THEME 3

SEMASIOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF MEANING

1. Meaning as a linguistic notion.

1.1. Referential or analytical definitions of meaning.
1.2. Functional or contextual definitions of meaning.
1.3. Operational or information-oriented definitions of meaning.
2. The process of nomination.
3. Types of meaning.
4. Aspects of lexical meaning.
1. Meaning as a linguistic notion.
Semasiology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of
words and word equivalents. The main objects of semasiological study are as
follows: types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of words,
semantic development of words, the main tendencies of the change of word-
meanings, semantic grouping in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms,
antonyms, semantic fields, thematic groups, etc.
1.1. Referential or analytical definitions of meaning.
The common feature of any referential approach is that meaning is in
some form or other connected with the referent (object of reality denoted by the
word) and the concept or notion of this object. The meaning is formulated by
establishing the interdependence between words and objects of reality they
denote and concepts. But this relation of reference is indirect and can be
presented with the help of semiotic triangle / triangle of reference (Ch. Ogden
and I. Richards). So, meaning is often understood as an object or phenomenon
in the outside world that is referred to by a word.

1.2. Functional or contextual definitions of meaning.

In most present-day methods of lexicological analysis words are studied
in context; a word is defined by its functioning within a phrase or a sentence.
This functional approach is attempted in contextual analysis, semantic syntax
and some other branches of linguistics. The term “context” is defined as the
minimum stretch of speech necessary and sufficient to determine which of the
possible meanings of a polysemantic word is used.
The meaning of linguistic unit is studied only through its relation to other
linguistic units. The position of a word in relation to other words is called the
distribution of the word. So meaning is viewed as the function of a word in
speech. According to this approach the meaning of the words “move” and
“movement” are different as the first may be followed by а noun, and the
second by а preposition, or may be preceded by an adjective.
The same is true of one and the same word with different meanings:
E.g. to take а sit
to take to smbd

1.3. Operational or information-oriented definitions of meaning.

The operational or information-oriented definitions of meaning are
centered on defining meaning through its role in the process of communication.
Thus, this approach studies words in action and is more interested in how
meaning works than in what it is.
Within the framework of the trend described meaning is defined as
information conveyed from the speaker to the listener in the process of
communication. This definition is applicable both to words and sentences and
thus overcomes one of the alleged drawbacks of the referential approach. The
problem is that it is more applicable to sentences than to words and even as such
fails to draw a clear distinguishing line between the direct meaning and
implication (additional information).
The direct info conveyed by the units constituting the sentence may be
referred to as meaning while the information added to the extralinguistic
situation may be called a sense.

2. The process of nomination.

Since words denote objects, processes, phenomena of concrete reality, the
first thing to be discussed is correlation between meaning and the thing denoted
by the word. In studying such correlation two different approaches are possible.
The study of the semantic side of the word may start with the name or with the
object denoted.
In the first case the study will consist in considering, different meanings
of the word, determining interrelations between them, as well as discovering
semantic relations between different words. Such approach is called semasio-
logical.
The second approach starts from an object and consists in analyzing
different words correlated with it. This approach is called onomasiological
(from the Greek onoma = ‘name’). The onomasiological approach helps to
discover how meaning is formed, considering its basic properties and
peculiarities.
There are two main participants in the process of nomination: the one
who gives a name to an object (the nominator) and the object which is given a
name (the referent). The process of giving a name to an object consists of
several stages.
1. The process of nomination starts with forming a concept of the object,
which is a generalized idea of a class of objects, summing up the most essential
features of the given class thus distinguishing it from other classes.
2. The next stage in the process of naming is the designation of class of
objects under nomination with the help of linguistic means. To form meaning
certain features are singled out to underlie word semantics. The features chosen
as the basic characteristics of the object form the denotatum, i.e. what the word
denotes, while the concept and the referent are what the word is correlated
with.
3. The next step is the formation of functional significance of a
linguistic unit. The attitude of the speaker towards the object, the place it is
ascribed among other things also finds its reflection in shaping lexical meaning.
Information suggested in addition to the denotatum may refer to the positive or
negative attitude of the nominator, or it may indicate a certain situation of
communication and point out at the participants and their roles. This additional
information shapes the communicative value of lexical meaning.
4. To become a word, the semantic side formed in the process of
nomination is to be correlated with certain material structure, i.e. the sound
form and the graphic form. The acquisition of the sound and graphic forms
makes it possible for the word to be conveyed from one person to another to
serve the purposes of communication.

