Ministry of Higher Education and

Scientific Research
University of Kerbala
College of Education
English of Department

Semantics
Prepared by:
Fatima H. Al-Maliki

Supervised by:
Asst. Prof. Dr. Hussain Al-Nasrawi
2022
 Semantics

What is meant by semantics?

 The study of meaning (Includes the use of symbols and symbol systems outside of language) due to
the fact that language has a symbolic system, semantics makes it its primary concern. (Robins,
1964, p.20)

 Is a major branch of linguistics devoted to the study of meaning in language. The

term is also used in philosophy and logic, but not with the same range of meaning or
emphasis as in linguistics. (Crystal, 2011, p.428)

Philosophical and linguistic interest in meaning

What is the difference between semantics as studied by linguists, and semantics as studied by
philosophers and logicians?

To answer this question in a scientific way, there are many opinions and viewpoints referred to by some
Linguists, including them

According to Malmkjar, 2002, P.455

Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning, and is the area of linguistics which is closest to the philosophy
of language. The main difference between the linguist‟s and the philosopher‟s way of dealing with the
question of meaning is that the linguist tends to concentrate on the way in which meaning operates in
language, while the philosopher is more interested in the nature of meaning itself in particular, in the
relationship between the linguistic and the non-linguistic.

*The philosophy of language is also known as philosophical semantics (ibid:393)

And from points of view Jack C. Richards and Richard Schmidt 2010

The study of meaning. There are many different approaches to the way in which meaning in language is
studied.

Philosophers, for instance, have investigated the relation between linguistic expressions, such as the words
of a language, and persons, things and events in the world to which these words refer.

Linguists have investigated, for example, the way in which meaning in a language is structured and have
distinguished between different types of meanings, there have also been studies of the semantic structure of
sentences (ibid:520)
As well as Robins 1964 in his study also pointed out some differences:

The logician is primarily concerned with the inferential uses of language, the formal means by which
statements or propositions may be reached or inferred as valid conclusions from preceding statements or
propositions acting as premises

Philosophical semantics studies the relations between linguistic expressions and the phenomena in the
world to which they refer, and considers the conditions under which such expressions can be said to be true
or false, moreover it studies the factors which affect the interpretation of language use.

But The concern of the linguist is a lot broader and wider:

 The linguist's concern is with language in all its uses and manifestations as part of the processes of daily living and
social interaction

 The linguist is interested in the specialized applications that form the provinces of philosophers and literary critics.

 The linguist deals with the approaches that study of meaning that's based on much wider range of language use and
types of utterance.

(ibid:20,21)

Word meaning

The sentences and words do not have meaning in the same way. If we consider meaning in terms of
reference in the wide sense of the term, i.e. as saying something about the world about us, it is reasonable to
believe that only sentences can have meaning. In so far as words have referential meaning, they acquire it
either through being parts of sentences or, more specifically, through ostensive definitions, but even
ostensive definitions are achieved only by means of sentences of the kind This is a . .. Referential meaning,
then, seems to be a characteristic of sentences. Meaning in terms of sense, on the other hand, appears, at
least in part, to belong largely to words. We have already seen some examples - ram/ ewe, father/son,
wide/narrow, male/female, etc.
Dictionaries are, of course, very largely concerned with words, and thus with sense relations
Admittedly utterances sometimes consist of single words. It is simple enough to imagine a situation in which
someone may simply say Horses. But even in such cases it is reasonable to treat these utterances as
sentences, but as incomplete one word sentences. (Palmer,1981:101)

If we establish a distinction between sentence meaning and word meaning, a major problem will be that
of relating the two. Some scholars believe that the meaning of a sentence can be derived from the sum of
the word meanings, and we shall dis that, since only sentences have referential meaning, the meaning of
words is derived from the meaning of the sentences in which they occur and not vice versa (ibid:103)
Generally, meaning includes the relations between utterances and parts of utterances (e.g. words) and the
world outside; and reference and denotation are among such relations the primary concern of meaning.

We should bear in mind that a meaningful activity of speaking consists of fundamental factors characterized
not only by words, but by utterances, stretches of speaking having sentences marked by pauses, silence, or
the speech of other people.

As a result, words are said to the part of the material into which utterances maybe analysed, and the
stock from which speakers may be said to put their utterances together but they are not themselves actual
discrete stretches of utterance, except in the case of the limited number of utterances consisting of one word
only.
So, Utterances have meaning (meaningful), A child acquires the meaning of many words by hearing them in
other people's utterance and practicing such utterances himself subject to the correction of others and the test
of being understood by those to whom he is talking. (Inspired by Robins, 1964:21)

The meaning of a word is the in which that word is used as a part of different sentences as referred to via the
dictionary; words are meaningful by virtue of their employment in sentences.

