Types of Meaning

 Semantic Meaning
Meaning that the grammar and vocabulary imparts

Types of
 Pragmatic Meaning
Meaning
The listeners in the conversation define the ultimate meaning of the
words, based on other clues that lend subtext to the meaning.
 Semantic Meaning Pragmatic Meaning

 She has not taken a shower.

Types of (ever)  “She has not taken a shower”
(that day).
Meaning  He was so tired he could
sleep for days.
 I am so hungry I could eat a
horse
 1. Conceptual or Denotive Meaning
 It is the basic propositional meaning which corresponds to the
primary dictionary definition.
 It is the essential or core meaning
7 Types of Eg: ‘Boy’ = Human + Male
Meaning  It is the literal meaning of the word indicating the idea or concept to
which it refers
Eg: ‘Woman’’ as = + human + female + adult
 The conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of
meanings.
 2. Connotative Meaning
 Connotative meaning goes beyond the word’s purely conceptual
content
 psychosocial connotations of the word
7 Types of Woman could be ‘caring’, ‘having maternal instinct’
Ex: “I see a woman in you”
Meaning
 Connotations vary age to age and society to society.
 E.g.. Old age ‘Woman’ - ‘Non-trouser wearing or sari wearing’ in Indian
context (these were definite connotation in the past)
 Present age ‘Woman’--
‘Woman’ T-shirt/Jeans wearing
 3. Social Meaning
 The meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social
context of its use is called the social meaning
7 Types of  The decoding of a text is dependent on our knowledge of stylistics and
other variations of language
Meaning  Eg:“Don’t try to impress me with your behenji
type of talks.”
 4. Affective or Emotive Meaning
 It refers to emotive association or effects of words evoked in the
7 Types of reader, listener
Meaning  E.g. ‘home’ for a sailor/soldier or expatriate
Or ‘mother’’ for a motherless child.
 5. Reflected meaning
 Arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning or multiple
conceptual meanings

7 Types of  Eg: Mother- Queen Virgin Mary, The female parent, head of a tribal
community
Meaning  He took drugs.

(Often results in ambiguity)

 6. Collocative Meaning
 Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the
company of certain words.
words
 Words collocate or co-occur
co with certain words only
 E.g. Beautiful/ pretty woman or Handsome boy
7 Types of  Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its usual
or habitual co-occurrence
occurrence with certain types of words.
Meaning
 The word ‘pretty’ collocates with – girls, woman, village, gardens, flowers,
etc.
On the other hand, the word ‘handsome’ collocates with – boys or men
So ‘pretty woman’ and ‘handsome man’
 7. Thematic Meaning
 It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a
7 Types of writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus and emphasis.

Meaning
 Woman- kindness/ deceiver/ manipulator-
manipulator (thematic meaning).
 Ex: Lady Macbeth assuming the role of a deceiver and manipulator.
Thank you