I've been collecting photos all semester, but haven't taken the time to blog them. So now, here they all are. I noticed the word play in most of the advertisements, and the advertiser's use of words with certain connotations, and thought about the reasons for them to do this. Most of them are quite interesting!
This was a Carl's Junior advert obviously, but at first I only noticed the image of the carl burger. On closer look, I realized that the carl's burger has actually crushed a person, save for his feet, and that this person has feet that looks suspiciously like that of dear Ronald MacDonald. So then I realized that this advert was not merely advertising for Carl's junior's burgers. but also putting MacD's down at the same time. The words above the advert then came into focus, and everything fell into place. The advert was outrightly putting MacD's down! Since we are primed to think of Ronald Macdonald whenever a clown is spoken about in relation to fast food! The advert hence plays on 'clown', banking on the audience knowing what they refer to, and putting a pun on the word, both to mean Ronald, and to mean the verb phrase clowning around, as in 'fooling around'.
This is another example of wordplay, but for a different reason. Instead of using 'Too hot to handle', 'Two' replaces 'too'. The reason for doing this here, however, is not such an interesting one, and I'm guessing Mac's only used it to appear more interesting, and also to advertise McSpicy's double pattie. This is a common technique used by advertisers, mostly just to try to make the audience take a second look, but perhaps it has been overused? and the audience probably don't take that much notice anymore.
This notice caught my eye, and I wondered whether there was really such a word as 'reroofing'. So I went to search the meaning online, but it turns out that this word doesn't actually exist! or at least not till very recently. However, the morpheme 're' has a meaning we all know, which is that of 'doing over'. Based on this, we can guess that reroofing would mean replacing the roof tiles or something like that? the lexical priming of morpheme meanings makes guessing the meanings of new words we did not previously know, much easier, and it's how we understand passages or speeches even if we do not know every single word within that text. This chinese advertisement also plays on the word 蒸 (steam) when they actually mean 真 (really). There is hence a dual meaning to the sentence, meaning that the spa provides a way of slimming through the use of steaming techniques, for those who REALLY want to slim down, and that steaming is REALLY 'shiok' for lack of a better word to describe '过瘾', and that steaming is REALLY not painful at all.
Just a quirky thought with regard to this advertisement: I always thought menus was used only for food. But upon seeing this, I realized that maybe not, since the computer too, has a start menu. I'm still not used to using 'menu' for anything other than food though. =) Also, notice the 9th item on the menu, it says 'dinner make-up'. I suppose this menu is meant for the older generation, since it was found in a local neighbourhood, and that's why, to fit their lexical priming, 'dinner make-up' was used instead of what we would probably use, 'makeover'.
In Singapore, we always use the construction 'last time' to mean 'in the past', and that seems to work well enough most of the time. like if I say
'Last time, I used to take a bus to work everyday.'
or
'Last time we didn't know know about the strict rules with regard to this matter.'
But come to think of it, now that I have actually written it down, it seems odd to use 'last time' to mean in a time that has past, when I probably have a specific time frame in mind, and don't just mean a vague time in the past. So perhaps, i could say
'Last time Singapore don't have Caucasians'
But with increased usage, and Singaporean's vague idea that the meaning of last time means 'in the past', we find weird sentence constructions such as:
'Last time at Zouk'
to mean an occasion at zouk that happened some time ago, but which, if taken literally, would actually mean the final time at Zouk. So.. interesting huh?
oh by the way, refer to http://www.lowyimin.com/ for some linguistic abuse. =)
'watch this space, something hot coming your way' I saw these words on an ad in NUS, but did not have time to take a picture. However, it got me thinking, and I thought this could work as well: 'watch this space, something cool coming your way'.
So... how did two words opposite in meaning, become so similar in meaning that we could use them identical contexts?
When I google-d 'cool', the literal meaning of cool was the sixth result, whereas the it's figurative meaning referring to one's attitude or behaviour came out in the first five results. Similarly for the word 'hot', its literal meaning only appeared in the tenth result, and this is despite the fact that the primary meaning of the words are still their literal meanings. It just goes to show, that priming is important, and whether or not a meaning is a primary or secondary one is more dependent on its use rather than their positions in dictionary meanings.
