第五章 语义学

Derogatory ruthless obstinate sly, crafty childish wiseguy freak fleshy, fat, tubby lean, lanky, weedy, craggy politician
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(5) Reflected meaning

Leech also uses Sense as a briefer term for his conceptual meaning (Meaning in narrow sense). Leech also adopted Communicative Value as an umbrella term covering all the seven meanings (Meaning in wide sense).



You‟re a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobate, and I hate you for it! （direct expression of hatred)） I‟m terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if you would be so kind as to lower your voices a little. or Will you belt up？

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


Pragmatics:

The meaning of utterances
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Semantic Meaning


Semantics is the study of meaning in language. Meaning has been studied for thousands of years by philosophers, logicians and linguists. E.g. Plato & Aristotle.
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Step mother
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Lexical connotation plays an important role in both everyday conversation and literature works. Gold often indicates wealth, value, happiness; Moon indicates peace, purity, love, loneliness; Star is remote, eternal, simple; Sea is vast, profound, violent; Ice connotes death, cold.


(4) Affective meaning

What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer. (关于讲话人/写文章的人的感情和态度的
意义)

Reflecting the personal feelings of the speaker, including his attitude to the listener, or his attitude to something he is talking about.
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The Meaning of Meaning

C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (1923). The Meaning of Meaning. There are 16 major categories of them, with sub-categories all together, numbering 22.
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‘Colorful‟ meaning
Commendatory tough-minded resolute, firm shrewd childlike wiseman man of unusual talent portly, stout, solid slender, slim statesman
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(1) Conceptual meaning (Sense +Reference)

Also called „denotative‟ (Reference) or „cognitive‟ meaning (Sense).

Refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content. (关于逻辑、认知
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(3) Social meaning


What is communicated of the social circumstances of language use (关于语言运用的社 会环境的意义) or What a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use.
Dialect: the language of a geographical region or of a social class. Time: the language of the 18th c., etc. Province（使用域）: language of law, of science, of advertising, etc. Status（等级）: polite, colloquial, slang, etc. 15
What is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression. (通过与同一个词语的另一意义的联想 来传递的意义。) Arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense. For
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The denotation of this example is olive branch. The connotation is a symbol of peace or goodwill. Some explanations center on that olive trees take a very long time to bear fruit. Thus the cultivation of olives is something that is generally impossible in time of war. The denotation of this example is a red rose with a green stem. The connotation is that it is a symbol of passion and love ------this is what the rose represents. The denotation is a brown cross. The connotation is a symbol of religion； to be more specific this is a symbol of Christianity.
/认识、或所指内容的意义)Concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to.
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(2) Connotative meaning


What is communicated by virtue of what language refers to (通过语言所指事物来传递的意义) The communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.



domicile: very formal, official residence: formal abode: poetic home: general
steed: poetic horse: general nag: slang gee-gee: baby language
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The denotation is a representation of a cartoon heart. The connotation is a symbol of love and affection, not in the way of a rose, but a symbol of true love.
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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.