Chapter5Meaning(新版).ppt

Chapter FiveMeaning 1. The Study of Meaning Semantics: the study of meaning 英文semantics来自希腊语semantikos，意思是significant(有意义)。是研究语言意义的科学。 Linguistic semantics: the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular The meaning of words: Lexical semantics The meaning of sentences: Propositional meaning, compositional meaning The meaning of utterances: Pragmatics Meaning has always been a central topic in human scholarship. Meaning has been studied for thousands of years by philosophers, logicians and linguists, e.g. Plato Aristotle. 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. 2. The meaning of MEANING The word “meaning” has different meanings. C. K. Ogden I. A. Richards (1923). The Meaning of Meaning. John means to write. A green light means to go. Health means everything. His look was full of meaning. What is the meaning of life? What does ‘capitalist’ mean to you? What does ‘cornea’ mean? The transparent, convex, anterior portion of the outer fibrous coat of the eyeball that covers the iris and the pupil and is continuous with the sclera. Geoffrey Leech (1974, 1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning Seven types of meaning: Conceptual meaning Connotative meaning Social meaning Affective meaning Reflected meaning Collocative meaning Thematic meaning (1) Conceptual meaning Also called ‘denotative’ or ‘cognitive’ meaning. Refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content. Concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to. (2) Connotative meaning The communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content. A multitude of additional, non-cr