I was reading a book, and a character in the book 'slept with' another character. So I got to thinking. We so often cite 'kick the bucket' as a euphemistic term whenever we're trying to provide examples, but we overlook slept with altogether don't we? The term has been so ingrained into our minds that the connotations associated with the term actually outweighs its literal meaning, so much so that when we see the phrase, the primary meaning that we grasp is not that of 'sleeping next to, or in the same room as someone', but rather 'having *** with someone, with, or more possibly, without actually sleeping next to him/her after that'. However, to quote Prof Ooi, 'You know a word by the company it keeps.' so in this case, perhaps we would know which meaning it refers to if we looked at the context in which it is said. So if I say 'I sleep with my mother and sister every night', I think most people would take the literal meaning, as opposed to a sentence like 'She slept with dexter last night', where most would take the figurative meaning of the sentence.
What thoughts do sentences like the following invoke in you? Do you take the literal or figurative meanings for each of them?
'Mary slept with Jane last night' -------------------- (1) 'Mary slept with Jane in summer camp last year' --------- (2) 'Mary finally slept with Jane last night' ------------------- (3)
Have you ever wondered about the origin of colours, or rather the names of colours? well, not the primary colours, but the many different shades. It appears that colour names are very much indicators of the type of environment encountered by certain communities and social circles. The most common example of such a colour would be 'army green'. Someone with no knowledge at all about the military would not be able to comprehend what this colour is. Someone who has served in the military and hated it, would associate army green with something unpleasant, while someone who loves the military or is strongly patriotic and supportive of national service may think that it's a nice colour. Or of course, there are those who simply like that shade of green. But where in the past shades of colours were simply light or dark, or lighter than that or darker than that, now there is an astounding number of names you could attribute to different shades of colours. One thing I've noticed is that how a colour is named is reflective of how strong the priming is for that colour, when the name is mentioned. Let me illustrate with an example.
Think 'Tiffany's Blue'. What colour do you immediately think of? Is it that distinctive shade of turquiose blue associated with the jewellery brand Tiffany's? For someone with no prior knowledge of what Tiffany's is, the shade does not come to mind, perhaps what does appear in his mind is the prototypical primary colour, blue. Hence, the names of colours are the result of priming, and they also prime the readers or listeners to think of certain types of colours. This priming is absent for me, in colours such as Cornflower Blue, or Dartmouth Green. But again, to people who have encountered cornflowers or perhaps live in dartmouth, would know these colours well.
But actually, what started me off on this topic, was when I saw an advertisement for laptops at the bus stop by chance. I won't put up pictures because the words are really small anyway. But what struck me was the colours they used. The laptops were described as Midnight Black Gloss, and Heatwave Red. I then went online to search for other colours associated with laptops and also handphones. Here are some of the names I got:
Now I'm on a roll. Let's look at the names of some hair-dye colours:
Raven Black; Jet Black; Bluish Black; Brown Black; Brown Umber; Golden Blonde; Sahara; Henna Red; Flame Red; Mahogany; Walnut Red Brown; Chestnut Brown; Natural Brown; Henna Black; Copper Blonde; Indian Summer; Nougat Brown; Tizian; Teak; Yellow; Royal Blue; Wine Red; Orange; Natural Black; Natural Darkest Brown; Extra Light Blonde; Dark Toffee Blonde; Mahogany Blonde; Platinum Blonde; Rich Chocolate Brown; Ash Blonde; Mango Jelly; Honey Brown; Orange Biscuit; Caramel Brown; Pure Natural; Juicy Peach; Almond Chocolate; Jewelry Ash; Beauty Muave; Honey Peanut; Vanilla Beige; Milk Tea Brown; Bitter Cappuccino; Terracotta Blonde; Light Golden Chestnut; Fire Red; Wheat Germ Blonde; Hazelnut Blonde; Ebony Black; Honey Blonde; Butterscotch Blonde; Strawberry Blonde; Chocolate Brown; Copper Red; Creme Caramel; Light Auburn; Buttered Toast; Chocolate Copper; Ginger Blonde; Golden Wheat; Midnight Blue; Luminour Blonde; Brown Cinnamon; Burgundy Blush; Brown Sable; Warm Mocha; Sunkissed Brown; Rich Wine; Red Hot Rhythm; Brown Sugar; Roman Sunset; Glazed Strawberry; Golden Walnut; Praline Foil; Glazed Cranberry; Honey Pecan; Mocha Foil; Glazed Apricot; Glzaed Sand; Glazed Fire; Silver Mist; White Mist; Glazed Vanilla; Buttered Walnut; Nutmeg; Ocean Blue; Ice White; Cognac Light Copper Red; Pastel Pink; Barbie Pink; Stop Sign Red; Fuschia; Honey Moon; Gold; UV Chrome; UV Yellow; UV Neon Green; Emerald Green; UV Flashlight; Navy Blue; UV Electric Blue; Baby Blue; Royal Purple; Lavender; Lilac; Wisteria; Neon Violet; Black Orchid; Vamp Red; Mahogany Plum Blonde; Marigold Yellow; Sunset Yellow.
