Emotive meaning and connotation

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background Of Study
Some people would like semantics to pursue study of meaning in a wider sense of ‘all
that is communicated by language’; others (among them most modern writers within the
framework of general linguistics) limit it in practice to the study of logical or conceptual
meaning. It needs no great insight to see that semantics in the former, wider sense can lead us
once again into the void from which Bloomfield retreated with understandable misgivings- the
description of all that may be the object of human knowledge or belief. On the other hand, we
can, by carefully distinguishing types of meaning, show how they all fit into the total composite
effect of a linguistic communication, and show how method of study appropriate to one type may
not be appropriate to another.
A piece of language conveys its dictionary meaning, connotations beyond the dictionary
meaning, information about the social context of language use, speaker’s feelings and attitudes
rubbing off of one meaning on the another meaning of the same word when it has two meanings
and meaning because of habit occurrence.

B. Problem Formulation
1. What definition of Emotive Meaning?
2. What is definition of Connotation Meaning?
C. Purpose Of Study
Writer makes this paper for several purposes, there are the purposes;
1. To make the emotive meaning and connotation understood among the English department
students in semantics.
2. To make English department students know the important of emotive meaning and connotation.
 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

A. Definition of Emotive Meaning

The emotive meaning of a term is the attitude or other emotional state that is
conventionally taken to be expressed by a straightforward use of it. Thus a derogatory term
conventionally expresses some kind of contempt or hostility to some class of people. Terms like
‘firm’, ‘stubborn’, and ‘pig-headed’ apply to more or less the same class of people for more or
less the same reason, but convey different appreciations. Other terms like ‘super!’ or ‘wow!’
have nothing but an emotive function, but most terms with which we communicate approval or
disapproval have descriptive aspects as well.

• Example: “bureaucrat,” “government official,” and “public servant” designate nearly the same
thing but convey clearly different attitudes (bureaucrat=negative; gov’t. official=neutral; public
servant=positive).
• Example: “terrorist,” “rebel,” and “freedom fighter”
The headline, “Diversity forums incite discussion” (Sonoma State Star,
3/31/09) definitely feels different from “forums inspire discussions,” or “forums prompt
discussions,” even though they all have the same cognitive meaning.
 • Example: “censorship” sounds inherently bad, or wrong, whereas “editorial review” sounds
neutral (or at least less negative), and “filtering/screening” is possibly positive, as in “screening
obscene language from children’s programming.”
• Example: “discriminating” sounds inherently wrong whereas “distinguishing” sounds neutral
and “scoring” or “sorting” or “grading” are possibly positive.
• Example: “ghetto” has a negative emotive meaning, “economically deprived area” sounds more
neutral, and “economic development zone” sounds more positive, or optimistic.
• Example: I once saw a medical information sheet on the Body Mass Index (BMI) stating that a
BMI of 25 or less is considered a healthy weight, a BMI of 25-30 is overweight, and a BMI of 30
and above is obese. It then explained that “Obesity is a medical term and is not derogatory or
judgmental.” They are saying that they are using the term only in the cognitive sense, not with
any emotive meaning.
• Emotive meaning is not necessarily bad. Typically, positive terms will be applied to positive
things and negative emotive terms will be applied to things that are widely recognized to be
negative. For example, “Footbinding in China was first banned in 1912. But some continued
binding their feet in secret. Some of the last survivors of this barbaric practice are living in
Liuyicun, a village in Southern China's Yunnan province.” (from NPR.org)
Emotive meaning can be a trick to pass off controversial value judgments to an audience
without any supporting reasons. Thus, it helps to disguise “unsupported assertion.” Emotive
meaning can be a tool for insinuating things about other people without explicitly stating an
accusation or supporting it. Further, highly emotional emotive meaning in your
speaking/writing, without supporting reasoning, leads to emotional manipulation.

B. Definition Of Connotation
Connotation refers to a meaning that is implied by a word apart from the thing which it
describes explicitly. When these associations are widespread and become established by
common usage, a new denotation is recorded in dictionaries. A possible example of such change
 would be vicious. Originally derived from vice, it meant “extremely wicked”. In modern British
usage it is commonly used to mean “fierce”, as in the brown rat is a vicious animal.
Words carry cultural and emotional associations or meanings in addition to their literal
meanings or denotations. For instance, “Wall Street” literally means a street situated in lower
Manhattan but connotatively it refers to “wealth” and “power”.
 Positive and Negative Connotations
Words may have positive or negative connotation that depends upon social, cultural and personal
experiences of individuals. For example, the words childish, childlike and youthful have the
same denotative but different connotative meanings. Childish and childlike have a negative
connotation as they refer to an immature behavior of a person. Whereas, Youthful implies that a
person is lively and energetic.
 Common Examples of Connotation
Below are a few examples of suggested meanings of words shaped by cultural and emotional
associations:
 A dog connotes shamelessness or an ugly face.
 A dove implies peace or gentility.
 Home suggests family, comfort and security.
 Politician has a negative connotation of wickedness and insincerity while statesperson connotes
sincerity.
 Pushy refers to someone loud-mouthed and irritating.
 Mom and Dad when used in place of mother and father connote loving parents.
 How to convey the connotative meaning of a word into another language

The denotative meaning of a word, while it is the basic one, is not its only or whole meaning.
Besides denoting or concrete things, action or concept, a word may carry varios additional
overtones generally described as connotations. They are made up of different components: those
that express one's attitude to the things spoken about (this is called an emotive component of
meaning) or those that indicate the sphere in which the discourse takes place (this is called a
stylistic reference of a word).
E.g. Father, dad, daddy, pop, old man - all have the same denotating meaning (they are all
synonyms), but they have different emotive meanings and stylistic references.

These additional meanings or components of the general meanings may be part of the words'
dictionary meaning, i.e. they may be present in a word taken apartfrom the context.

At the same time, this additional meaning may be part of the word's contextual meaning. It may
appear as a result of the word's correlation with other words.

Connotation is one of the keys to the power of words. It's especially evident, patient in a literary
text, when the most innocent-looking word can acquire the most vivid connotations.

As it has been stated above, one of the components of a word's meaning is its emotive
component. Emotive connotations are rendered by the emotional or expressive counterpart of
meaning. Emotive connotations of a word can directly express or evoke:

1) Emotion (e.g.: daddy - father);

2) Evaluation (e.g.: clique - group);
3) Intensity (e.g.: adore - love);
4) Stylistic colouring (e.g.: slay - kill).

The content of the emotional component of meaning varies considerably. The range of emotions
stretches from positive to negative: admiration, tenderness, respect, scorn, irony, loathing.

The expressive counterpart of a meaning is optional and even if it's present its proportion with
respect of logical counterpart may vary within wide limits.

The meaning of many words is subject to complex association originating in context of which
both the speaker and the listener are aware and which form connotational component of
meaning. In some words the realization of meaning is accompanied by additional stylistic
colouring revealing the speaker's attitude to the situation and his interlocutior.

It's very important toremember that affective connotations of a word can be within its semantic
structure registered in its dictionary meaning or can be imposed by the context.

E.g. Fabulous, stunning, smart, top-flight, terrific and the like have special emotive meaning
fixed in dictionaries.

E.g. He's very rich.

He's fabulously rich.

Many words acquire an emotive meaning only in a definite context. In that case we say that a
word has a contextual emotive meaning.

So we can conclude that affective connotations of a word are peculiar to it either on the
pragmatic or syntagmatic level.
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