A speaker's word stock is always variable, but it may be regarded as fixed at any given point in time.
Words, in general, convenient units about which to state meanings, and no harm is done provided it is
borne in mind that words have meanings by virtue of their employment in sentences

The meaning of utterances should not be interpreted depending on words taken individually, but rather
Words are meaningful by virtue of their employment in sentences for three reasons:

1. Sentences and utterances comprising several sentences are the primary linguistic phenomena.

2. The grammatical structures and certain phonological features such as an intonation may themselves
give an indication of part of its meaning. (ibid:22)

These features functions include making answer, questions, surprise command, request, invitation, partial
agreement… etc

As an example from English one may compare the normal intonation of Thursday at ten o'clock then as a
statement of a fixed time for an appointment
with that of the same sequence of words
Thursday at ten o'clock then? as a request for confirmation of the time of the appointment.
(ibid:111)

Another example
in Chinese (pecking dialects),
the word / ma/ it means (mother) when uttered with a high level tone,
but it means (hemp) when it's uttered with a rising tone./ ma/
or it means (sold) when it is pronounced with a falling tone. / ma/. (Roach,1991,P.136)

3. Many words have particular meanings or uses that are found when such words are used together in
conjunction with other words to form the so-called collocation. E.g. cold war, feather weight and so
forth.
The relationship between the word and the object referred to by that word is not a simple
one, it might be simple with proper nouns, but the matter becomes more complex with
common ones.

Oftentimes, it is said the meaning of a word is the idea it conveys, yet such accounts of
meaning are objectionable for two reasons:

1. They try to explain public phenomena (i.e. speech, writing) primarily by reference to
private phenomena whereas linguistics as an empirical science deals with publicly
observable phenomena.

2. It is not easy to say what an idea is, or how it helps because an idea is often taken as
equivalent to mental pictures while mental pictures seem of little relevance.

The meanings of sentences and their parts are better treated in linguistics in terms of function
rather than in terms of reference. Moreover, a great consideration is given to the historical
development of words meaning (i.e. the real meaning of a word is to be found in its
etymology or its earlier form). Certainly, the meaning of any word is casually the product of
continuous changes in its antecedent meanings or uses.

For example
During the seventies of the twentieth century, the word “mouse” underwent a similar change, from being
limited to the name of the mouse to refer to a component of computers or the mouse “mouse”,

and in the eighties the word “apple” no longer referred to only the apple fruit, but also to the company
The famous American "Apple", which later happened to the word "windows", which originally meant
"windows", which came to refer to another additional meaning as the name of the computer operating
system issued by Microsoft.
Context of situation
Definitions:

The concept of “context of situation” is coined by the anthropologist Malinowski in 1923 to refer to the
cultural context of use in which an utterance was located; furthermore, „the whole way of life‟ (cultural
context) had to be borne in mind in interpreting an utterance.

Firth (1957: 7) depends on the notion of context in his theory of meaning. He refuses to accept that words
and sentences can have meaning in and by themselves and firmly believes that "the complete meaning of a
word is always contextual, and no study of meaning apart from a complete context can be taken seriously"
Situational Context is a term in Firthian linguistic theory, deriving from the work of the anthropologist
Malinowski (1884-1942). In this theory, meaning is seen as a multiple phenomenon, its various facets being
relatable on the one hand to features of the external world, and on the other hand to the different level of
linguistic analysis, such as phonetics, grammar and semantics (Crystal, 2008:109).
The general notion of context of situation is simply indicates that the specific contexts of the culture are
different (Halliday & Hasan, 1989: 8). The activities that people are engaging in may differ from one place
or one time to another; but the general principle that all languages must be understood in its context of
situation is just as valid for every community in every stage of development.
Firth's description of Context of Situation Firth's headings were as follows: (Halliday& Hasan, 1989:8)
• The participants in the situation: What Firth referred to as person and personalities, corresponding more or
less to what sociologists would regard as the statues and roles of the participants. (ibid: 8)
• The action of the participants: what they are doing, including both their verbal action and their non-verbal
action (ibid:8)
• Other relevant features of the situation: the surrounding objects and events, in so far as they have some
bearing on what is going on.
• The effects of the verbal action: what changes were brought by what the participants in the situation had to
say?

The term was developed by Firth as a means of explaining the working of language in society. By setting
up contexts of situation, the observer or analyst undertakes to state the relationships of utterances to the
situations or environments in which they are said or could be said.

In a context of situation the utterance or the successive sentences in it are brought into multiple relations
with the relevant components of the environment.

For Firth , context of situation refers to all of the circumstances in which a spoken utterance occurs that are
relevant in making sense of it. He emphasized that meaning is context dependent .
Malinwiski arguments were primarily based on his observation as an anthropologist of the way in which
language of the people he was studying fitted into their everyday activities and was thus an inseparable part
of them. But he noted that even in our own more sophisticated society , a special significance of expressions
such as How do you do ? Ah , here you are and other examples of this – talk about the weather or the family
which are used to establish a common sentiment .