So, there appears to be patterns in the naming of colours with respect to hair or to gadgets. The gadget colour names seem to be more metallic, and tend to be 'cooler', with higher usage of ice, metallic, arctic and other words that convey ideas of coldness, or the 'cool' factor. Most of the colours that appeared tended towards silver, black, white, blue and red. Most of the colours are the cooler colours of the spectrum rather than the warmer ones such as pink, orange or yellow. This could be due to the fact that gadgets are mostly metal, and there is no passion to be ignited with association to the colours of gadgets. Even for the red colours, the names are more 'mysterious', with uses of words like 'crimson'. Hair colour names on the other hand, appear to be warmer and more attractive, with high usage of words associated with food such as 'strawberry', 'honey', etc. This could be because people dye their hair in order to look more attractive. With the use of words such as the abovementioned, the people who dye their hair with attractive colours might, by association become more attractive. Also with hair dye colours, they tend towards the warmer colours (that perhaps ignite passion?) such as red, brown and yellow.
However, in the research of these colours, what I realized was that the names seldom, if ever, truly reflected the actual nature of the colour. Instead, they were named to invoke particular emotions in the viewer, so as to attract them to purchase the product in that particular colour. So hair colour seemed to contain more words which portrayed attractiveness and 'good enough to eat' feelings, whereas hardware colours tended to make use of more 'metallic' or 'cool' words.
Another interesting thing to note is that the pink colours in both categories tend to have more feminine words such as 'rose' in them, perhaps to attract females? Also, what makes some words suitable for use in the description of colours and not others? For example, it is common to hear of the shade of yellow that is 'sunshine yellow'. But Cheddar cheese is the same colour, so how come no one ever says 'cheddar cheese yellow'?
Haha wow that took a long time. But interesting huh? We could even look at colour names of other categories of things!
What is a prototypical 'kid' question to ask? As in, when you try to give an example of a question only a kid will ask, what is the first question you think of? I'm not sure about you guys, but I felt that a prototypical question would be 'Why is the sky blue?' It's just a question that I use whenever I want to give an example or make a point, and I think it's largely to do with how I'm primed to think of kids (and in my mind, they are about 6 years old) who are really innocent and naive, but this may have changed in recent years. Recently, when I've been giving tuition, I've come to realize that kids in this era are advanced beyond their years, and it just struck me that maybe it's time some of those prototypes start to change. However, the question is, do prototypes change so easily and quickly? Or do they stick even when the circumstances and environment has been completely altered?
A couple of days ago, I saw a girl in a shirt that said:
'Try to look! A new neckless!'
I couldn't help but laugh. I wonder what the shirt was trying to say? Was it that the wearer of the shirt had a new necklace? Or did it literally mean neck-less as in without a neck? I am guilty of having been primed such that upon hearing about a neck-less person, I immediately think of someone fat. Is this the case here? Has the sheer amount of Chinese New Year cookies consumed made the wearer a new member of the neck-less? Alright, I really shouldn't laugh at the funny (unflattering) phrases on some t-shirts people choose to wear. After all, perhaps different people from different cultures have different lexical primings ;)
I was watching television and this MacD's advert came on.
