Dominant group/Semantics

Semantics is a branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. Semantics is an area of study within the school of linguistics, a part of the Social Sciences.

The meaning, use and association of dominant group with semantics is of interest.

Semantics
Def.
 * 1. "the study of meanings:"
 * 1.a: "the historical and psychological study and the classification of changes in the signification of words or forms viewed as factors in linguistic development",
 * 1.b: "a branch of semiotic dealing with the relations between signs and what they refer to and including theories of denotation, extension, naming, and truth"
 * 2.a: "the meaning or relationship of meanings of a sign or set of signs; [especially]: connotative meaning"
 * 2.b: "the exploitation of connotation and ambiguity (as in propaganda)"

is called semantics.

Dominant group

 * 1) Accident hypothesis: dominant group is an accident of whatever processes are operating.
 * 2) Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.
 * 3) Association hypothesis: dominant group is associated in some way with the original research.
 * 4) Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.
 * 5) Control group hypothesis: there is a control group that can be used to study dominant group.
 * 6) Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
 * 7) Evolution hypothesis: dominant group is a product of evolutionary processes, such groups are the evolutionary process, produce evolutionary processes, or are independent of evolutionary processes.
 * 8) Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.
 * 9) Importance hypothesis: dominant group signifies original research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experiments.
 * 10) Indicator hypothesis: dominant group may be an indicator of something as yet not understood by the primary author of original research.
 * 11) Influence hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article containing original research to indicate influence or an influential phenomenon.
 * 12) Interest hypothesis: dominant group is a theoretical entity used by scholarly authors of primary sources for phenomena of interest.
 * 13) Metadefinition hypothesis: all uses of dominant group by all primary source authors of original research are included in the metadefinition for dominant group.
 * 14) Null hypothesis: there is no significant or special meaning of dominant group in any sentence or figure caption in any refereed journal article.
 * 15) Object hypothesis: dominant group is an object within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
 * 16) Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
 * 17) Original research hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article by the author to indicate that the article contains original research.
 * 18) Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a synonym for dominant group.
 * 19) Purpose hypothesis: dominant group is written into articles by authors for a purpose.
 * 20) Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.
 * 21) Source hypothesis: dominant group is a source within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
 * 22) Term hypothesis: dominant group is a significant term that may require a 'rigorous definition' or application and verification of an empirical definition.

Examples from primary sources are to be used to prove or disprove each hypothesis. These can be collected per subject or in general.

Linguistics
Def. "[t]he scientific study of language" is called linguistics.

Logic
Def. "[a] method of human thought that involves thinking in a linear, step-by-step manner about how a problem can be solved" is called logic.

Meanings
Def. "the thing one intends to convey [especially] by language" is called meaning.

Bilingualism
"Although this slowing could be due to late exposure to English in the Spanish-dominant group, late exposure cannot explain the slowing in Spanish in the English-dominant group. Overall, we found that vocabulary proficiency and age of exposure are both important in determining the timing of semantic integration effects during written sentence processing—with vocabulary proficiency predicting the timing of semantic analysis in L1 and both age of exposure and language proficiency, although highly correlated, making additional small but uncorrelated contributions to the speed of semantic analysis/integration in L2."

"However, the English dominant group named better in English than in Spanish, and the Spanish dominant group named better in Spanish than in English. On the semantic rating task, there was a significant difference in ratings between the balanced bilingual group and both other groups, with the balanced bilingual group rating word pairs as more alike in both English and Spanish as compared to the English and Spanish dominant groups."

Cognitivism
"Cognitive semantics is part of the cognitive linguistics movement. The main tenets of cognitive semantics are, first, that grammar is conceptualisation; second, that conceptual structure is embodied and motivated by usage; and third, that the ability to use language draws upon general cognitive resources and not a special language module. " from the Wikipedia entry on cognitive semantics.

"However, that is exactly why this strategy is likely to meet with approval by the dominant group."

Discourse
"That is, 'dominant ideologies', in the exclusive sense of ideologies of a 'dominant' group, or ideologies imposed by a dominant group, are special cases of ideology, and not characteristic of all ideologies (see the discussion in Abercrombie et al., 1980, 1990)."

Definitions
"On the other hand, it served to maintain the Moluccans' challenge of and resistance to the dominant group's definitions."

Races
"Anticipating this prejudice and wishing to please the dominant group, they vocally simulate the point of view of the American."

Hypotheses

 * 1) The meaning of dominant group applicable to all uses is a subgroup having one or more characteristics that are dominant within a specific region.