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Linguistics
Department
Stanford
University |
Stanford
Humanities Center
Mellon
Foundation
Graduate
Research Workshop Program
Stanford
Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop:
THE
CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING
Tuesday, January 21, 4pm in 460-126:
The Role of Ideology in Semantic Change: the Case of Tongzhi
Andrew Wong (Stanford)
Focusing on the on-going change in meaning of tongzhi from 'comrades' to
'sexual minorities' in Hong Kong, this talk will examine the role of
ideology in semantic change. Based on participant-observation and
face-to-face interviews, it will investigate the extent to which this
semantic change has spread from gay rights activists to other lesbians and
gay men, and how these two groups of speakers use tongzhi and other labels
that refer to sexual minorities in discourse. I will argue that: (1) what
underlies a label such as tongzhi is not so much a definition but rather a
set of ideologies about the concept that the label denotes; (2) semantic
change often occurs, when speakers exploit and rework old ideologies
associated with a given label and use the label in novel ways to achieve
expressive and social goals; and (3) the extent to which semantic change
spreads depends on whether these reworked ideologies are compatible
with other speakers' ideologies about the same concept.
Please contact one of the workshop organizers
if you have suggestions for presentations or the workshop in general.
Back to the workshop homepage.
This workshop is sponsored by
the Stanford Humanities Center, and funded by a grant from the Mellon
Foundation.
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