So it got me thinking about primings and collocations yet again. Although this may not be directly linked to the lexicon and such, but it's a nice analogy of how primings work. However, it also highlights how primings can sometimes be 'wrong' or be unconventional, leading one to wrong conclusions. In this Macdonald's advert, the little girl was happy about going to MacDonald's because whenever they did, he would not go to work after that. What she does not realize in her innocence and uncomplicated thought processing, is that her dad is only able to bring her to MacD's BECAUSE he is not going to work. This then, can be analogized to how the sequence of items being collocated together could lead to priming differences in the brain. It also shows how, sometimes primings could lead us to wrong conclusions. This is when our primings prevent us from being able to draw the correct meaning from a sequence of words which would make perfect sense in its literal meaning, but which we might try, erroneously, to force into another template based on our priming. On the other hand, perhaps in the situation whereby we are dealing with the lexicon, the dividing line is not quite so clearcut, and it could be possible that an interaction of the items bring about feelings/collocations. It's a little hard to articulate what I'm trying to say in words, so let me just give an example.
I was hungry. I ate chicken. (1) I ate chicken. I was hungry. (2)
In both the sentences above, the reader is led to think that I was hungry and so I ate the chicken, and perhaps I am less hungry now. But nowhere in the two lines, is there any word used that is indicative of the time or sequence of events that happened. It is the priming that we have with respect to these group of words, so often collocated together, that made us draw the conclusion that I ate the chicken because I was hungry. Now look at the next two sentences.
I was hungry because I ate chicken. (3) I was still hungry after I ate chicken. (4)
Now, with the addition of new words, the sentences have taken on whole new meanings, haven't they?
This leads me to another point of discussion. Is it priming which causes us to use a particular word, or is it the word, with its associated primings, which invokes certain emotions or feelings?
When I use a word such as the singlish 'sian' (feeling very bored with nothing to do) or 'nua' (feeling very lazy), in sentences like 'I feel so.... ______(insert either of the above words)'. Imagine a case where you are uncertain of how you are feeling, and you are trying to think of a word that encapsulates how you feel, and after a moment of pause, u decide to use one of the above words, even if it isn't really the word you want to use. Would this be a case of you ultimately choosing to use that word because you really feel it? Or would saying the word become a self fulfilling prophecy, and you suddenly really do feel very 'sian' or 'nua'? Does the feeling lead to word use? or does the word use result in the sudden development of that feeling?
Perhaps, like the question of the chicken and the egg, this question can never be answered. But it is interesting that this MacD's advert has so aptly brought to the front how easy it is to mistake one thing for another, and how we can easily make mistakes because of false primings.
Okay, this is a real post I found on some forum or other awhile back. I forgot what I was looking for, but this is the post:
Dear all,
Yes, politeness is not too hard to findin a small island like S'pore. But I would like to throw another perspective. What if it's not politeness? Does telling you coughing like that in public makes me weird?
What would others in the train look at me after telling you? What if you feel like bashing me up as a result? Whatever it is, I hope more awareness is created to make our Singapore a safe, healthy and warm environment to embrace. Thank you
A****
We've established Hoey's theory that grammar is very much the result of collocations, and I guess this post supports his theory. Intuitively, many of the sentences above contain words which should not be put together in that particular order, or words which should not exactly be collocated together at all. So as a result of putting them together, these few sentences seem extremely ungrammatical. some of the words being put together when they shouldn't be, also display a breakdown in the lexical semantics of the author, making it acceptable to him to 'make singapore an environment to embrace'.
Random observations for the week
Saturday, February 6, 2010 5:43 AM
Hey! :)
A few of us went to Fong Seng for prata after class last week, and there I found that I didn't understand the menu, and had no clue as to what most of the items were referring to. I suppose, being Singaporean, it is expected that we know the coffeeshop lingo, where kopi-C means a certain thing, and kopi-siu tai, means something else. But truth be told, I'm quite clueless about the names. Hence, when I look at the menu, I don't know what to order? Who knows if something I order turns out to be something utterly disgusting, or something I hate? That said, I have to emphathize with foreigners who travel overseas and do not know what the names on the menu refer to. Every country would have it's own cultures, that its people understand, based on the primings we have already received, which cause us to associate things with each other. This therefore explains the ability of most to decode the mystery of the kopi and teh coffeeshop varieties, which are indeed, more numerous than I ever knew. One item in particular caught my eye, and I wondered what Castello was. Turns out that it is a mixture of coffee, milo and tea. How the word came about I would never know, because the '-as-' in the word seems incongruous with any of the words coffee, tea, and milo. Well, it was great fun trying to decipher the menu, but it might too, be a source of great frustration for someone who just generally wants something drinkable, or who is exceptionally fussy as to what he/she expects in the drink.
