SEMANTICS

Mr. Abdul Halim, M.Ed.

Zainur Rohman (188820300181)

Monday, October 16, 2020

MIDTEST

1. What is semantics? Explain (15 points)

 Semantics is one of linguistics branches that study the relationship between words
and how we draw meaning from those words. People can absolutely interpret
words differently and draw different meanings from them. Some examples of
semantics will help people see many meanings of English words. Since meaning
in language is so complex, there are actually different theories used within
semantics, such as formal semantics, lexical semantics, and conceptual semantics.
2. Why do we need to study semantics as English teacher candidates? (20 points)
 We do need to study semantics because as an English teacher we can easily
communicate with students without being worried of misunderstanding,
misinterpretation, and miscommunication. Further, studying semantics will allow
teachers to discover why meaning is more complex than simply the words formed
in a sentence, so that students can get an easy understanding from the teacher
when getting confused of an ambiguous words, phrases, and expressions in
English.
3. Mention different kinds of meaning, and give examples. (15 points)
 As stated by Patrick Griffiths in his book entitled An Introduction to English
Semantics and Pragmatics, there are three kinds of meaning that can be found
semantically;
- Sender’s meaning – the meaning that the speaker or writer intends to convey
by means of an utterance and is private. Example; 1) Do you know what I
mean?, 2) It’s all my purposes to be here.
- Literal meaning (Denotative) - the sentence or word means what it says. Also
known as 'utterance' meaning. Example; 1) The weather is so hot, 2) I am
sleepy.
- Connotative meaning – it refers to the wide array of positive and negative
associations that most words naturally carry with them. Examples; 1) My heart
is blue, 2) My mom’s face is red because of me.
 Based on other reference, there are seven kinds of meaning as follows;
- Conceptual Meaning = Logical, cognitive or connotative content.
- Connotative Meaning = What is communicated by virtue of what language
refers.
- Social Meaning = What is communicated of the social circumstances of
Language.
- Affective Meaning = What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of
the Speaker through language.
- Reflected Meaning = What is communicated through associations with
another Sense of the same world.
 - Collocative Meaning = What is communicated through associations with
words which co-occur with another word.
- Thematic Meaning = What is communicated by the way in which the message
is organized in terms of order and emphasis.
4. Mention some important area of semantics. (15 points)
 Some important areas of semantic theory or related subjects include these:
 Symbol and referent
 Conceptions of meaning
 Words and lexemes
 Denotation, connotation, implication
 Pragmatics
 Ambiguity
 Metaphor, simile and symbol
 Semantic fields
 Synonym, antonym and hyponym
 Collocation, fixed expression and idiom
 Semantic change and etymology
 Polysemy
 Homonymy, homophones and homographs
 Lexicology and lexicography
 Thesauruses, libraries and Web portals
 Epistemology
 Colour
5. Explain and give examples of the following words.
a. Synonym
 Synonym is a word or phrase having the same or nearly the same meaning as
another word in certain contexts. The adjective form is synonymous. Synonymy is
the relationship that exists between words with closely related meanings.
Examples; Bad: awful, terrible, horrible. Good: fine, excellent, great. Hot:
burning, fiery, boiling
b. Antonym
 An antonym is a semantic term for words that have opposite meanings or
definitions. To simply put it, an antonym is an opposite of another word.
Examples; Front-back, Open-close, Husband-wife, Hello-goodbye.
c. Literal meaning
 The literal meaning is the most obvious or non-figurative sense of a word or
words. Examples; It is time to feed the cats and dogs, I feel so sad.
d. Social context
The meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social context of its use
is called the social meaning. The decoding of a text is dependent on our
knowledge of stylistics and other variations of language. We recognize some
words or pronunciation as being dialectical i.e. as telling us something about the
regional or social origin of the speaker. Social meaning is related to the situation
in which an utterance is used. It is concerned with the social circumstances of the
use of a linguistic expression. For example, some dialectic words inform us about
the regional and social background of the speaker. In the same way, some stylistic
usages let us know something of the social relationship between the speaker and
the hearer E.g. I ain’t done nothing, Come on yaar, be a sport. Don’t be Lallu.