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Types of Meaning
5.3
Types of Meaning
Word-meaning is not monogeneous but a composite consisting of different
parts. These are known in familiar terms as different types of meaning.
These meanings are not all found in every word. A word may have one type
of meaning or a combination of more types. Some types of meanings may
appear more prominent in certain words than in others. Some meanings are
constant, and others may be transient, existing only in actual contexts.
All these form part of the study of semantics and prove to be very important
in the use of words. This section will discuss in brief each type of meaning.
¢¢¢ Grammatical
meaning
¢¢¢ Lexical meaning
5.
3.1. Grammatical
Meaning and Lexical
Meaning
As
mentioned earlier, grammatical meaning refers to that part of the meaning
of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships such
as part of speech of words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), singular
and plural meaning of nouns, tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional
forms (forget, forgets, forgot, forgotten, forgetting). Grammatical
meaning of a word becomes important only when it is used in actual context.
For example, 'The dog is chasing a cat.' The words dog and cat
are nouns and both are singular used as subject and object in the sentence
respectively; is chasing is the predicate verb in present continuous tense,
and the and a are determiners, restricting the referent and indicating
number. Unlike lexical meaning, different lexical items, which have different
lexical meanings, may have the same grammatical meaning, e.g. tables,
men, oxen, potatoes (having the same plural meaning) and taught,
worked, forgave (having the same tense meaning). On the other hand,
the same word may have different grammatical meaning as shown in forget,
forgets, forgot, forgotten, forgetting. Functional words, though having
little lexical meaning, possess strong grammatical meaning whereas content
words have both meanings, and lexical meaning in particular. The following
are all part of grammatical meaning:
--singular and plural meaning of nouns
--tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional forms
--transitive and intransitive
--countable and uncountable
--agreement in number and person
Lexical meaning and grammatical meaning make up the word-meaning. It is
known that grammatical meaning surfaces only in use. But lexical meaning
is constant in all the content words within or without context as it is
related to the notion that the word conveys. Lexical meaning itself has
two components: conceptual
meaning and associative
meaning.
¢¢¢ Conceptual
meaning
¢¢¢ Associative
meaning
5.
3. 2. Conceptual Meaning and Associative Meaning
Conceptual meaning (also known as denotative meaning) is the meaning
given in the dictionary and forms the core of word?meaning. Being constant
and relatively stable, conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication
as the same word has the same conceptual meaning to all the speakers of
the same language. Take 'The sun rises in the east' for example. The word
sun here means 'a heavenly body which gives off light, heat, and energy',
a concept which is understood by anyone who speaks English.
Associative meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual
meaning. It differs from the conceptual meaning in that it is open-ended
and indeterminate. It is liable to the influence of such factors as culture,
experience, religion, geographical region, class background, education,
etc. Their characteristics are summed up as follows:
Conceptual meaning
5. fundamental
6. universal
7. stable
Associative meaning
5. secondary
6. open-ended/indeterminate
7. personal
Associative meaning comprises four types: connotative坪梱, stylistic猟悶,
affective秤湖, and collocative喜塘.
¢¢¢¢ Connotative
meaning
1.
Connotative meaning.
In contrast to denotative meaning, connotative meaning refers to the overtones
or associations suggested by the conceptual meaning, traditionally known
as connotations. It is not an essential part of the word-meaning, but
associations that might occur in the mind of a particular user of the
language. For example, mother, denoting a 'female parent', is often associated
with 'love', 'care', 'tenderness', 'forgiving', etc. These connotations
are not given in the dictionary, but associated with the word in actual
context to particular readers or speakers. Another example is home, whose
conceptual meaning is a 'dwelling place'. When readers come across the
term in actual reading, they may make out more sense than that. It may
remind them of their 'family, friends, warmth, safety, love, convenience',
etc. These connotations are implied in the well-known sayings 'East or
west, home is best' and 'There is no place like home.'
Connotative meaning is unstable, varying considerably according to culture,
historical period, and the experience of the individual. Suppose a child
is prejudiced against, often jeered at, beaten or scolded at home, then
home to him is nothing but 'the hell', hence unfavourable connotations.
It may mean 'indifference', 'hatred', 'disgust' and so on. Even a phrase
like son of a bitch which normally has an associative meaning of
crude vulgarity may convey the connotation of 'friendliness' and 'intimacy'
used between two close friends when they meet after some prolonged period
of time, e.g. 'And how are you doing, you old son of a bitch.'
Look at more examples:
Chinese
Western
dragon:
power
violence
prosperity
monster
good fortune
majesty
Be a man.
man:
strength
decisiveness
wisdom
courage
Christmas:
gifts
feasts
merry-making
traveling
holiday
¢¢¢¢ Stylistic
meaning
2.
Stylistic meaning.
Apart from their conceptual meanings, many words have stylistic features,
which make them appropriate for different contexts. These distinctive
features form the stylistic meanings of words. In some dictionaries, these
stylistic features are clearly marked as 'formal', 'informal', 'literary',
'archaic', 'slang' and so on. For instance, pregnant, expecting, knocking
up, in the club, etc, all can have the same conceptual meaning, but
differ in their stylistic values. Words such as facticity, plausibility,
legitimacy are obviously formal and appropriate for technical writing.
