Blog Post #2

Chase Cord

Professor Ivey

COMM 160

                                                            Blog Post #2: Polysemy and family

     The topic of conversation I will be expanding on comes from my personal experiences with polysemy. This word means that something could have multiple meanings. To me, it could mean one thing and to you it could mean something else, both being valid. My outside example pertains to family and how your tribe can vary. Some people look at their family as just those who they are blood related to while others see their family as really close friends or significant others. Polysemy within families occurs from both the inside and the outside point of view. http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.linguistics.20170502.02.html   

      I see my family as those I am blood related to, through marriage and my teammates. I have been playing sports since I was six years old so I have always been around a unit that depends on each other. I have been playing football for thirteen years now and have always been the type of person to look at my teammates as brothers and consider them family. We need upmost trust and dedication to the team in order to achieve something truly amazing. Some people who have never played sports before or someone who has never been a part of a team before might not understand a situation like that. An individual who has not had to depend on anyone but their intermediate family might only consider those closest to them their "family". Also, I have a roommate that is from Kahuku, Hawaii and he refers to all adults as his "aunty" or "uncle" because in their culture it is seen as a form of respect. He always calls a lot of other Hawaiian or Samoan friends "uncle" or "uce" which is slang for "brother" or "friend". This is exactly where polysemy comes in. There is definitely a diversity in meanings when it comes to different perspectives and point of views. 

     This concept is important to understand because the different types of connections that could be made. Diversity within the view of family could begin with sporting teams, blood relation, even cultural experience. Someone from Arizona might have different cultural experiences than someone from Hawaii, for example. The culture as a whole is more unified and looked at as one big family. Polysemy and Family relations connect in different ways and could been seen in more ways than one.