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The study of the meaning of words. semasiology: A discipline within linguistics concerned with the meaning of a word independent of its phonetic expression. sematology: The science of language as expressed by signs. A branch of linguistics studying the meaning of words; semantics. semiology The study of signs.
philosophy. A broad field of inquiry concerning knowledge, in which the definition of knowledge itself is one of the subjects investigated. Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, spanning the nature of the Universe and human nature (of the mind and the body) as well as the relationships between these and between people.
For example, money or power may be said to be a means to the end of happiness. Nevertheless, some objects may be ends and means at the same time. End is roughly similar, and often used as a synonym, for the following concepts: Purpose or aim: in its most general sense the anticipated result that guides action.
A mondegreen (/ ˈ m ɒ n d ɪ ˌ ɡ r iː n /) is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. [1] Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.
Pareidolia ( / ˌpærɪˈdoʊliə, ˌpɛər -/; [ 1] also US: / ˌpɛəraɪ -/) [ 2] is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia . Common examples include perceived images of ...
t. e. A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. [ 1] Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase". [ 2] The word trope has also undergone a semantic change and now also describes commonly ...
Apophenia ( / æpoʊˈfiːniə /) is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. [ 1] The term (German: Apophänie from the Greek verb ἀποφαίνειν (apophaínein)) was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia. [ 2] He defined it as "unmotivated ...
Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology —as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of using the standards of the particular culture involved. Since this judgment is often negative, some ...