GROUP 6

Summary about Introduction of Meaning.

1. What is meaning?

Semantics studies the meaning of words and other parts of language, it is the systematic study of
meaning. The study of meaning can be undertaken in various ways. Speaker of the language have an
implicit knowledge about what is meaningful in their language and it is easy to show this.

2. Some types of meaning.

a. Literal meaning is “ The basic or usual meaning of a word” is the usually referred to as its literal

Meaning. Example: wing

1. Part that projects from the side of an aircraft and a support it in the air

 The two wings of an airplane.

2. Part of building the projects from the main part.

 The east/ west wings of a house.

3. Projecting part of the body of a motor vehicle above the wheel.

 The left wing of his car was damaged in the collision.

4. Part of political party that holds certain view or has particular function.

 The radical wing of the labor party.

b. Figurative meaning.

The figural meaning of the word is one which is different from it usual( literal) meaning and which

Create vivid metal images to readers or listeners.

Example : wing
 1. We hope collage life will help him to spread his wings a bit.
(= extend his activities and interests)

2. having a new baby to look after has clipped her wings a bit.

(= has prevented her from achieving her ambition)

3. She immediately took the new arrivals under her wing.

(= looked after the new arrivals)

4. He retires as chairman next year, his successor is waiting in the wings.

(= is ready to replace him)

Wings is an English word that has several closely related slightly different meanings
It is said to be polysemous.

c. Denotation.

The denotation of a word is the core, central or referential meaning of the word found in
dictionary. In English, a content word may have its denotation described in terms of a set of
semantics features that serve to identify the particular concept associated with the word.

Example 1: child is denotatively described as (+ human), (-mature) and (± male).

 Under a certain circumstance, child may positively be connected as
(+affectionate) or (+ innocent)
 Under another circumstance, child may negatively be connected as (+ noisy) or
(+ irritating).
Example 2: woman is denotatively described as {+human} and [+ female]
 Under a certain circumstance, woman may positively be connected as [+devoted]
or [+patient]
 Under another circumstance, woman may negatively be connected as [+wicked]
or [+talkative].

d. Connotation
 The connotation of word is the additional meaning that the word has beyond its denotative
meaning. It shows peoples emotions and/ or attitudes towards what the word refers to.
Connotation depend on such factors as :

 The culture in which he word is used

 The language user is family and / or educational background
 The language user is social and / or political class
 The language user is speech community and / or ethnic group
In brief these factors are by virtue of personal and cultural association.

Distinction between denotation and connotation.

Consider the following table and identify denotation and connotation via their main features.

Denotation Connotation

What a lexical item means Emotions and / or attitudes towards

what a lexical item refers to
Core, central Peripheral
Referential Social, affective
Example of Denotation and connotation.

Word: spinster

Denotation: unmarried woman

Connotation:

1. Still single after usual age for marrying.

2. Not decided by herself to stay single

3. Left in an unfavorable state

4. A symbol for some failure in life

3. Leech classification of meaning.

 1. Conceptual or denotative meaning.

a. Conceptual meaning is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is the basic prepositional
meaning which corresponds to the primary dictionary definition.

b. It is the essential or core meaning. For example /p/ can be described as- voiceless + bilabial
+plosive.

c. similarly

boy = + human +male –adult.

The hierarchical structure of “boy” = + human + male – adult.

d. it is the literal meaning of the word Indicating the idea or concept to which it the refers.

The concept is minimal unit of meaning which could be called “sememe”.

e. as we define phoneme on the basis of binary contrast, similarly we can define sememe “woman”
as = + human +female + adult.

f. conceptual meaning deals with the core meaning of expression. It is the denotative or literal
meaning it is essential for the functioning of language. For example a part of the conceptual
meaning of “ needle” may be “ thin” , “sharp” or “instrument”.

g. the main aim of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic representation to a

sentence or statement.

h. The conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning.

2. Connotative

1. Connotative meaning is the communicative value of an expression over and above its purely
conceptual content. It is something that goes beyond mere referent of word and hints at its
attributes in the real word.

2. Thus purely conceptual content of “woman” is + human +female + adult but the psychosocial
connotations could be “gregarious”, having maternal instinct or typical rather than invariable
 attributes of woman hood such as “babbling, experienced in cookery “, skirt or dress wearing
etc.

3. Socials meaning.

1. The meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social context of its use is called the
social meaning.

2. The decoding of a text is dependent on our knowledge of stylistics and other variations of
language.

3. The social meaning is related to the situation in which an utterance is used.

4. Affective or emotive meaning.

1. It refers to emotive association or effects of words evoked in the reader, listener. It is has what is

Convoyed about the personal feelings or attitude towards the listener.

2. for leech affective meaning refers to what is convoy about the feeling and attitude of speak
through use of language (attitude to listener as well as attitude to what he is saying).

5. Reflected meaning.

Reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning or multiple
conceptual meaning.

6. Collocative meaning.

Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the company of certain words.
Words collocate or co-occur with certain words only e.g. big business not large or great. Collocative
meaning refers to association of word because of its usual or habitual co- occurrence with certain
types of words. “ pretty” and “handsome” indicate “ good looking”.

7. Thematic meaning.

It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the
massage in terms of ordering focus and emphasis.
4. Sentence/word meaning and speaker meaning.

Semantics and pragmatics are both concerned with the study of meaning; we have to distinguish
between speaker meaning and sentence meaning.

Speaker meaning is what a speakers means ( intends to convey ) when he uses a piece of language.

Sentence meaning is what a sentence or word meaning.

Group 6

MUHAMMAD ISMAIL

FITRA RESKI AMALIA

A. MEDYA MIRANTI

NURUL AULIA FITRIYANTY

A. IRMA YANTI

ERNAWATI