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Study on Markedness in Linguistics



Author(s)

ZHANG Yan-qiu, TIAN Feng-juan

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DOI:10.17265/1539-8072/2015.09.004

Changchun University, Changchun, China

Markedness Theory is one of the most important theories in structural linguistics. Its academic significance has long attracted more scholars and linguists. This paper intends to explore markedness from both formal and semantic perspectives: formal markedness, distributional markedness, and semantic markedness. These three types of markedness are accounted for in detail from their definitions to their characteristics. Then the relationship of these three types of markedness is explicated. The ultimate aim of this paper is to give an insight to markedness phenomenon not only from linguistic form or structure, but from its semantic distinctions and pragmatic use. The study also aims to help foster the greater application of Markedness Theory to other linguistic fields’ study.

markedness, Markedness Theory, formal markedness, distributional markedness, semantic markedness