Types of Meaning Essay
Types of Meaning Essay
Semantic as one of the branches of pure linguistics is simply defined as the study
of meaning in language. before going any further, first thing that you have to know
is the word meaning itself, which becomes the focus of this study. Ferdinand
de Saussure, one of the structuralism scholars introduces seven dichotomies in the
effort to understand language, one of them is signifiant and signifie dichotomy.
The first term refers to the form of language which is involved in a collection of
phonemes, or in other words signifiant is the acoustic form of language or the
basic form of phonological system of a language. Meanwhile, the second term
refers to the mental image of a language, mental image refers to the intended
meaning of it. De Saussure tried to tell us that in a language there must be symbols
and thing that it's symbolized. The symbol can be so vary, it can be written, oral,
and image, and the things represented by those symbols are generally called
meaning.
A word is the smallest unit of spoken language which has meaning and can stand
alone, it is a written representation of one or more sounds which can be spoken to
represent an idea, object, action, etc. in order to be understood by the people, a
word must have a meaning.
Most words have more than one meaning, it is the characteristic of words that a
single word may have several meaning, in fact, words may play an enormous part
in our life. Words are used to express something and also conveys feelings about
we are describing. Words are used not in isolation but related to human situation. It
is through our experience with them in human situation that they take on meaning.
I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on this, but I do want to take enough time
to be clear that there are, unambiguously, numerous types of meaning. Why is this
important? When we talk about teaching and learning, we are often talking about
meaning. Consider the classic constructivist activity of 'making meaning', for
example. Or event he concept of 'content', which is (ostensibly) the 'meaning' of
whatever it is that a student is being taught.
What are we to make of such theorizing in the light of the numerous ways that
words, sentences, ideas and constructs can have meaning? What does 'making
meaning' mean we consider the range between logical, semantically, and functional
meaning?
The idea - often so central to transmission and transactional theorists of learning,
that a word or sentence can have a single meaning, or a 'shared meaning', is tested
to the extreme by an examination of the nature and constitution of that putative
meaning.
In any case, it is always better to show than to argue. There are at least seven types
of meaning (many linguists state their different categories of meaning) in
semantic according Geoffrey Leech (1974), those are:
1. Conceptual meaning (logical, cognitive, or denotative content)
It refers to the dictionary meaning which indicates the concepts. In reading we can
find many different words have the same conceptual meanings. Take the word walk
as an example, the conceptual meaning or the primary dictionary meaning is to
move forward by placing one foot in front of the other. There are also a few other
words that, according to the dictionary, mean to move forward on foot, etc.
2. Connotative meaning (what is communicated by virtue of what language refers
to)
It refers to the associations that are connected to a certain word or the emotional
suggestions related to that word. The connotative meanings of a word exist
together with the denotative meanings. The connotations for the word snake could
include evil or danger.
It refers to the usage of language in and by society which has big proportions in
determining the meaning that certain speaker has to use and wants to convey, those
factors include social class of the speaker and hearer and the degree of
formality. Only part of the social meaning of a conversation is carried by words.
Take saying hello or talking about the weather. Often such talk has little dictionary
meaning. It is a way of being friendly or polite.