1.

0 Introduction
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It involves analyzing language form, language
meaning, and language use in context. Linguists analyze human language by observing the
interaction between forms and meaning in context. These analyze explain relations between
entities, properties, and other aspects of world to convey, process, and assign meaning, as
well as manage and resolve of the complexity of language use in the real world. Language
use is an essential human ability and the study of language is reflected in almost everything
you do. There are several subfields in the study of linguistics such as phonetics and
phonology, semantics, morphology, syntax, pragmatics and so on. In this essay, I will mainly
focus on semantics and its importance to an individual, whether for student, teacher or an
adult.

2.0 Semantics
According to Victoria Fromkin in her book An Introduction to Language, the study of the
linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences is called semantics. The
study of meaning can be undertaken in various ways. Subfields of semantics are lexical
semantics, which is concerned with the meanings of words, and the meaning relationships
among words; and phrasal or sentential semantics, which is concerned with the meaning of
syntactic units larger than the word. The basic study of semantics is oriented to the
examination of the meaning of signs, and the study of relations between different linguistic
units and compounds: homonymy, synonymy, antonymy, hypernymy, hyponymy, meronymy,
metonymy, holonymy, paronyms. A key concern is how meaning attaches to larger chunks
of text, possibly as a result of the composition from smaller units of meaning. Traditionally,
semantics has included the study of sense and denotative reference, truth conditions,
argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis, and the linkage of all of these to
syntax. There are several theories in semantics, that are formal semantics, truth-conditional
semantics, conceptual semantics, lexical semantics, cross-cultural semantics and
computering semantics.

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3.0 Importance of semantics to an individual
Semantics is essential for developing an understanding of the world and ability in expressing
ideas and understanding messages. It influences our reading comprehension of others’
words in everyday conversation. People can absolutely interpret words in a different way and
draw different meanings from them by misunderstanding the words’ denotation and
connotation. For instance, gay literally means light hearted and carefree but recently it has
come to be a negative reference for homosexuality. Sometimes, we have to realize that
often a word on its own means nothing or many things or the meaning changes depending
on context. We use our knowledge, physical experience and cultural understanding of the
world and environment to label things, objects, processes and events. Every person, every
nation, every culture may have a different understanding and experience with the
surrounding world. For example, a man from Dubai may describe mountains as 'normal
brown mountains’ but for us, 'normal mountains' may be green. So, we can see how different
experiences with things can cause confusion and misunderstanding. While some meanings
stay the same across languages, others differ massively.

Furthermore, teachers can enhance their reading instruction through the use of semantics.
Students learn language at first by the imitation of sounds for verbal speech and images for
written. However, those sounds and images need to be assigned meaning, which is the area
of semantics. By incorporating the semantics into students’ reading curriculum, teachers can
connect the disparities between whole language and phonics while help developing
students' critical thinking and metacognitive abilities which are necessary components for
21st century students. By introducing texts to help students determine their assumptions and
discuss what the writer is presenting, teachers encourage students to take time to think
about what they are reading, reflect on its meaning to them, and state their thoughts more
accurately and concisely. In conclusion, semantics offers students ways to engage more
meaningfully with texts, which in turn can impact students’ actions and reactions.

On the other hand, language growth that occurs in adolescent age students is comprised
heavily on semantics. In order to be able to be successful and move forward in school,
adolescents need to master a higher level understanding of lexicon and word relationships.
There are two parts of semantic developments that are very important for adolescents’
academic success include literate lexicon and figurative expressions. Both of them require
metalinguistic understanding to conclude meaning from content. Literate lexicon consists of
words that commonly occur in scholarly contexts. Textbooks, lectures and seminars normally
contain a huge number of literate verbs. Typically developing adolescents show a certain

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amount of proficiency with literate verbs. These words will not be mastered until they are in
tertiary education but according to Nippold from his published study in 1993, knowledge of
literate verbs or lexicon are important for academic success. Meanwhile, figurative
expressions such as idioms, metaphors and proverbs occur frequently in oral and written
language which at academic setting for adolescents. Figurative expression begins to
become understood with increasing level of accuracy during adolescent years. In brief,
adolescent students with a language disorder involving semantics will have a higher risk in
facing academic failure due to the strong correlation of vocabulary level and reading
comprehension.

Next, semantics will help us to respond more extensionally or in a more fact-oriented way to
what we read. In other words, we can become more aware of our individual language-based
biases how they can influence our thinking and our action. This can be achieved by
mastering potential layers of meaning that a word has, besides its literal dictionary definition.
It is especially important to know when those layers have racist element or sexist undertones
to them. In the field of linguistics, there are seven types of meaning that a word can have,
which are conceptual meaning, affective meaning, collocative meaning, connotative
meaning, reflective meaning, social meaning and thematic meaning. People who lacks
knowledge in area of semantics often have a challenging time learning to use and
understand vocabulary words and expression that have abstract or multiple meanings.
Therefore, expanding and retaining vocabulary, especially lexical relations such as
synonyms and hyponymy, is a must for every English language learner of becoming fluent
and able to blend into native English speakers’ community.

4.0 Conclusion
In linguistics, semantics is the subfield that dedicated to the study of meaning, as essential
at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and larger units of discourse. The study of
semantics is also closely linked to the subjects of representation, reference and denotation.
In fact, semantics is the most diverse field within linguistics due to broad field of inquiry, and
the endless variation of methods used by scholars in investigations. From the discussion
above, it can be concluded that semantics present in everyone’s daily life. Without the
presence of semantics, people could not convey clear messages, decipher and interpret
messages and makes interesting, fluent and appropriate.

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