This stylistic difference is especially true of synonyms. It is observed
that there are few words which have both the same conceptual meaning and
the stylistic meaning. Martin Joos in his book The Five Clocks
suggests five degrees of formality: 'frozen', 'formal', 'consultative',
'casual' and 'intimate'. Accordingly, the synonyms charger, steed,
horse, nag, plug can be labelled in the same order. People generally
do not go that far. They normally classify styles into 'formal', 'neutral'
and 'informal'. In such terms charger and steed should be
marked 'formal', nag and plug 'informal' and horse
'general' or 'neutral'. Compare the following two groups of synonyms:
charger
frozen
steed
formal
horse
consultative
nag
casual
plug
intimate
Neutral
Formal
room
chamber
finish
complete
send
dispatch
try
endeavour
get
obtain
domicile
(very formal, official)
diminutive
(very formal)
residence
(formal)
tiny
(colloquial)
abode
(poetic)
wee
(colloquial, dialectal)
home
(general)
Leech also illustrates the stylistic distinction in the following two
sentences:
[22] They chucked a stone at the cops, and then did a bunk with the loot.
[23] After casting a stone at the police, they absconded with the money.
Apart from the structural difference, the stylistic features of words
are obvious. Sentence [22] could be said by two criminals, talking casually
about the crime afterwards, so all the words used in italics are slangy,
whereas sentence [23] might be said by the chief inspector in making his
official report, and thus the words used are literary (cast, abscond)
or neutral (police, money).
¢¢¢¢ Affective
meaning
3.
Affective meaning.
Affective meaning indicates the speaker's attitude towards the person
or thing in question. This meaning can be overtly and explicitly conveyed
simply by the choice of the right words as many have emotive content in
themselves, e.g. vicious, villainous, tyrant, love, hate, anger, grief,
pleasure. Interjections are affective words as they are expressions
of emotions such as oh, dear me, alas, hurrah.
Words
that have emotive values may fall into two categories: appreciative or
pejorative. Words of positive overtones are used to show appreciation
or the attitude of approval such as famous, determined, slim/slender,
black; those of negative connotations imply disapproval, contempt
or criticism, e.g. notorious, pigheaded, skinny, nigger.
appreciative
pejorative
(commendatory)
(derogatory)
famous
notorious
determined
pigheaded
slim/slender
skinny/bony/skeleton
black
nigger
Just like connotative meaning, affective meaning varies from individual
to individual, from culture to culture, from generation to generation,
from society to society. Words like revolution, freedom, democracy,
imperialism may have quite different meanings in different societies and
sometimes these 'motive' overtones are more important in the words' use
than the denotations (Jackson 1988). Another example is the word dog
which may have quite different affective meanings in different societies.
In most Western countries, dog is associated with 'loyalty', 'faithfulness',
'a close companion' and all positive qualities, whereas to Chinese, dog
at its best is a useful animal. As a matter of fact, it generally generates
negative associations. If a person is compared to a dog, the speaker's
attitude towards the person is no more than 'contemptuous'. In many cases,
the appreciative or pejorative meaning of the words are brought out in
context:
[24a] He is bright and ambitious.
[24b] Knowledge of inequality has stimulated envy, ambition and greed.
[24c] The reactionary's chief ambition is to become the emperor.
[24d] One who is filled with ambition usually works hard.
In sentences [24a] and [24d], the italicised words are obviously used
in good sense showing approval on the part of the speaker. In sentences
[24b] and [24c], however, ambition undoubtedly conveys a pejorative overtone.
Therefore, to a large extent the affective meaning of the word depends
on the context where the word is used.
¢¢¢¢ Collocative
meaning
4.
Collocative meaning.
This meaning consists of the associations a word acquires in its collocation.
In other words, it is that part of the word-meaning suggested by the words
before or after the word in discussion. The synonyms of pretty and handsome
offer good illustration. These two words share the conceptual meaning
of 'good-looking', but are distinguished by the range of nouns they collocate
with:
It may be noted that there is some overlap between the collocations of
the two words, e.g. pretty woman and handsome woman. Though
both are perfectly correct, yet they suggest a different kind of attractiveness.
A pretty woman stresses the attractiveness of facial features while
a handsome woman may not be facially beautiful yet is attractive
in other respects: a slender figure, posture, behaviour, etc. The same
is true of tremble and quiver, both meaning `shake involuntarily', but
people tremble with fear and quiver with excitement, showing different
implications.
It is again noticeable that collocative meaning overlaps with stylistic
and affective meanings because in a sense both stylistic and affective
meanings are revealed by means of collocations. As Nida notes, one can
often tell what work a person has been doing by the kinds of stains on
clothing, so a word in particular contexts is likely to acquire associative
meanings reflecting such usage. Green is a kind of colour but its
meaning is obviously affected when it occurs in such phrases as green
on the job, green fruit, green with envy, and green-eyed monster.
green
on the job
(inexperienced)
green fruit
(unripe)
green with envy
(extremely
envious)
green-eyed monster
(green
colour)
Every dog has his day. (person)
Let sleeping dogs lie. (trouble)
Love me, love my dog. (friend)
summry
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