COMS 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: General Semantics, Symbolic Interactionism, Scapegoating

• School: University of Calgary
• Department: Communications Studies
• Course: COMS 201
• Professor: Dawn Johnson

Document Summary

General semantics the study of language: the way we use words and symbols to represent context. Signals: have connections with what they represent (a cat hissing-unhappy cat) Symbols: arbitrary and abstract things that represent a completely different thing. Symbols have three special qualities (the three a"s): Arbitrary: no relationship between symbol and what it represent. They represent something but they are not the thing itself. Ambiguous: meanings of symbols are unclear and variable. (e. g love, things, stuff) People use the same words to mean different things, so we look to: Intentional orientation: way we personally attribute meaning to a symbol. Extensional orientation: attention to the distinguishing phenomena outside us, and what it really means on a shared meaning with people. We are likely to use more details in an effort to make sure the other person is sharing our own understanding. Etc- there is more information that we aren"t including, but the audience should understand what is missing.