精确与模糊——对语言符号离散性的分析

Precision versus Fuzziness:An Analysis of Discreteness of Linguistic Sign

由于具有离散性,语言显现出其特有的高效和精确,并在符号学中被归类为与模拟相对的数字符号。与此同时,语言又具有模糊性质。本文指出,精确与模糊,一对看似矛盾的性质,都与离散性有着紧密关系,都可以借助离散性得到解释。虽然二者同时存在于语言符号但是却体现于意义的不同层面:前者基于涵义,相当于概念的内涵;后者基于所指意义,相当于概念的外延。

Due to its discreteness, language is characteristically productive and precise, and, therefore, regarded in semiotics as digital in contrast with analogical. However, language is somewhat fuzzy. The paper posits that precision and fuzziness can both be explained in terms of discreteness. Though the two qualities exist simultaneously in certain linguistic signs they lie in different aspects of meaning： precision in ＂sense＂ , which is similar to the intension of a concept; fuzziness in ＂referential meaning＂ , which is similar to the extension of a concept.