Semantics


SEMANTICS



Semantics may be defined as the "study of meaning". The word "semantic" is derived from the Greek noun "sema" ("sign, signal"), and the verb "semaino" ("signal", to mean/signify) and from the French word "semantique" which is related to the connotation of the words "semaino" and "sema".

In other words, it is that aspect of linguistics which deals with the relation between referent (names) and referends (things) - that is, the linguistic levels (words, expressions and phrases) and the objects, concepts or idea to which they refer. This field of study occurs in two aspects: diachronic and synchronic. Diachronic or historical semantics studies the semantic changes during the ages. Synchronic or descriptive semantics deals with the application of appropriate word selecting from synonyms in order to make the expression right and forceful. It also studies the way of paraphrasing, transformation and detecting the ambiguities. 

How is meaning conveyed?

The speaker thinks, encode his thought in language and delivers the message in the form of sound which are transmitted over the medium (eg: air) and which are heard by the hearer, decoded by him and understood. This process is reversed and it is hereby respected. The signal and code of it are the same for the members of one particular speech community. Anything that stands in the way of communication is referred to as "noise".

Naming Things

Traditional grammar was founded on the assumption that the word was the basic unit of syntax and semantics. The word was a sign composed of two parts: form and meaning. It focuses on the relationship between words and the things referred to or "signified". For Socrate and Plato, the semantic relationship between words and things was the relationship of "naming". In course of the development of traditional grammar, it becomes customary to distinguish between the meaning of a word and the "thing" or "things" which are named by it. 

The medieval grammarians held that the form of a word signified "thing" by virtue of the "concept" associated with the form of the word in the words of the speaker of the language. The "concept" was the meaning of the word.

  1. Full words or                                                   eg: zoo, apple... and                                                     Empty words  or                                             eg: of, that, by... (words which show the                                                                                              relationship between syntactic units)
  2. Descriptive meaning/ denotative meaning which is straightforward and                                            connotative meaning/ emotive meaning.                                                                                             eg: "adolescent" - can be taken to mean someone who is between childhood and adulthood, some people use it to imply that the person concerned is also likely to be awkward, immature, obstinate and moody.
  3. We must be aware that meaning is double-faced. The meaning of a lexical item such as tree must be considered in two ways: first of all as one element in a language system, whose "meaning" is dependent on relationship with the other words in the system. Second, its meaning is linked up with certain clan of recognizable objects in the external world. i.e.. the word can be modified with other words. eg: tree is modified with "coconut" ("mango" to form "coconut tree" or "mango tree" etc.)
Reference (relationship between word+ things)

The modern name for "things" is the term "referent". The relationship which holds between words and things is the relationship of reference. Words refers to things. The relationship between form and referent is indirect. The form is related to its referent through the mediating (conceptual) meaning associated with both independently. 

How do we understand the meaning?

Human life encompasses three worlds of experience: the cognitive, the physical and the linguistic. Corresponding to these worlds, we have three concepts: IDEA, ITEM and LABEL. We include here both "real" and "imaginary" experience as part of the physical experience.

The physical world gives us items, actions, responses, qualities etc. The cognitive world conceives them in terms of idea and also associates them with other items. The linguistic world labels the items as conceived by our cognitive world.

The idea is represented by the label - and the label signifies the item. The item realizes the idea. The idea manifests itself in the item and idea is fixed in our minds by the label; the use of the label is reinforced by the item. These are eventually defining relationships among the three different but complementary worlds of experience. meaning subsumes our conceptualization of these relationships. It is important to note that meaning cannot be assumed to exist independent of conceptualization which is shared by the members of a speech community.

Elements of Meaning

Meaning in a general sense takes care of almost everything that transpires between encoder (sender) and the decoder (receiver) of a message through a code (medium, i.e. language). Geoffrey Leech breaks down "meaning" into 7 types:

  1. Conceptual meaning
  2. connotative meaning
  3. Stylistic meaning
  4. Affective meaning
  5. Reflected meaning
  6. Collocative meaning
  7. Thematic meaning
Conceptual meaning or denotation deals with the Core meaning of expressions. It refers to the relationship between the 3 worlds of experiences. Conceptually "cow" is an adult female bovine animal. Connotative meaning is the meaning which is attributed to a given expression by its users. So it is not part of what is conceived; it is a part of what is perceived. For eg: the fact that a cow is a sacred animal is part of connotative meaning. (This is part of conceptual memory).

Stylistic meaning is the meaning conveyed by an expression regarding the sociocultural backdrop of the users of a language. For example, the "informality" associated with the word "buck" for a dollar or rupee is the stylistic meaning of the word.

Affirmative meaning comprises the personal feelings of the encoder including his/her attitude to the decoder and to the topic of discourse (death).

Reflected meaning is the effect of one meaning on another meaning of the same word. 
Eg: the word "simple" has several meanings, for example "natural", naïve, in a sentence like "his responses are simple and straight", the encoder maybe using "simple" to mean "natural", but the other meaning, i.e. "naïve" may be reflected on the intended meaning.

Collocative meaning consists of the meaning acquired by a word under the influence of words with which it occurs. Eg: the meaning of "strong" gets specified by the word it co-occurs with eg: "strong coffee" and "strong argument".

Thematic meaning is the meaning conveyed by the structure of discourse, topic of discourse and focus of discourse. Topic or themes what/who we talk about. Focus is the new information we give to the learner.

Leech uses a core term, for reflected meaning, collocative meaning, affective meaning, stylistic meaning and connotative meaning i.e. ASSOCIATIVE MEANING, because they are all open-ended in character. 

Prepared by:
Dr. Susan Mathew
CMS College Kottayam

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