Meaning has been studied for thousands of years by philosophers, logicians and linguists. E.g. Plato & Aristotle.
3
Logicians and philosophers have tended to concentrate on a restricted range of sentences (typically, statements, or ‘propositions’) within a single language.
Any characteristic of the referent, identified subjectively or objectively, may contribute to the connotative meaning of the expression which denotes it.
Concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to.
11
(2) Connotative meaning
The communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.
Linguistic semantics vs. Logical semantics/philosophical semantics
Pragmatics:
The meaning of utterances
2
2. Semantic Meaning
Semantics is the study of meaning in language.
The linguistic approach is broader in scope, aiming to study the properties of meaning in a systematic and objective way, with reference to as wide a range of utterances and languages as possible.
Associative Meaning
Collocative meaning
Thematic meaning
10
(1) Conceptual meaning
Also called ‘denotative’ or ‘cognitive’ meaning.
Refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content.
Chapter Five Meaning
1
1. The Study of Meaning
Semantics:
The meaning of words: Lexical semantics
The meaning of sentences: Propositional meaning, compositional meaning
6
What is the meaning of life?
7
What does ‘capitalist’ mean to you?
8
What does ‘cornea’ mean? The transparent, convex, anterior portion of
the outer fibrous coat of the eyeball that covers the iris and the pupil and is continuous with the sclera.
A multitude of additional, non-criterial properties, including not only physical characteristics but also psychological and social properties, as well as typical features.
9
Geoffrey Leech (1974, 1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning. Seven types of meaning:
Conceptual meaning
Connotative meaning
Social meaning Affective meaning Reflected and meaning
13
14
Step mother
15
16
17
(3) Social meaning
What a piece of language conveys about the social circumstae ‘real world’ experience one associates with an expression when one uses or hears it.
Unstable: they vary considerably according to culture, historical period, and the experience of the individual.
4
3. The meaning of meaning
C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (1923).
The Meaning of Meaning.
John means to write. A green light means to go.
5
Health means everything. His look was full of meaning.