Language engineers often point to tight connections between their systems’ linguistic representations and accumulated sensor data as a sign that their systems really mean what they say. While we believe such connections are an important piece in the puzzle of meaning, we argue that perceptual grounding alone does not suffice to explain the specific, stable meanings human speakers attribute to e...

What is meaning, what is it for a sign to be meaningful, how can meaning best be analyzed, and in what sense is linguistic meaning proper or unique to language? Cognitive linguistics offers answers to these questions that challenge two traditional dogmas of linguistic theory, philosophy of language and cognitive science. However, although they have notionally abandoned both these dogmas, many c...

Compound words are integral to the development of word knowledge in English. This study explored cross-linguistic similarities and differences compound-meaning inference, focusing on semantic relation between modifier head noun-noun compounds. Semantic specifies how meanings combined. Although some less-established compounds allow multiple relation, causing ambiguity meaning, L1 speakers Englis...

This paper unearths the contribution of lexical cohesion to the textuality and overall meaning of Malcolm X’s speech 'The Ballot or the Bullet'. Drawing on Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) and Hoey’s (1991) theory of cohesion, specifically lexical   cohesion, whose main thrust is the role of lexical items in not only contributing to meaning but also serving as cohesive ties, the paper discusses how ...

This paper explores the relationship between cultural knowledge and the specific meaning of a pronominal adverb in legal English where Chinese translators need to get the correct translation in their venture into translating the language of law. On the one hand, relying on the relevant legal cultural knowledge functioning as domain-general reference within a community or jurisdiction, tra...

reading the arabian poems attributed to pre-islamic era, especially mu’allaqat, one constantly faces a widespread linguistic phenomenon that somehow impedes the process of understanding “the signified” and the meaning of the poems. this linguistic technique is characterized by deletion of the qualified and replacement of one or more qualifiers for it. the phenomenon is today discussed in some r...