Today’s activity was written by Olivier Jamois, and adapted some to fit the class. Please see his slides for the prior lecture for details on how to implement these analyses.
Today, we’re going to look at two types of semantic analysis, the first breaks memes and communicative practices into events, and the second thinks about the role of discourse. We’ll do some componential analysis next time.
One way to think about the semantics of a statement is to think about it as an event, with a variety of ‘arguments’ which provide meaning or play ‘roles’ in the event. So, in ‘The Emperor destroyed the battlecruiser Liberty for the Empire with the Death Star II’s superweapon above Endor yesterday’, you might have arguments like:
There are ways to formalize which argument types should and shouldn’t be used, but for today, just make up roles that make sense.
Please use event semantics to analyze the following true sentences of natural language. Remember the definition of direct object as the receiver of the action expressed by the verb, and the indirect object as the receiver of the direct object. For example, “Brian gave his crush a rose” has “a rose” as the direct object and “his crush” as the indirect object.
“Olivier played Civilization 5 for 1500 hours.”
Event verb:
Subject:
Direct Object:
Prepositional modifier (temporal):
“Excitedly, Olivier explained cyberpunk lore to the LIGN 42 class.”
Event verb:
Subject:
Indirect object:
Direct Object:
Adverbial Modifiers:
Please analyze the following memes using event semantics. If you are unfamiliar with the meme format, find other examples online to understand the meaning of the meme.
Natural language rendition: “Awkwardly, penguin forgot the punchline after starting to tell a joke.”
Natural language rendition (1 sentence):
Try and identify a meme or communicative practice from the area you’re working in and break it down into an event verb and various other components. Components could be a subject, direct/indirect object, prepositional meanings, adverbs, instruments (e.g. the thing being used), temporal components.
Remember that a basic pragmatic analysis has three parts: when something is said, where it’s said, and what function it serves in the discourse (“why” it’s said).
In what era of the history of English would you expect to hear the following sentences? Feel free to look up any unfamiliar terms to motivate your answer.
That California burrito was bussin no cap.
Did you see Billy give that greaser a knuckle sandwich?
That macaroni Yankee was chuffy with the inkeep, wasn’t he?
Where would you expect to hear the following phrases? Again, feel free to look up any unfamiliar terms or references.
Can I have a double-double with grilled onions and a chocolate shake as the drink please?
Your call is important to us, please stay on the line.
The FitnessGram Pacer Test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues.
What is the discursive function (purpose) of the following phrases?
Excuse me?
Excuse me.
That sounds like fun!
Can I have a double-double with grilled onions and a chocolate shake as the drink please?
Give a simple pragmatic analysis of the following memes. If you are unfamiliar with the meme, please look them up using the provided name. If you are familiar with the meme but don’t know details (such as the year), give a best guess before verifying.
Try and identify a meme or communicative practice from the area you’re working in and break it down on the basis of pragmatics, that is, when it’s said, what its meaning in context is, and what it’s doing in the discourse.
Please attempt a full semantic/pragmatic analysis of the following memes using the techniques above. Start with a pragmatic analysis to understand the context of the meme before attempting a semantic analysis.
Hint: Refer to slides for hints on “time” of this meme
Try and identify a meme or communicative practice from the area you’re working in and do the whole process for it.