Seven Types of Meaning

Seven types of Meaning

Generally meaning means the communication through language. Words,  phrases, clauses clauses and sentences sentences have meanings, meanings, which are studied studied in semantics. semantics. A  piece of language language conveys its dictionary dictionary meaning, connotation connotation beyond the dictionary meaning, and information about the social context of language use. Speaker's feelings and attitudes are rubbing off one meaning on another meaning of the same word when it has two meanings and meaning because of habitual cooccurrence. Geoffrey Geoffrey !eech has given seven types of meanings"

1) Conceptual/Denotative meaning: 

#t is variously called denotative, referential, cognitive, logical meaning. #t is an important factor in linguistic communication$ it deals with the core meaning of expression. #t is the basic prepositional meaning, which corresponds to the  primary dictionary dictionary definition$ such a meaning meaning is stylistically stylistically neutral neutral and ob%ective as opposed to the other kinds of associative meanings. #t is the essential core meaning while the others are peripheral in a sense nonessential meaning. &hey are stylistically marked and sub%ective kinds of meaning.

e.g.p can be described as vd( bilabial( plosive similarly 'boy' can be described as human( male( adult. &he hierarchical structure of sspsdetnp codetn. Similarly boy ) (human (male adult and hierarchy will be" human  malefemale. *onceptual meaning is literal meaning of the word indicating the idealconcept to which it refers. &he concept is a minimal unit of meaning, which could be called 'sememe'. As we define sememe 'woman' as (woman (female( adult. #f any of these attribute change the concept ceases to be the same.

Associative +eaning"  !eech uses this as 'an umbrella' term for the remaining six types of meanings. All these have more in common with connotative than conceptual meaning. &hey all have the same openended variable character and can be analyed in terms of scales or ranges -moreless than in eitheror contrastive terms. &hese meanings contain many imponderable factors.

2) Connotative Meaning: 

#t is the communication value of an expression. #t refers to over and above the  purely conceptual 'meaning of an expression. #t is something that goes beyond mere referent of a word and hints at its attributes in the real world. &hus purely conceptual meaning of 'woman' is (human (female (adult, but psychosocial

connotations could be gregarious having maternal instinct or typical attributes of womanhood such as babbling, experienced in cooking, skirtsari wearing etc. Still further connotative meaning can embrace the portative properties of a referent due to viewpoint adopted by an individualgroupsociety as a whole. So in the past woman was supposed to have attributes like frail, prone to tears, emotional, irrational, inconstant, cowardly etc. as well as positive /ualities such as gentle, sensitive, loving, compassionate, hardworking etc. sometimes connotations vary from person to person also e.g. A cynic person's connotations with word 'woman' and feminist persons connotations will be definitely different. *onnotative meaning is regarded as incidental, comparatively unstable, and indeterminate.

3) Social Meaning: 

#t is related to situation in which an utterance is used. #t is that which is a piece of language conveys about the social context of its use. &he decoding of the social meaning of a text is dependent on our knowledge of stylistic and other variations of language. #t is concerned with the social circumstances of the use of linguistic expression. We recognie some words or pronunciations as being dialectical or social origin of the speaker.

e.g. 0 # ain't done nothing ) black 'Am' uneducated speaker. 1 *ome on yaar be a sport. 2on't be lallu. Social meaning #ndian young close friends. Similarly styles convey about relationship between the speaker and hearer situation etc. Stylistic variation represents the social variations. &his is because styles show the geographical region and social class of the speaker. Style helps us to know about the period field and the status of the discourse. Some words are similar to others as far as their conceptual meaning is concerned but they have different stylistic meanings, e.g. 'steed, horse and nag' are synonyms. &hey all are meant a kind of  animal i.e. horse. 3ut they different in style and so have various social meanings. Steed is used in poetry$ horse is used in general while nag is slang, e.g. father

4 formal context

daddy

4 home conversation

dad

4

collo/uial

Stylistic variations are also found in sentences, e.g. &wo criminals will express the example the following sentence"5&hey chucked a stone at the cop and then did a bunk with the loot5.

