Skip to main content

Semantics




How do common people describe "blue"? Many of them will explain it as the color of deep ocean and bright sky that bring the joy and calmness. But do you know that this color can be expressed as sad feelings? Why tho? That's we called semantics. Behind the word "blue" it has another meaning. Geoffrey Leech defined semantics as a study of meaning, one of linguistics branch. Semantics deal with such as word, phrases, and sentence structure and it also refer to how people can understand the meaning.

Geoffrey Leech in his book “Semantic: A study of meaning” (1974) divided meaning into seven types.

1.      Conceptual meaning
Conceptual meaning is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is basic meaning which linked to the primary dictionary definition. The conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning.
Ex: woman = human, female, adult.

2.     Connotative meaning
Connotative meaning refers to a meaning that is implied by a word apart from the thing which it describes explicitly.
Ex: “That woman is a dove at heart.” – Here, the dove implies peace or gentility.

3.      Social meaning
The meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social context of its use is called the social meaning. Social meaning is related to the situation in which an utterance is used.
ex: the word ‘Home’ can have many use also like domicile (official), residence (formal), abode (poetic), home (ordinary use)

4.      Affective or emotive meaning
It refers to emotive association or effects of words evoked the reader and listener. It is what is conveyed about personal feelings or attitude towards the listener. Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of the words used.

5.      Reflected meaning
Reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning. The term reflected meaning refers to certain associations with another sense of the same expression.

6.     Collocative meaning
Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the company of certain words. collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words.
Ex: ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’

7.     Thematic meaning
Thematic meaning denotes the organization of a message in terms of information structure. It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus.

Popular posts from this blog

Here it is!

So, this is the first time I decided to have a blog after a long time and I will write some stuff here. Before I start, I want to say huge apologize for my grammar if you guys find it through my writings here. I am. Just. Human. I’m still learning. Tell and correct me if you find one, two, three or… thousands of wrong grammar? I’m not gonna bite y’all. I hope you don’t get tired of reading my writings here hehe Trust me, this is a good one I promise. Actually, I have so many nicknames and most of them are given by my family and friends from childhood era to senior high school. They’re so creative by the way, by changing my first name into cutest names until the ugliest one lol just kidding. But don’t worry, just call me Mutia. I’m 20 years old and I'm studying at University of Lancang Kuning as an English department student. Guess what? I’m gonna be an English teacher someday. Wish me luck! Honestly, being a teacher wasn’t my first dream when I was kid. One ...
Read more

Argumentative Essay Writing : Early Education

Why do Parents Should Enroll Their Children to Preschool? Early age is often referred to as serious development or it can be said as the golden age. When children are on their golden age, of course as parents should give everything the best for them, especially in education. For parents, early education is very essential. Through early education, parents can find out the talents also interests and can monitor the development aspects of their child. In addition, not a few parents trust educational institutions such as child care or preschool to educate and develop the potential of their children. Then, why do parents should enroll their children to preschool? The reason are children will be trained to develop their social-emotional, cognitive, language skills, behavior and readiness for future schooling. Firstly, in preschool, children will be trained in social-emotional development. It ranging from the ability to understand the feelings of others, maintain friendships with peop...
Read more