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1、Word Meaning,Overview,Word MeaningConventionality & MotivationMain types of word meaning,Word Meaning,Meanings of meaningMeaning is elusive( difficult to define or describe ) in the English language and does not seem to be stable. We use language to talk about things in the world around us, there is
2、 obviously a connection of some sort between words and expressions and things they can be used to refer to. We have some kind of mental conceptions of the things in our world and that these conceptions are linked both to the words in our language and to the things themselves.,1. What is the meaning
3、of word? 2. Life without faith has no meaning. 3. What do you mean by the word concept? 4. Dark clouds mean rain.,Symbol: the linguistic element, that is, the word, sentence, etc.Referent: the object in the world of experience Thought/reference: conceptAccording to the theory of semiotic triangle, t
4、here is no direct link between symbol and referent (between language and the world) _ the link is via thought (the concepts of our minds).,Whenever we have a word, there will be a concept, from which the meaning of a word is derived. Part of the word meaning is the reference. Reference is the conven
5、tional or arbitrary relationship between language and the world.,Concept: Though meaning and concept are closely related, they belong to different categories: Concept is the result of human cognition while meaning is the result of language use.Sense: Sense denotes the intrinsic semantic relationship
6、 inside the language. It is not concerned with the connection between words and what these words indicate in the world. The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language.,Conventionality,Different languages can use different symbols
7、(words) to signify the same thing. house maison (家屋) fang zi (房子),Another convincing evidence of the conventional or arbitrary nature of the connection between symbol and meaning is a set of homophones: write, right and riteThey are pronounced the same but convey different meanings.,Whats in a name?
8、That which we call a roseBy the other name Would smell as sweet - Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet “words have no meaning; people have meaning for them.” -Eric Partridge,To sum up, Most English words are conventional, arbitrary symbols; consequently, there is no intrinsic relation between the sound-sym
9、bol and its sense.,Motivation,Motivation refers to the connection between word-symbol and its sense. From the point of view of motivation, the great majority of English words are non-motivated, however, there is a small group of words that can be described as motivated. That is, a direct connection
10、between the symbol and its sense can be observed.,Phonetic motivation,Words motivated phonetically are called echoic words or onomatopoeic words, whose pronunciation suggests the meaning. The sounds of some words suggest their meanings because they are created by imitating the natural sounds, such a
11、s the cries of animals: bow-wow , moo , miaow But these echoic words are largely conventional, because different languages may use different forms to indicate these sounds. 汪汪 哞哞 喵喵,Except imitating the cries of animals, many echoic words refer to the noises that resemble those associated with the o
12、bject or action to be named. 雷声隆隆 rumble, roll 溪水潺潺 babble, purl,Morphological motivation,Morphological motivation tries to establish the connection of meaning of the word to its form from morphological point of view. We can work out the meaning of a word if we know the meaning of the morphemes that
13、 constitute that word. readable, anticancer, kilogram, modernize,Compound words may be morphologically motivated. good-looking, headache, daydreamNot all compounds are motivated. eggplant, Indian summer, dog days We can not infer the meanings of words like these.,Semantic motivation,Semantic motivat
14、ion explains the relationships between the literal sense and the figurative sense through associations. The figurative meaning can be readily understood by those who know the literal meaning. a stony heart, hour hand/minute hand leg of the desk,Etymological motivation,Etymological motivation means t
15、hat the meanings of words can be explained with reference to etymological information. Very often, the history of the word can explain why a form has acquired a particular meaning. Japan, China, Walkman,Main Types of Word Meaning,Word meaning is made up of various components which are interrelated a
16、nd interdependent. These components are commonly described as types of meaning. Lexical and grammatical,Grammatical meaning,Grammatical meaning may be defined as the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words. Words with the similar lexical meaning can ha
17、ve different grammatical meanings, and words with different lexical meanings can have the same grammatical meaning. Grammatical meaning is in use.It consists of word-class and inflectional paradigm. modern, modernize, modernization cat-cats, mouse-mice; high-higher, good-better; to write, writes, wr
18、ote (tense meaning) the case meaning ( boys, girls),Lexical meaning,Lexical meaning is identical in all the forms of the word while the grammatical meaning varies from one word-form to anther. Every word has a different lexical meaning, whereas the grammatical meaning is the same in identical sets o
19、f individual forms of different words.,Denotative meaning,The denotative (extensional) or conceptual meaning of a word is its definition in a dictionary. Denotative (conceptual) meaning is often described as dictionary meaning or literal meaning of a word. It is the core of the meaning of a word. It
20、 is relatively constant and stable, because it is the meaning agreed upon by all the members of the same speech community. It is the central factor in linguistic communication. chair: a piece of furniture for one person to sit on, having a back and usually, four legs,Associative Meaning,Associative
21、meaning is that part of meaning which has been supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It is the meaning which arises of the associations a word acquires. It is open-ended, unstable and indeterminate, because it varies with culture, time, place, class, individual experiences, etc. Associative meanin
22、g includes connotative, stylistic, affective and collocative meanings.,Connotative meaning,Connotative (intentional) meaning refers to the emotional association which a word or a phrase suggests in ones mind. It is the supplementary value which is added to the purely denotative meaning of a word Mot
23、her: female parent love, care, and tenderness,Social or stylistic meaning,Social meaning is that which a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use. “Language is like dress. We vary our dress to suit the occasion.” parent-fatherdad father: stylistically neutral dad: colloqui
24、al parent: bookish.,Affective meaning,Affective meaning is concerned with the expression of feelings and attitudes of the speaker or writer. Some words are used to express the speakers approval of the person or thing he is talking about. (scholar, masterpiece and generous) Some show disapproval or c
25、ontempt on the part of speaker. (gang, boast and politician),A Bslender skinnystatesman politicianconfidence complacency,Collocative Meaning,Collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment. It is that part of
26、 the word-meaning suggested by the words that go before or come after a word in question.,According to Leech, pretty and handsome both mean good-looking, but their collocative meanings differ, because they co-occur with different words and they suggest two kinds of beauty.pretty: girl, boy, woman, f
27、lower, garden, color, villagehandsome: boy, man, car, woman, overcoat, typewriter,But how do we interpret such words as “good, strong and high” when they collocate respectively with “chance, likelihood, probability, possibility”?,good likelihood strong likelihood *high likelihood*good probability st
28、rong probability high probability good possibility strong possibility *high possibility good chance *strong chance * high chance,Word Meaning,Grammatical Meaning,Lexical Meaning,Conceptual meaning,Associative meaning,denotative,stylistic,affective,collocative,Questions,1. What are the motivations of words? Explain each type of motivation with an example.2. What are the main types of word meaning? Could you give a definition to each type of word meaning?,
