Sense and Reference, Apuntes de Traducción

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Sense & Reference

Lexicología de la Lengua Inglesa

SENSE AND REFERENCE

 (^) When we deal with sense we deal with

relationships within language.

 (^) When we talk about reference we deal with

the relationship between language and the world. By means of reference a speaker is pointing at something in the world by using language / a linguistic expression. Therefore with reference there is always an external reality that is being talked about.

 (^) This is called variable reference. The

perception of variable reference depends on a number of factors, which are there because of the relationship between language and the world. There are factors like time and place that play and important role in this.

 (^) Ex: The British Prime Minister

Referent

 (^) Does this expression have a referent? Yes.

You could say Tony Blair but you could also say Margaret Thatcher. In this expression the t i m e f a c t o r i s n ' t e x p r e s s e d s o b o t h possibilities are possible. The question of place is specified so you can't say Aznar because it has to be British. If you say the current British Prime Minister , there is no variable reference.

 (^) In English, there are two expressions that

refer to the same entity. This example is always like that, but there are cases in which this association between single entities in the world and different linguistic expressions can be also be made for specific cases.

• The British Prime Minister
• Tony Blair
• The Leader of the Labour Party

 (^) This relationship isn't permanent. It has been

made for a specific purpose.That these expressions may be true depends on time and time factors.

 Ex: John

 The man at the corner

 In a specific case these two

expressions may have the same

referent in the world.

• John took off his jacket
• John took his jacket off

 (^) They have different syntactic structures but

they have the same sense.

• Bachelors prefer red haired girls.
• Girls with red hair are preferred by unmarried men.

 (^) They also have the same sense.

 (^) The opposite also happens, that is, we may

have two different senses and one linguistic expression. This is the case of polysemous words.

 (^) Ex: Bank (of money) Bank (of a river)

 (^) Sense is an abstraction, therefore, if you say

a linguistic expression has a meaning, it's because it has sense but it may not necessarily have reference because not all words connect with an entity in the outside world. And this is a rule.

 (^) Ex: So, in, at, over, either, onwards, and,

almost : these words have no reference in the outside world.

Mind / Thought

Language World

 Some make a distinction between the

outside world and the world of the mind.

For others it's all the same.

 (^) What happens with the sense and the words

contained in these definitions? You can find some words in them you don't know the meaning so you have to look up their definition, etc. It's circular. It's possible to learn the meaning of a new word in a language through images. This is impossible with words that only have sense and no reference. The question of translations is that senses are out there, that they exist.

 (^) Ex: Pavement and Sidewalk show the same

sense.

 (^) Sense and reference may constitute the key

in Frege's theory of semantics.

referring expression

 (^) A referring expression is an expression used in an utterance to refer to something used with a particular referent in mind.  (^) Ex: Fred hit me Referring expression

 (^) There is no Fred at this address Non−referring expression, it has no referring interpretation.

 (^) Fred points at someone.

 (^) Proper names are inherently referential. But even a proper name can be referential or not depending on the utterance it's contained in. even if a word has reference that doesn't mean that that word is a referring expression. Depending on the syntax the interpretation may be referential or not or even problematic.