User:Mxrwho/The Final Project/Appendix

As most literary non-fiction pieces, this work blends fictional and factual elements. Its purpose is to expose the "infrastructure" of labeling and its effect on the individual, and to propose ways of changing or overcoming harmful narratives. Below is the theoretical work that inspired and supported this thesis.

Chapter I

The first question I had to address was how words acquire their meaning. To this end particularly useful is the categorization of meaning (conceptual, connotative, social, affective, reflected, collocative, thematic) by Leech, to be found in Semantics. The study of meaning. Even more fundamental is Lyon's approach in Language and Linguistics where he discusses the impossibility of defining "meaning" in semantic terms, poses the question "What is the meaning of meaning?" and makes the distinction between descriptive and non-descriptive meaning.

Further down the road, in The Power of Labelling: How People are Categorized and Why it Matters (Moncrieffe & Eyben [ed.]) it is explained how labeling works and how it affects the behavior of the ones labelled. Deeper in the subject, Cooley in Human Nature and the Social Order discusses the dynamics of society and the concept of the "looking-glass self" or how the individual internalizes other people's views (true or perceived) and behaves accordingly.

Finally (and quite practically), in "The languages with built-in sexism" Galer explains in simple terms how language affects the way we perceive the world (and gender), with examples from different languages.