1. Order and Chaos? Semiotics

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMWeQWGla0Y If language is a social system for making sense…(order from chaos) Tweet tweet Cooho’ koohoo Cooho’ koohoo kirrevit Tsirp tsirp Ji-ji- bae-bae Ji-ji- bae-bae

3. Arabic: twit twit Bengali: cooho’koohoo Finnish: tsirp tsirp Hungarian: csipcsirip Korean: ji-ji-bae-bae Norwegian: kvirrevitt …then why do we have random differences between languages?

4.  Language is an absolutely arbitrary system in which the name of a word and its meaning has no natural connection.  Even onomatopoeia depend on culture. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

5.  There was no natural dogness in the word “dog” or treeness in “tree”  Words could be any string of letters as long as every speaker of a given language agrees upon and accepts that they have the same meaning. Saussure believed that…

6.  The arbitrariness of a ‘sign’ is overcome by agreement  The word ‘Duck’ doesn’t look like a duck  But we can use it to get you to think the thought of a duck  Cos we’ve all stored this meaning in our memory  You build up a mental lexicon at a rate of about 1 word per hour from the age of 1! See Steven Pinker explain this at 14 mins into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE&list=PLnUY9u3JOghVgNR12ilOZW4LwCvPtoV-5 Agreement instead of inevitability

7.  He revolutionised language study by realising that  Not only are the words we use for our ideas about things in the world ARBITRARY  And only make sense because SPEECH COMMUNITIES agree what these words mean (by CONVENTION)  But also language consists of STRINGS OF LINGUISTIC CONCEPTS  Which only mean anything because they are DIFFERENT from each other  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5vhq3aRNjE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5vhq3aRNjE ‘Structural Linguistics’ is what Saussure’s overall system is called.

19.  Langue and Parole – the system of language v how any one individual uses it (totes amazeballs)  Synchronic v diachronic – snapshot v historically developed language Further Saussurian ideas to follow up…

20. What’s the wrinkle to this idea? Well, ain’t it weird how close sounds of words are, yet they mean totally different things? Anyone for hearseriding this weekend? In fact, the meanings of each agreed sign is determined BY WHAT THEY DO NOT MEAN. In fact, the meanings of each agreed sign is determined BY WHAT THEY DO NOT MEAN.

22. So what? Why should I care? Mr Waller to the rescue… http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisr414d8a71a/post- structuralism-explained-with-hipster-beards-xwfz

23.  http://www.thefatduck.co.uk/Reservations/KikiBouba/ http://www.thefatduck.co.uk/Reservations/KikiBouba/ Hang on minute, was he W R O N G ? Which of these is more ‘kiki’ and which more ‘bouba’?

24. What was that all about? The Kiki Bouba effect was first conducted on Tenerife, by Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. He showed forms similar to those shown, and found a strong preference to pair the jagged shape with the word Takete and the rounded shape with the word Baluba. In 2001, the experiment was repeated using the words Kiki and Bouba and asked large numbers of subjects Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki? 98% picked the curvy shape as bouba and the jagged one as kiki, suggesting that the human brain is somehow able to extract abstract properties from the shapes and sounds.

26.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a2dLVx8THA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a2dLVx8THA  An excellent 8 minute video explaining Poststructuralism – how the ‘chain of signification’ is applied to our understandings of complex cultural signs within all kinds of cultural objects/texts  Language is much more slippery than anyone thought… And what does this look like in Literary Theory? Unicorns or not…

27.  https://www.youtube.co m/watch?v=Q- B_ONJIEcE&list=PLnUY 9u3JOghVgNR12ilOZW4 LwCvPtoV-5 https://www.youtube.co m/watch?v=Q- B_ONJIEcE&list=PLnUY 9u3JOghVgNR12ilOZW4 LwCvPtoV-5  Stephen Pinker, world famous cognitive scientist, on the overall purposes and structure of the systems of language. Properly fascinating. Language and Cognitive Science - as a way of understanding the brain!

28.  How people understand language in context.  Using their knowledge of the world and how other people expect you to communicate.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKbp4hEHV-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKbp4hEHV-s  Properly academically right AND amusing – STEVEN PINKER  WHY COMPUTERS CANNOT USE LANGUAGE THE WAY WE CAN. Another layer of Linguistics itself– Pragmatics.