A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

160 dynamic linguistics/phonetics/phonology
(2) A term used by some sociolinguists to characterize a view of language
(dynamic linguistics) in which a temporal dimension is introduced into the study
of language variation: synchronic states are seen in terms of the processes
(‘waves’) of change which produce and affect them, as defined in terms of
such notions as relative rate and direction of change. A similar introduction of
the temporal dimension into an otherwise ‘static’ view of a subject is found
in parametric phonetics (dynamic phonetics), and in several contemporary
instrumental techniques for the study of articulation, as in myodynamic (muscular
movement) and aerodynamic (airflow) investigations (see articulatory
dynamics). Phonological approaches which incorporate parametric phonetic
principles are characterized as dynamic phonology.
(3) Dynamic is sometimes used in phonology for a tone which varies in
pitch range, e.g. rising or falling. Dynamic tones are usually contrasted with
static tones.
(4) Dynamic is used in functional sentence perspective, as part of the
phrase communicative dynamism, whereby an utterance is seen as a process of
gradually unfolding meaning, in which each part contributes variously (dynamically)
to the total communicative effect. See communicative dynamism.
(5) Dynamic has been used to describe a formal approach to semantics which
characterizes the meaning of a sentence as its potential to change information
states in a language user (dynamic semantics). It is opposed to a ‘static’ model,
in which meaning is viewed as equivalent to the truth conditional content of
sentences. An information state is seen as a set of possibilities – an encoding of
information about the possible denotations of the expressions of the language
and about the possible values of variables used in these expressions (anaphora).
These states are used to define the information change potential of expressions –
the change which is brought about by the utterance of a sentence. The analysis
explicates the continuous process of updating interpretations, as information
states come to be extended through the addition of new discourse information
and the elimination of certain possibilities, and as a result the approach is also
referred to as update semantics. The approach has been particularly used in
explicating pronoun co-reference and presupposition.
dynamic linguistics/phonetics/phonology see dynamic (2)
dynamic semantics see dynamic (4)
dynamic time warping
see speech recognition
dynamic verb see dynamic (1)
dynamism (n.)
see communicative dynamism