词汇学 教案 Chapter 5-7

Chapter 5 Word Meaning and Componential Analysis

5.1 Word Meaning

1. What is ‘word meaning’?

Word meaning can be defined as a reciprocal relation between name and meaning. ‘Meaning’ is what the form stands for.

Eg: desk: something you sit at and you do your work

There are two aspects to the meaning of a word: denotation and connotation. The process by which the word refers to the referent is called "denotation". For example, the denotation of "dog" is "canine quadruped". The denotative meaning of a word usually refers to the dictionary definition of a word. As opposed to denotation, connotation refers to the emotional aspect of a word. For example, the connotation of "dog" might include "friend", "helper", "competition", etc.

2. What is reference?

It is the relationship between language and the world. By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about. In other words, only when a connection has been established between the linguistic sign and a referent, i.e., an object, a phenomenon, a person, etc. does the sign become meaningful.

The reference of a word to a thing outside the language is arbitrary and conventional.

3. What is concept?

It is the general idea or meaning which is associate with a word or symbol in a person’s mind.

What’s the relationship between meaning and concept?

1)They are both related directly to referents and are notions of the words but

belong to different categories.

2)Concept, which is beyond language, is the result of human cognition,

reflecting the objective world in the human mind. Concept is universal to all men alike regardless of culture, race, and language and so on.

3)But meaning belongs to language, so is restricted to language use. A concept

can have as many referring expressions as there are languages in the world.

Even in the same language, the same concept can be expressed in different words.

Meaning is closely related to a concept, but they are not identical. A concept is the base of the meaning of a word. A word is used to label a concept. It acts as the symbol for that concept. The concept is abstracted from the person, thing, relationship, idea, event, and so on, that we are thinking about. We call this the referent. The word labels the concept, which is abstracted from the referent; the word denotes the referent, but does not label it. This approach to meaning can be diagrammed as follows: word - concept – referent

The formula shows that the word refers to the referent through a concept.

A concept is an abstraction from things of the same kind.

4. What is sense?

The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with