Answer the following questions
1. Why is it important to recognize 'shifts of meaning' within a conversation?
2. Give an example of a 'meaning shift' for a word in a conversation (draft a short script)
3. "We never completely sharpen the meaning," do you agree with this idea? Why or Why not?
4. What is the 'so what?' factor for this article?
Seb G
ReplyDelete1. It is important to recognize shifts of meaning within a conversation so that you can understand what other person I talking about. Quite often in conversation between two people, one person is talking about one thing and second person thinks about something else. In these situations first person usually say “No, I mean…” This happens almost every day if you talk with someone who you don’t know well so you don’t know how that person uses different words. If you don’t recognize these shifts of meaning you might not only misunderstand another person, but also do something what you were not meant to do.
2. Word:fly
a. Fly away! I see fly.
b. I see fly on the fly. Is fly siting on other fly? No there is one fly flying.
3. I don’t agree only because this idea says never. In some conversations it is necessary to completely sharpen meaning because you know that other person can understand it wrong and that person has to understand it right. If this idea said usually I would agree, because in every days conversations, we suppose that both persons knows what they are talking about.
4. So what? There is no clear so what factor. For me personally this article showed that this phenomenon has a name and happens almost with everybody. However, since this article was written, people has to pay more attention to what they say and how they say it.
1. Why is it important to recognize 'shifts of meaning' within a conversation?
ReplyDeleteI think this has a lot to do with the relation between the reality and language and how we use language to describe what is around us. The author of the article rejects an idea of a language being “stable” and substitutes this word with “dynamic”. The meaning of words changes from conversation to conversation, although in general they have the same meaning. I think it is important to realize in order to remain elastic and not to make assumption as well as avoid serotyping. Each one of us perceives world from a different perspective therefore making everything we say biased. Language is limited while the human imagination is endless. Every single person while thinking of blue for example will see it differently
2. Give an example of a 'meaning shift' for a word in a conversation (draft a short script)
- Hey, I bought some artworks for your flat,
- This is awful…
- I thought you liked art
- This isn’t art these are just some random drawings
3. "We never completely sharpen the meaning," do you agree with this idea? Why or Why not?
I agree with this view and moreover I think it would be awful if we were able to “completely sharpen the meaning” of something since that would mean that there is no more space for imagination to come it. On the other this is not possible due to a subjective perception of every single one of us. It would only be possible to interpret things the same way if we all would be the same just as in the novel “We”.
4. What is the 'so what?' factor for this article?
I think that this article is important because it makes us realize that there things we don’t know that we don’t know. We use the “meaning shifts” every single day not being fully aware of it. This allows avoiding making assumptions. We can also see things from a different perspective and realize how differently each one of us perceives the world around us.
1. It is important to recognize “shifts of meaning” within a conversation because it may cause misunderstanding between people. Sometimes it can be small and doesn’t have a great impact on an issue which has been discussed. Although, in some cases it can completely change the meaning of what a person was trying to say and what his companion understood from his words. Thus, it is significant to know different meanings of the words you use because they build up messages you pass to other people. So you have to make sure that your message is clear to understand and your words are used in a correct way that the message is obvious to recognize.
ReplyDelete2. “Meaning Shift”
- Hey! How are you?
- Hey! I’m good, you?
-I’m fine, thanks. You look cool.
- I’m cool, the weather is really bad today.
3. I agree with the idea that “We never completely sharpen the meaning” because even when you try to make yourself clear and tell your message in a precise and short way people understand you due to their personal knowledge. Thus, the meaning of what you are trying to say is never sharpen because people eventually add something of their own. And it is something that can’t be prevented or avoided because it is a natural reaction of human beings to accept things after analyzing them by creating our own meaning of the things we hear.
4. “So what?” is a very crucial factor, which has to be taken to account. For the reason that it is very easy to misunderstand someone and then you can make wrong conclusions and decisions, which definitely have power to affect or even change your entire life. Thus, when you don’t understand something or you are not sure what a person is trying to tell you. You absolutely should ask questions until you will clearly know what has been said.
1. It is important to understand and recognize the shifts to understand what someone means. Sometimes certain words have different meanings and it is important to know what the person means. It is often to not get the meaning and talk about two different things at the same time. The shifts help us to know what we are talking about.
ReplyDelete2. –I have a lot of homework!
-Me too, I have Math to do.
-I meant I have a lot of work to do at home, like cleaning.
3. It is true. Even if we strongly mean something, then it is possible to misunderstand. Never everyone will clearly understand us and what we mean. Making ourselves perfectly is very hard. Besides that, even when the meaning is clear, we then see things differently. One world can mean many things to us. We can have particular memories with this word, or it can be something else for us due to our native language.
4. The “so what” factor is that shifts are important and it is important to see whole meaning of the conversation. Also it is important not only for the speaker to express him or herself clearly, we as the listeners also have to make sure that we hear what person is saying, not what we want to hear, since it leads to misunderstandings.