makes a
word or sentence have doubts, ambiguity, ambiguity, and so on. Meaning is a grammatical
construction that has more than one usage.

One word has multiple interpretations and have different meanings dependent upon one's
perspective. What one source describes as a 'war', may be described as an 'invasion' by the other
side. Use of such words tends to be seen as advocating the views of one side over the other,
unless they are clearly attributed to the correct side. Rather than "this is a war", state that it is
viewed as a war, and who views it as such, providing suitable references. For
complete neutrality, the opposing view should also be mentioned and cited, with
due weight given to each side.

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

The meaning of the word is imprecise or open to more than one interpretation. For example, in
"the Sun is bright", 'bright' is a relative term that does nothing to inform the reader of how bright
the Sun actually is, nor how bright it is compared to other celestial bodies. Editors should always
avoid using terms such as these, except in quotations.

Some words have multiple interpretations and have different meanings dependent upon one's
perspective. What one source describes as a 'war', may be described as an 'invasion' by the other
side. Use of such words tends to be seen as advocating the views of one side over the other,
unless they are clearly attributed to the correct side. Rather than "this is a war", state that it is
viewed as a war, and who views it as such, providing suitable references. For
complete neutrally , the opposing view should also be mentioned and cited, with due weight
given to each side.
Words with multiple definitions tend to cause the greatest problems, because the individual
definitions may not be ambiguous. The ambiguity arises because the reader may not be certain as
to which definition is intended by the editor. In such cases, always provide sufficient context or
explanation to make it clear to any reader which definition is intended.

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