Chapter 5 Meaning (新版)

Chapter Five Meaning1

Introduction: The study of meaning

Semantics: the study of meaning英文semantics来自希腊语semantikos,意思是 significant(有意义)。是研究语言意义的科学。

Linguistic semantics: the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular

The meaning of words: Lexical semantics The meaning of sentences: Propositional meaning, compositional meaning The meaning of utterances: Pragmatics2

Meaning has always been a central topic in human scholarship. Meaning has been studied for thousands of years by philosophers, logicians and linguists, e.g. Plato & Aristotle.

Logicians and philosophers have tended to concentrate on a restricted range of sentences (typically, statements, or propositions ) within a single 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.

5.1 Meanings of MEANING

The word “meaning” has different meanings. C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (1923). The Meaning of Meaning. John means to write. A green light means to go.

Health means everything.

His look was full of meaning.

What is the meaning of life?

What does capitalist mean to you?

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.

Geoffrey Leech (1974, 1981). Semantics: The

Study of Meaning

Seven types of meaning:Conceptual meaning Connotative meaning Social meaning Affective meaning Reflected meaning Collocative meaning Thematic meaning

Associative Meaning

(1) Conceptual meaning

Also called denotative or cognitive meaning.Refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content. Concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to.

(2) Connotative meaning

The communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.

A multitude of additional, non-criterial properties, including not only physical characteristics but also psychological and social properties, as well as typical features.

Involving the 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 inpidual.

Any characteristic of the referent, identified subjectively or objectively, may contribute to the connotative meaning of the expression which denotes it.13

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