• Feelings and attitudes of the speaker or writer toward what is referred to. • e.g. statesman（commending） politician（derogatory） 女人/女流（蔑视） 老娘/老子（自负）
5.Reflected meaning(反映意义)
• porn
blue ( foreigners )
3.Social meaning(社会意义)
• What is communicated of the social circumstances of language use.语言所表达
•
• • • 的关于使用该语言的社会环境意义。 Dialect: the language of a geographical region or of a social class. Province: language of law, of science, of ad, etc. Status: polite, colloquial, slang, etc. Modality: language of memoranda, lectures, jokes, etc.
6.Collocative meaning(搭配意义)
• What is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word.（通过联
想词语的常用搭配所表达 的意义）
Semantics
The analysis of meaning
• 6.1 the study of meaning 6.2 reference and sense • 6.3 classification of lexical meanings 6.4 lexical sense relations • 6.5 describing lexical meaning: componential analysis • 6.6 words and concepts • 6.7 semantic relations of sentences • 6.8 metaphors • 6.9 metonymy
concept (thought)
symbolizes
refers to
symbol
(word)
stands for
referent
(entity)
6.3 classification of lexical meanings
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Conceptual meaning Connotative meaning Social meaning Affective meaning Reflected meaning Collocative meaning Thematic meaning
各个单词在句中所受强调的不同程度来组织信息 的方式所表达的意义） • e.g. --- What did he write?
--- He wrote Semantics. --- Who wrote Semantics? --- It was written by Leech.
6.4 lexical sense relations
Associative meaning
1.Conceptual meaning(概念意义)
• Also: sense, or logical, cognitive, referential or denotative meaning. • Concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing (content) it denotes, or refer to.
• emotional, fragile, and easily breaking into tears
connotative meaning
• Connotative meaning is subject to culture and experience. yellow ( Chinese )
• What is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression.(通过联想同一词语的其他意
思所表达的意义)
• e.g. chicken leg drumstick chicken breast white meat
• Formal: steed
• General: horse • Slang: nag • Baby language: gee-gee
•
•
Contradictory in style can cause humors
e.g. ladies and guys
前途是光明的，道路是拐弯的
4.Affective meaning(情感意义)
6.2 reference and sense
• Reference • Reference refers to the relation by which a word picks out or identifies an entity in the world. • The referential theory is the simplest theory of meaning, claiming that meaning is reference. • Sense • Words stand not only in relation to the world but also to human mind.
6.1 the study of meaning
• Meanings of ‘meaning’
meaning linguistic non-linguistic
conventional intentional
natural conventional intentional
1. Smoke means fire. 2. Red light means stopping. 3. A handshake and a hug mean the same thing. 4. What did she mean by that wink? 5. What does democracy mean ? 6. What does „Publish or Perish‟ mean ? 7. --- Are you hungry? --- Do you mean to treat me to dinner now? 8. She means well although her remarks are too harsh to accept.
Distinction between sense and reference
• Sense and reference are two terms often encountered in the study of meaning, they are two related but different aspects of meaning. • Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic forms; It is abstract and decontextualized. • Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and that non-linguistic world of experience.
6.4.1 Synonymy • Words which have different forms but
similar meanings.
dialectal synonyms synonyms of different styles
Classification
synonyms of different registers
2. Synonyms of different styles Words differing in styles or in terms of formality. e.g. gentleman – guy 马铃薯– 土豆 pass away – die
3. synonyms of different registers Words similar in meaning but used in different spheres. e.g. sodium chloride – salt
synonyms differing in affective meaning synonyms differing in collocation
1. Dialectal synonyms Words similar in meaning but used in different dialects. e.g. flat (British English) apartment (American English) autumn (British English) fall (American English) 山药---土豆
• Mother---female parent • Woman---female human adult