1. LANGUAGE
Kasey Royalty
The Meaning of Meaning

2. INTRODUCTION
• Beneath the cranium is the entire language network.
• Metaphorical gears, wheels, and chains function together to process and
produce language; which are not understood completely.

3. THESIS
• As our society discovers
more about language, we
come closer to a purified
definition of meaning,
rather than only data and
statistical information
between a large number
of components.

4. CITATIONS
• Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English
Language. 6th. 1. Micheal Rosenberg, 2005. 2. eBook.
• Caplan, David. Neurolinguistics and Linguistics Aphasiology: An Introduction.
Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1987. X.
eBook.
• Images from slides 1-6 all from DeviantArt.com
• Image on slide 8 from Google.com

5. DEFINITIONS AND KEY TERMS
• Language – a system of conventional vocal signs by means of which human
beings communicate (Algeo and Pyles 2)
• Metaphor – a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish –a
matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. (According to George
Lakoff and Mark Johnson)
• Neurolinguistics – the study of language-brain relationships. (Caplan X)

6. BOUBA/KIKI
• V.S. Ramachandran performed experiment “Bouba/kiki”
• Presented test subjects with two words : bouba and kiki
• Presented images afterward to match with the two words: one spikey
shape, and one rounded cloud shape.
• Spikey with kiki, and rounded cloud with bouba

7. METAPHOR AND MEANING
Metaphor Limitations
• Imagination: unrestricted power of • The Brain
the mind.
• Was thought that language was
• Allows for many interpretations of controlled by the left hemisphere
metaphor of the brain
• Comprehension is now thought to
be controlled by the middle/right
hemisphere.
• Neurolinguistics concentrates on
these areas of the brain.

9. CONCLUSION
• Perhaps meaning cannot be defined by words
• Maybe it is a formula for an individual mind to plug in the variables
• Purified, precise definition of meaning as an equation, and solved by every mind
differently.