This aspect of language which he called “phatic communion” where the words don‟t convey meaning but
have a purely social function .

For Malinowski , living languages must not be treated like dead ones , torn from their context of situation ,
but seen as used by people for hunting , cultivating , looking for fish etc .

For language was not originally" a mirror of reflected thought " . Language is , he maintained , ' a mode of
action ' not a countersign of thought '

There are two reasons why Malinowski's remarks about language as a mode of action is not wholly
accepted.

1. He believed that the "mode of action "aspect of language assumes that language was mostly seen in the
basic needs of man is best illustrated in the languages of the child or of a primitive man .
He assumed that the language he was considering was more primitive than our own and thus
more closely associated with the practical needs of the primitive society and that the difficulties
of translation stem from the differences in the mature of language , thus it is important to invoke
the context of situation when dealing with the primitive language .
But Malinowski was mistaken for although there may be "primitive " people who lack the knowledge
and skill of civilized people , there is no sense in which a language can be regarded as primitive . The
difficulties of translation result from the differences between language not to the fact that one language
is more primitive than another.

2. Malinowski's views do not provide the basis of any workable semantic theory . He does not even discuss
the ways n which context can be handled in a systematic way to provide statement of meaning.
While J. R. Firth (1957) the first professor of General linguistics in Great Britain acknowledged his debt to
Malinowski , but felt that Malinowski's context of situation was not satisfactory for the more accurate and
precise linguistic approach to the problem . He preferred to see context of situation as part of linguistic
apparatus in the same way as the grammatical categories that he uses . It was best used as " a suitable
schematic construct "to apply to language events therefore he suggested the following categories :

1. The relevant feature of the participants : persons , personalities

 The verbal action of the participant

 The non-verbal of the participants

2. The relevant objects

3. The effect of the verbal action

Firth gives the following example to illustrate his context of situation

" I am going to get one for Bert "

What Firth asks here is the number of participants ? Three ? Four ?

Where might it happen ? In a pub ? Where is Bert ? Outside ? or playing darts ?

What are the relevant objects? What is the effect of the sentence ?

Firth saw context of situation as one part of linguist's apparatus or rather as one of the techniques of
description . Thus , he sees all kinds of linguistic description , the phonology , the grammar , etc , as well as
the context of situation were statements of meaning .

Meaning, in terms of context, includes both:

1- Those aspects that can be described as the reference or denotation of individual words.

2- Those that must be stated as belonging to the sentences, or even the total utterance as a whole.

To draw a conclusion, meaning in language is not a single relation, involves various relations holding
between the utterances and its parts, and the relevant features and components of the environment.
(Robins,1964:28)
Translation

In his book General Linguistics, Francis P. Dinneen points out that “Malinowski's technique was to give:

1) an interlinear translation that matches native words and formatives with an English `fixed equivalent',

2) a free translation,

3) a combination of (1) and (2)

4) a detailed commentary called `the contextual”. (Dinneen, 1995.324)

specification of meaning, with phonetic and grammatical notes.

Questions of translation are closely connected with the semantic analysis and the contextual theory of
meaning. The existence of those who are bilingual as well as the possibility of learning foreign languages in
addition to forming utterances in one language, makes it possible to find corresponding utterances in another
language through the process of translation.

Translation in Malinowski‟s words, implies the unification of cultural context; from this phrase arises the
significance of the term culture. This is so clear when a certain set of words can be relatively easily
translated whilst others cannot. The process of translation becomes easier when the source language and the
target language are of a unified culture and vice versa.

To put it manifestly, wherever a cultural unity is lacking, the translation of words is more difficult to be
achieved through single lexical equivalents. Further difficulties arise when all the complex functions of
words must be taken into consideration when translating. This sort of difficulty is found in the translation
of literary works, especially when the features of linguistic levels such as grammar or phonetics, are
stylistically exploited as parts of the literary form of the whole piece.

The complexities and practical difficulties of semantic analysis in language study must not be disguised; but
the linguist‟s task is figure out a theoretical understanding of all linguistic levels. (Robins,P.28-39)
 Crystal, D. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Blackwell: UK.
Crystal, D.(2011). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. USA, Blackwell
Dinneen, F. (1995). General Linguistics. Georgetown University Press
 Firth, J.R. (1957). Papers in Linguistics. 1934-1951. London: Oxford University
Press.
Halliday, M. & Hasan, R. (1989). Language, context, and text: aspects of language in
a social-semiotic perspective. Oxford University Press: New York.
Lyons, J. (1981). Language and Linguistics. An Introduction, USA, Cambridge
 Malmkjar, K. (ed.). (2002). The Linguistic Encyclopedia. London :Routledge
 Palmer, F. R. ( 1981), Semantics, second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
 Richards, J. C. & Schmidt, R. (2010). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics. Pearson ESL
 Roach, P. (1981). English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge University Press.
Robins, R.H. (1964). General Linguistics. An Introductory Survey, London, Longman