The Aforementioned Prata shop menu:
This series of pictures I took at various times: First of all, there's the 'Hand-Wash' sign from Shell stations, to mean manual carwash, which I have discussed in an earlier post. Next, there is the 'Thaksin Beef Noode' sign, which probably means that the Beef Noodles are of the best quality, as Thaksin is a man who was held in great respect (I don't know whether this still holds after the scandal last year). But what I mean to bring across is that certain words bring certain connotations that the viewer will only know if he/she has actually been immersed in the unfamiliar cultures, and to those who do not know about the cultures, who have received no primings with regard to the cultures, will find the choice of words quite meaningless. Therefore, the primings of a person play a crucial role in the interpretation of our surrounding world. Another thing about the signboard that caught my attention, was the slogan: your lunch is our business. In this case, business could be taken to mean two things, i) The stall cares about how much you eat, how you are that day, etc, or ii) The stall couldn't care less about what you (as the viewer) chooses to eat, etc, just so long as it allows us to earn money out of you. :)
I then saw the sign for 'work pass services center', which may not sound odd at first, but in truth, the word 'work pass' is a term that only exists in Singapore, and I was unable to find it used in other countries, where 'work permit' was used instead.
Another thing that caught my attention was the sign for Public Car Park. I find it hard to assign a category to the word park in this example, and I do not know whether, were I to draw a syntax tree, the words car and park should be on the lowest node together, or the words public and car. Both ways would work, and both make sense semantically. However, I wonder which is the accurate one? Is it that one should park in a park for public cars? or that one should park in the car park meant for the public's use. If I were an alien dropping in on Earth for the first time, I would be unable to tell the difference. Moreover, the parking for motorcycles and for motor cars were not given the same proper nouns. As such, one might become confused as to which is the more accurate version. 'Motorcycle parking' is very much more concrete and less ambiguous as compared to 'Public Car Park'.
This poster caught my eye, and I wondered at the connection, if any, between the Chinese title of the show and English translation of the title. Where did the word 'prosperity' come from? It seems out of place to me, and this happens so often, where we read translations, and have no clue as to how different the translation is from the original, how much we are missing by simply viewing the translated versions.
Here are some road signs in Singapore, which may or may not be used in other parts of the world. However, the fact that we understand all of them, shows how important priming is, as it allows us to build up an information bank in our minds about situations, which we can then call upon in times of need. However, as mentioned, these primings may not exist for people from different cultures, who will take some time to develop these primings too, and thereby fit better into the fabric of the society. One sign in particular, that I wasn't able to get a picture of, said 'Camera Zone Ahead', which I'm sure most people have seen on the Singapore highways. However, without priming, would such a sign seem a little nonsensical and meaningless?
Finally, below are some photos I took of signs, objects and whatnot, and I would like to invite you guys to participate, through the identification of what these objects could possibly be, where the photos could possibly have been taken. In identification, please be as specific as possible about the object. Through this experiment, I hope to show the importance of priming, or lack thereof in the identification of familiar things.
'i still depression over the gk results.. how...' - facebook comment.
Webspeak? Or Singaporean Speak? There is an absence of the verb, while the noun 'depression' is being used in place of the adjective 'depressed'. But we still understand it perfectly well, because it's how many Singaporeans construct their sentences.
Funny signs and phrases
Sunday, January 31, 2010 8:29 AM
Hey EL4216-ers!
Quite a few things caught my eye this week! Here they are =)
This was found in a washroom, as the title of the card suggests, and although this may not be so related to collocation per se, I thought I'll just share it here. In case you find nothing wrong with it... look at the sentence below 'Washroom hygiene inspection card'. It says: For your convenience, hygiene checks are made in this washroom. Is it me, or does this sentence strike you as funny? Does it even make sense? Who is it speaking to? How does a hygiene check convenience who? The cleaner? As opposed to what? The cleaner bringing the washroom to where ever the inspector is and getting him/her to check it?! The idea is pretty ludicruous.. haha. Or was the message meant for people waiting in the toilet and who got bored enough to read the card (like me)? In which case.. How am I convenienced? I don't get it... If someone has a better idea, you might enlighten me. =)
This is a simple example of lexical priming, where the words 'The Singapore Lion' seems to be primed as a symbol of pride, since it is the national animal, and also appears in the national crest. The lion is something important to Singaporeans, and to put those words under the name S. Rajaratnam, is to liken him to the lion, someone who has brought Singapore pride. Hence, if a Singaporean did not know who he was, he/she would still know that S. Rajaratnam was someone to be proud of, simply because of the lexical priming of 'Lion' in the singaporean context. However, this would be a case of cultural (or national?) priming, as I would bet anything, no one outside of singapore would understand the implication of the words below his name. They might even find it comical, if say their image of lions was that of The Lion King.