3ut the same idea will be revealed by the chief inspector to his officers by the following sentence" 'After casting a stone at the police they absconded the money'. &he illocutionary force of an utterance also can have social meaning. According to the social situation a sentence may be uttered as a re/uest, an apology, a warning or threat. e.g. 5# haven't got a knife5. 6as the common meaning in isolation. 3ut the sentence uttered to a writer will mean a re/uest for a knife. 4) Affective

Meaning:-

7or some linguistics it refers to emotive associations or effects of words evoked in the readerlistener, e.g. 'home' for a sailorsoldier expatriate and mother for motherless child. A married woman especially in #ndian context will have special effectiveemotive /uality. Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptualconnotativecontext of the word used. e.g. 58ou are vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobate and # hate you or # hate you, you idiot5. 6ere we are left with little doubt about the speaker's feelings towards the listener. 3ut very often we are more discreet and convey our attitude directly. &hus 5# am terribly sorry but # wonder if you would be so kind as to lower your voice a little5. 7or the sake of politeness intonation and voice /uality is also important here. &hus, the above sentence can be uttered in tone of biting sarcasm and the impression

of politeness may be reversed while 5Will you belt up95 *an be turned into a  playful remark. 7inally associative meaning is largely a parasite category overlaps heavily with style connotations and conceptual content.

5) eflective Meaning:-

:eflective and collocative meanings are involving interaction at the lexical level of language. :eflective meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning. #n such cases, while responding to one sense of the word too. !eech says that in church service '&he comforter and the 6oly ghost' refer to the third in the &rinity but unconsciously there is response to their non religious meaning too. ;ne sense of the words seems to rub off on another especially through relative fre/uency and familiarity, e.g. a ghost is more fre/uent and familiar in non religious sense.

:eflected meaning is also found in taboo words, e.g. the word s intercourse, e%aculation, erection etc. &he sexual association with sex its innocent sense. &he taboo sense of word is so dominant that its nontaboo sense almost dies out. #n cases the< speaker are avoids the taboo words and use their alternative words in order to avoid the unwanted reflective meaning.

e.g. As 3loomfield has pointed out, the word 'cock' is replaced by speakers  by the word 'roaster' to indicate general meaning of the word and avoid its taboo sense.

!) Collocative Meaning:-

*ollocative meaning is the meaning, which a word ac/uires in the company of certain words. &he words collocate or cooccur with certain words only. *ollocative refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co occurrence with certain types of the words. &hus 'pretty and handsome' both mean the same but 'handsome' collocates with manboysalarytypewriter etc. while pretty collocates with woman, girl, car or flower etc. So pretty woman and handsome man are indicate good or woman because of their habitual co occurrence.

") #$ematic Meaning:-

#t refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or writer organie the messages. #n terms of ordering focus, emphasis various parts of the sentence such as sub%ect, ob%ect, complement can be used for prominence.

e.g. +rs. Smith donated the prie. Seems to answer the /uestion What did +rs. Smith donate9 While the first prie donated by +rs. Smith seems to answer the /uestion Who donate the first prie9 &he first suggest that we already know +rs.

Smith. &hematic meaning is largely a matter of choice between alternative grammatical constructions as in" i A man is walking in the hall &here is a man walking in the hall, ii &hey stopped at the end of the corner  At the end of the corner they stopped. Sometimes the thematic contrasts i.e. contrast between given and new information can be conveyed by lexical means. e.g. =ohn owns the biggest shop in !ondon, or &he biggest shop in !ondon  belongs to =ohn. Sometimes stress and intonation conveys this kind of contrast. e.g. 3ill uses an electric raor. -#t is an electric raor that 3ill uses. 7inally it is not always easy to demarcate one meaning from the other type.

3ibliography 0 +odern Applied !inguistics  >. ?rishnswamy, S.?. @erma -1B +acmillan Cublication, #ndia

1 Socio linguistics  6udson, -0DE *ambridge Cress.

F Crinciples of Cragmatics  Geoffrey !eech -0DEB, !ongman.

Conclusion:

Study of meaning, on of the ma%or areas in linguistic study. !inguistic have approached it in a verity of ways .+embers of the school of interpretive semantics study the structure of language independent of their conditions of use. #n a contrastive way, the advocates of generative semantics insist that the meaning of sentences is functional in their use. Still another group maintains the semantics will not advance until theorists take in account the psychological /uestion of how  people from concepts and how these relate to words' meanings.