Lecture 6. Word meaning

Outline

1. Meaning аs an object of study

2. The referential theory of meaning

3. Grammatical and lexical meaning

4. Denotational and connotational meaning

1. Meaning аs an object of study

"Meaning", like "word", is one of the most controversial terms in linguistics. Although we often use it in teaching and translation (usually implying a synonym or a translation equivalent), the precise scientific definition of "meaning" presents a considerable difficulty. This is partly so because philosophers, psychologists, literary critics and others all take part in the study of meaning, each of them trying to adapt its definition to his own needs. So a logic may define meaning in terms of truth and falsehood; a psychologist, in terms of stimulus and reaction; a literary critic, in terms of the author’s intention and the reader’s response, etc. Ogden and Richards, the authors of the classical work on the subject, aptly titled "The Meaning of Meaning", were able to include no less than twenty-two various definitions of meaning into their book.

Even within linguistics itself, there are different schools and approaches. Ferdinand de Saussure and his followers treated meaning as the relation between something named and the name itself, and therefore part of the system of the language. On the other hand, the "descriptive" linguistics of the Bloomfield school defines meaning as the situation in which the word is uttered, and therefore part of the use to which language is put. Meaning, according to Bloomfield and his successors, is outside the structure of the language. Some of them went so far as to exclude semasiology from linguistics on the ground that "meaning could not be studied objectively". (Most linguists, however, do not share this extreme view. A prominent linguist Roman Jacobson summed it up in his joke: "Linguistics without meaning is meaningless").

As a result, there are two main approaches to the study of meaning in present-day linguistics. One is the referential approach, seeking to establish the interdependence between words and concepts. The other is the functional approach, which is less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works. All major works on semantic theory have so far been based on referential concepts of meaning, but this doesn’t mean that the functional approach should be fully ignored: it is often a useful starting point for a referential analysis, and is also widely used in various structure-oriented studies of language, such as semantic syntax and computer linguistics.

2. The referential theory of meaning

The reference-based approach to meaning distinguishes between three closely related objects: the linguistic sign the (sound-form of a word or its graphic representation); the concept, or the mental object; and the referent, i.e. the actual part of reality to which the linguistic sign refers. Their connection and interrelation is best represented by the so-called semantic triangle:

Concept

sound-form referent

[dʌv]

As is seen from the diagram, there’s no direct connection between the sign and the referent. Instead, the sound or graphic form of the linguistic sign is connected with our concept of what it denotes, and only through that with the referent, i.e. the actual animal in question.

This scheme is over-simplified and several things are left out for the sake of clarity. It is important to remember, for example, that the word is represented by the whole left-hand side of the diagram, i.e. both the sign and the underlying concept, which form an inseparable unity.

Can the linguistic meaning be identified with the concept? To begin with, concepts are mental abstractions representing the most essential features of the real world objects; therefore they are almost identical for all people, no matter what language they speak. The meanings of words, on the other hand, are different in different languages, as additional structures (semantic, grammatical, etc.) are imposed on mental concepts. The Russian дом, for example, may have two different English equivalents, house and home, depending on the aspect of the concept we have in mind. Even in the same language, we can find words expressing the same concept but having different linguistic meaning: child, baby, brat, infant.

As we see, meaning cannot be identified with the concept; but neither can it be identified with the referent. While meaning is part of the system of the language, the referent is part of the real world, and so stands outside language. Besides that, the same object may be identified by using different words with different meanings: an apple, depending on the situation, may be apple or fruit or something or simply this (if you are pointing at it). Some linguists claim meanings can be identified by giving precise, scientifically accurate definitions of their referents; but again, this is not so. One may easily speak about things one has a very approximate knowledge of, just as one can use a computer or a TV set without any real knowledge of what’s inside it. In a similar way, when we talk of water, we need not know anything about its chemical composition.

Finally, there is no direct connection between the meaning and the corresponding linguistic sign, or the form of the word. Their connection has a perfectly conventional and arbitrary character, as identical meanings could be expressed by different forms (in a different language, or even in the same language: cf. car and automobile), and different meanings could be expressed by identical forms: cf. ball – a round object used for games and ball – a gathering of people for dancing. Therefore meaning cannot be identified with any of the three parts of the semantic triangle, although it is closely associated with all of them.

The main problem with studying meaning is that, being relative by nature, it can’t be "isolated" in a "chemically pure" form. THERE IS NO WAY OF GETTING MEANING OUTSIDE LANGUAGE, and the only method of describing it is in terms of language itself. Yet, by placing different words in identical contexts (= in an identical environment) or placing identical words in different contexts, and then contrasting them, i.e. by setting up linguistic oppositions, it is possible to prove that lexical meaning is not a homogeneous unity, but is a structure made up of various components. These components are usually described as types of meaning.

The four most important types or aspects of meaning are as follows:

1) Every word combines lexical and grammatical meaning (e.g. father is a personal noun, and the opposition father / fathers reveals a regular plural number paradigm);

2) Many words not only refer to some object but also serve to express the speaker’s attitude towards that object; thus their lexical meaning splits into denotational and connotational meaning (e.g. daddy is synonymous to father, but has added colloquial overtones and is a term of endearment);

3) Denotational meaning is further segmented into semantic components, or semes (e.g. the denotational meaning of father is clearly segmented into male and parent);

4) A word may be polysemantic, i.e. it may have several meanings, all interconnected and forming its semantic structure (e.g. apart from "a male parent", "father" can refer to an ancestor, a founder of a business company, a pioneer in some field, or a Christian priest). These component meanings are often defined as lexico-semantic variants.