<
Ok. Top-up?! A diploma to a degree? I don't know about you guys.. But 'Top-up' for me, is permanently linked with my ezlink card, or cashcard. So to use 'Top-up' in referring to an academic degree, seems to completely trivialize the prestige of that UK degree they talked about in the ad. Or maybe that was the whole point? To make the degree seem easily attainable?
I found this definition of HIGH tea online,
high tea n. Chiefly British
A fairly substantial meal that includes tea and is served in the late afternoon or early evening.
But it struck me as odd that High tea has been abbreviated to Hi-Tea. Judging from the amount of chinese words on the advertisement, I might guess that the person who created the ad was more fluent in Chinese, and may have used 'Hi' simply based on it's phonological similarity to 'high'. However, it is interesting to note that no one in Singapore would be stumped looking at this advert, despite the misnomer. Why would this be so? Might is be that High tea buffets are very common in Singapore, and this fact, together with the words like 'nonya', as well as the other chinese words, clue the viewers in on what the whole advert is about? Would a foreigner reading this be able to decipher 'Hi-tea'? I google-d 'Hi tea', and the only results that came out were from singapore, with the exception of San Francisco, in which the same usage of the word also came up in Google. Funnily enough, these came out too:
Acronym Definition
HI-TEA High-Level Test Strategy and Economics Advisor
HI-TEA Hidden Intervention into The Established Arts
HI-TEA Hawaiian Islands Tea (Hawaii Coffee Company; Honolulu, HI)
Cool huh?
The irony of such names advertising the ideal-ness of these hostels or hotels for backpackers, is that we are already primed by the word 'backpackers' to completely disregard whatever adjectives they choose to insert in the name, and assume that the place is dirty and cheap old and did i mention dirty? Of course, they may not all be like that.. But, I would make such an assumption as soon as I see the sign. And for backpackers with limited budget, this priming may not necessarily be bad, since they would know immediately that it's cheap accomodation!
Right. First of all, we know that most people who put up such adverts are agents, who would earn commission from the sale/rental of a house. So we would understand that the words 'no commission' here means that we would be paying a flat rate with no additional commission charges. Secondly, 'Studio Like Masterbedroom' (which is cut off in the picture) obviously does not mean the studio likes the masterbedroom, but one ill-versed in the housing vocab might be confused as to what the ad is talking about. Thirdly, 'Agents are welcome'... to do what? Rent the house? Help Lily and Joy to rent them out? And lastly, 'Rent asking' seems an awkward way of saying that the house is going to be rented out for a rate of $1100-$1600. However, because of our familiarity with similar ads, we can get the gist of it, despite its incoherence and awkward language.
This is funny. I imagined two buses merging into one. HAHA.
So I just happened to go past a sign today that said 'Hand-Wash'. Guess what the sign was for?
It was a sign in a Shell petrol station for MANUAL CARWASH. Surprised? well, I was. We learnt today in class about collocation and priming concepts, and to me, hand-wash is a word with the pragmatic priming of handwashing something that can actually be held in your hand. For example, clothes, or... mainly clothes actually. To me, to describe hand-washing a car, one would have to make use of the word manual instead. Hence, if I were to see a sign like that out of this context, there is no way at all that I would connect it to a carwash. It just struck me as something interesting that I could note down, because it is in these everyday things that we don't usually notice, that the richest information can be foungd about our language and how it is used by the users. I'll post a picture of the sign if I happen to go past it again. =)
Amelia - Future Linguist.
Currently doing up this blog for EL4216, and recording everyday language use. Hope it makes an interesting read for you! =) Note: this is a linguistic blog.