3. Types of meaning.
There are two main types of meaning: 1) the grammatical meaning, 2) the
lexical meaning.
The grammatical meaning is the formal meaning of a word. It is defined
as the meaning belonging to the lexico-grammatical classes and grammatical
categories. It is expressed by the word’s form. Every word belongs to a definite
part of speech and every part of speech has a certain grammatical categories (for
example, verbs have tense, voice, mood, person etc., nouns have the categories
of case, number etc.) The grammatical meaning unites words into big groups
such as parts of speech.
The lexical meaning of the word is the meaning proper to the given
linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions. This is a meaning which gives
the concept of a word. By the lexical meaning the word expresses the basic
properies of the thing the word denotes.
Both the lexical and grammatical meanings make up the word meaning as
neither can exist without the other. That can be observed in the semantic
analysis of correlated words in different languages.
Still one more type of meaning is singled out. It is based on the
interaction of the major types and is called the part-of-speech (or lexico-
grammatical) meaning. The essence of the part-of-speech meaning of a word is
revealed in the classification of lexical items into major word-classes (nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs) and minor word-classes (articles, prepositions,
conjunctions, etc). The meaning of substantivity or thingness – noun.
All members of a major word-class share a distinguishing semantic
component which, though very abstract, may be viewed as the lexical
component of part-of-speech meaning. The part-of-speech meaning of the
words that possess only one form, e.g. prepositions, some adverbs, etc. is
observed only in their distribution.

4. Aspects of lexical meaning.

In the general framework of lexical meaning several aspects can be
singled out. They are:
a) the denotational aspect;
b) the connotational aspect;
c) the pragmatic aspect.
The denotational aspect of lexical meaning is the part of lexical meaning
which establishes correlation between the name and the object, phenomenon,
process or characteristic feature of concrete reality (or thought as such), which
is denoted by the given word. The term 'denotational' is derived from the
English word to denote which means 'be a sign of, indicate, stand as a name or
symbol for' (for example, the denotational meaning of the word “table” is “a
piece of furniture consisting of a flat top with four supports (called legs)” ).
The connotational aspect of meaning is a meaning which has a stylistic
shade. It serves to express all sorts of emotions, expressiveness. Connotation
may be shortly defined as emotional and evaluative component of the lexical
meaning.
Connotational meaning consists of such constituents as: emotional,
evaluative, intensifying (expressiveness) and imagery.
The pragmatic aspect of lexical meaning is the part of meaning that
conveys information on the situation of communication. The pragmatic aspect
falls into four closely linked together subsections:
1) information on the “time and space” relationship of the participants;
2) information on the participants and the given language community;
3) information on the tenor of discourse;
4) information on the register of communication.

Tenor of discourse

The second part of the context of situation is the tenor of discourse. Tenor refers
to:

who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses and roles: what
kinds of role relationship obtain among the participants, including permanent and
temporary relationships of one kind or another, both the type of speech role that
they are taking on in the dialogue and the whole cluster of of socially significant
relationships in which they are involved?

(Halliday & Hasan, 1985, p.12)

There are three basic factors within tenor:

1. agentive role, or the institutional (or not) roles of the participants, such as
doctor/patient, teacher/student, etc.;
2. social role, or the power relationship between them which may be hierarchic
or nonhierarchic and includes expert/novice and also conferred social status
and gender, etc.;
3. social distance, or the amount or nature of contact the participants may
have, which ranges from minimal (close friends) to maximal (formal
settings).

Rather than an either/or situation, these tenor factors exist on a cline, as may be
represented here:

It is also possible for these tenor relationships to change over time. A regular
patient, for example, may have less social distance than one on a first-time visit.
They may also be affected by field choices: an office-worker talking to their
manager about football may use a different register than when requesting leave.
This may also be affected by the context of culture with each factor given more or
less value. In a Japanese work-place context (and in general) agentive and social
roles have comparatively more prominence: even after years of close working
contact (and even after retirement) many Japanese will continue to use formal
work-place terms of address that encode these roles.