TheMeaningof_XStudyofMeaningfromthePerspectivesofSemanticsandPragmatics
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首都师范大学学报(社会科学版)
Journal of Capital Normal University
2000年增刊(S ocial Sciences Edition)
The Meaning of“X”:Study of Meaning from the Perspectives of Semantics and Pragmatics
Zhang Hui
Abstract:This article is a tentative study of the relationship between semantics and pagmatics through a detailed analysis of Leech’s classical questions about the meaning of X.It makes a discrimination of the different aspects of meaning that the two branches of linguistics focus upon respectively.Both semantics and pragmatics are studies of the meanings of language.Semantics studies the meaning within the system of language while pragmatics studies the meaning with the speaker involved,that is to say from the social angle.Pragmatics is based on the knowledge of semantics.G iven the fact that neither semantics nor pragmatics alone can solve the myth of the meaning of language, it may not be wise to make a clear cut between semantics and pragmatics.
K ey w ords:semantics;pragmatics;meaning;Leech
In his Pri nci ples of Pragm atics Leech uses two questions:[1]What does“X”mean?[2]What did you mean by“X”?to de2 scribe the scope of two branches of linguistics: semantics and pragmatics.①This article in fact grows out of the two questions and the purpose of it is to discover the relationship and difference between semantics and pragmatics through further analysis of the two questions. As the subtitle suggests,semantics and prag2 matics are linguistic studies of“Meaning”from different perspectives:one from the an2 gle of the inner logic of language(what does “X”mean?“X”is isolated from the speaker and context here),the other from a social perspective.(What did you mean by“X”? The speaker and hearer are involved here.)Because language functions according to its in2 ner rules and it is always used in certain cir2 cumstances,the study of the meaning of lan2 guage can not be fulfilled successfully and sat2 isfactorily only by semantics or pragmatics. With this in mind,I venture to suggest that the meaning of language can never be worked out correctly and clearly without the coopera2 tion between semantics and pragmatics.The real and complete meaning of“X”will be re2 vealed only after we have answered both of Leech’s questions.
There are three factors in question[1] that are worthy of our attention.Firstly,this is a question about meaning.Secondly,this is a question about the meaning of“X”.Third2 ly,the question is asked in present tense.The
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fact that this question is sensible presupposes that there must be at least one meaning for “X”.The present tense of the question tells us the meaning is integrated in the word(or the sentence)itself.It is context2independent. Take the word“Sunday”as an example.Se2 mantics studies“What does‘Sunday’mean?”From the perspective of semantics,there is meaning for the word“Sunday”no matter it is written in a novel or on a calendar or on a jacket.The meaning of the word is valid at any time and is defined within the system of language.Thus,the meaning of“Sunday”is defined as the first day in a week and it is not Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday, Friday or Saturday.Sunday is Sunday because it is not the other days in a week.The mean2 ing of a word is defined with reference to other concepts or words within the language sys2 tem.Meaning is treated as a product of the“self2enclosed”system of language.This kind of study“deals with meaning as a dyadic rela2 tions,”“in abstraction from particular situa2 tions,speakers or hearers.”②
Let us look at another example.From the angle of semantics,the meaning of the sentence:“I will go there on Sunday”will be analyzed like this:a person(who is not he/ she or you)will go to a place(not here)when it is not Monday,Tuesday,Friday,or Satur2 day.We agree that the meaning of the sen2 tence is interpreted correctly,but only in an abstract sense.We still don’t know who the person is,what date the day is and where the place“there”is(though we know from the interpretation of semantics the place is not here).What semantics emphasizes is the meaning that is always implied by a sentence
or a word in a language system,that is to say “a semantic theory is truth2conditional.”③Sunday is never Tuesday or the other days in a week and I is never you or he(she)in the system.So we can say that semantics studies meaning within the realm of logic and rules of language.These rules are always valid as the word“does”in“What does‘X’mean?”re2 veals.The meaning or meanings of a word or a sentence are always static for semantics. The semantics studies the inner relationship between words and its attention is on the sen2 tence meanings instead of the meanings of ut2 terances.To answer the question“What did you mean by‘X’?”is out of the range of se2 mantics.That is the field of pragmatics.
Pragmatics continues the analysis of the meaning of language made by semantics that stops at a conceptual and abstract level.“There will be a great deal of the general field of meaning left unaccounted for by a restricted semantic theory,and this could indeed consti2 tute the domain of pragmatics.④That is to say pragmatics answers the question“What di d you mean by‘X’?”(italic mine).From the angle of pragmatics the meaning of Sunday is not simply described as not Monday,Tuesday and so nguage is always analyzed in cer2 tain situation or context.Without the context we cannot make out the specific and real meaning of certain utterance even with the help of the rules of language system.That is to say semantics leaves its analysis at the level of language as a pure system but pragmatics studies language in specific situation and it al2 ways associates meaning with the situation and context of the usage.This is revealed by the word“you”in question[2].Language is used
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