Class Notes 10

MEANING AND SIGNIFICATION:


How Do Words Have

Meaning?
March 20, 2021

Think of your own first ‘word’. If you don’t know your first word, you can also use the
first word of someone else, for instance a relative. Do you think that the first word of
your choice was a genuine word or just simple sound practice? Why do you think that?

How does a word transform from babble to a genuine word with meaning?

Today, I will introduce you to Ferdinand de Saussure. He is known as the founder of

modern linguistics, or the modern study of language.

One of Saussure’s key theories is his explanation of the relationship between speech and
the evolution of language, investigating language as a structured system of signs.

Signs

All cultures use signs to convey messages. Signs make up a rich vocabulary of colorful
communication.

When we see a traffic light, we often know how to react to them. Red means stop. Green
means go. Yellow means slow down. We have learned this from our childhood and this
conventions has been established over decades and across cultures. Our ability to make
meaning of this sign enables us to navigate our streets and society.
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Signs are not only visual, they can be auditory, too. When we think of language as a
system of signs, we can think of it as a system of combinations of letters (written
language) or a system of a combination of sounds (oral language).

Exercise: Do you recognize these signs?

Sign 1

Sign 2

Sign 3

PTPA
Sign 4

Sign 1 refers to the Facebook “LIKE”.

Sign 2 refers to Jollibee, the fast food restaurant.
Sign 3 refers to the expression “Permission to Post, Admin”
Sign 4 refers to the K-Pop Group, BTS.

Can you reflect on what went on in your minds as you tried to decode or process each
sign? How was your mind able to recognize the sign? Did you try to connect it to a past
experience? Did you know right away what it referred to or did you hear it in your
head?
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What goes on in our minds when we process these signs?

According to Saussure, language is a system of signs (a word is a sign) to which we

respond in a predictable way. A sign is made up of two inseparable elements:

The SIGNIFIER is the sound-image. You know what the sign sounds and looks like.
When we see the word (sign), “cat”, the sound “cat” is created in our minds from our
recognition of the image formed by the letters c-a-t.

The SIGNIFIED is the mental concept. You know what the sign refers to. When we
see the word (sign), “cat”, our mind tells us that it pertains to the feline animal, “cat”.

Let’s take a look at our previous examples:

SIGN SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED

What sound is created in your What does your mind say it is?
mind?
“laik” the Facebook like button

“ja-li-bi” The Filipino fast food

restaurant

PTPA “pi-ti-pi-ey” The expression, ”permission to

post, admin”
“bang-tan-sun-ye-on-don” The K-Pop Band, “Bangtan
Sonyeondan” or BTS
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Exercise: Let’s examine the signifier and signified in these linguistic signs

SIGN SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED

ambot
amihan
knight
night
chariot
charot
pakyaw
Pacquiao
salamat
xiè xiè

The signifier and the signified cannot exist without each other.

In language, you cannot have a sound-image that doesn’t pertain to anything. When a
baby makes random sounds like babbling, this does not have meaning yet. It is just
sound practice.

Likewise, there is nothing that does not have a sound-image. Everything we know has
some kind of label in our head. Even if we don’t know what a thing is called, we have
an image of it in our minds. We just call it “kwan” in Tagalog, right?

In fact, all cultures have a word for something whose name we cannot recall. Some
examples:
o Thingamajig and whatchamacallit (English)
o Chingadera (Español)
o Himstergims (Danish)
o Naninani (Japanese)
o Zamazingo (Turkish)
o Dingsbums (German)
o Huppeldepup (Deutsche)

The bond between the signifier and the signified is purely arbitrary.

This means there is no logical reason why a cat is named a “cat”. Does a cat look like the
letters C-A-T? Why is it called pusa (Tagalog) or shimii (Pakistani) or el gato (Español)
or el chato (Français) or paka (Swahili) or bekku (Kannada) or Gnari Furla (New
Guinea). On the internet, there’s even a debate on whether a cat is affectionately called
“ming-ming” or “miming”!
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Perhaps we can say that languages are related and the word cat evolved
from the German equivalent, “katti”, which may have come from its
Latin form, “cattus”. These may have also evolved from the Hebrew
“khatool”. But even as we look at ancient languages, the process of
naming is arbitrary. If our ancestors decided to use the sound,
“KRUPTH” to name a cat, then the evolution of the word would have
been very different.

Take a look at the fairly recent word, “Google”. Its signifier is the sound, “google” and
the signified is “the biggest online search engine”. There is nothing in the word google
that pertains to searching for information on the internet. Before Google, there was
“Yahoo!” which is far in meaning and etymology from anything related to search
engines.

Another example that demonstrates how arbitrary signifiers are is the word “CUTE”.
Cute pertains to a youthful beauty. But did you know that back in the 17th century, the
word meant that someone is clever but shady – in short, cute meant sinister! Its
meaning just changed over time.

In our local context, we have the word, “LANGGAM”. In Tagalog, this means ant. But
in Cebuano, this refers to a bird or a fowl. There is a vast difference between a tiny
crawling insect and a winged and feathered fowl!