1. Meaning as a Linguistic Notion

There are three main categories of definitions of meaning which may be referred to as

• referential or analytical definitions of meaning;

• functional or contextual definitions of meaning;

• operational or information-oriented definitions of meaning.

1. Referential or Analytical Definitions of Meaning

The essential characteristic of the referential approach is that it distinguishes the three components closely connected with meaning:

1. the sound-form of the linguistic sign;

2. the concept underlying this sound-form;

3. the referent, i.e. the part or aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign refers.

The referential model of meaning is the so-called “basic triangle” which is graphically represented on Diagram 1.

The sound-form of the linguistic sign [dav] is connected with our concept of the bird which it denotes and through it with the referent, i.e. the actual bird. The questions arise: in what way does meaning correlate with each element of the triangle and in what relation does meaning stand to each of them?

1. It is easily observed that the sound-form of the word is not identical with its meaning. There is no inherent connection between the sound-cluster [dav] and the meaning of the word dove. The connection is conventional and arbitrary. This can be easily proved by comparing the sound-forms of different languages conveying one and the same meaning: English [dav] and Russian [golub]. The words have different sound-forms but express the same meaning.

2. When we examine a word we see that its meaning though closely connected with the underlying concept or concepts is not identical with it or with them. Concept is a category of human cognition (категория мышления). Concept is the thought of an object that singles out its essential features. Concepts are the results of abstraction and generalization. Thus they are almost the same for the whole of humanity in one and the same period of its historical development. The meanings of words, however, are different in different languages.

3. Distinguishing meaning from the referent, i.e. from the thing denoted by linguistic sign, is of the utmost importance. To begin with, meaning is linguistic whereas the denoted object or the referent is beyond the scope of language. One and the same object can be denoted by more than one word of a different meaning. For example, in speech the referent cat can be denoted by the word cat, animal, pussy, Tom, this, pet, etc. All these words have the same referent, but different meanings. Besides, there are words that have distinct meaning but do not refer to any existing thing, e.g. mermaid – “an imaginary sea creature that has the upper body of a woman and fish’s tail”; angel – “a spirit that in some religions is believed to live in heaven with God; in pictures, angels are shown as people with wings”.

The conclusion is that meaning is not to be identical with any of the three points of the triangle – the sound-form, the concept and the referent, but is closely connected with them.