Semantics

Types of
MEANI
NG
Presented by

Putri Gayatri 1710731024

Salma Nurul Aisyah
1710733025
English Department of Andalas University
Semantics

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.

Broadly speaking, ‘meaning’ means the sum total of communicated through language. Words, Phrases and
sentences have meanings which are studies in semantics.

Geoffrey Leech in his ‘Semantic- A Study of meaning’ (1974) breaks down meaning into seven types or
ingredients giving primacy to conceptual meaning.

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 table of
CONTE
C o nc e p t ua l
NT c on n o ta tiv e Soc ia l M e an in g
meaning m ea n in g

Affe c tiv e m e a n i ng R e fle c te d m e an in g C o llo c a tive

m ea n in g

Th e m atic m e an in g

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 Conceptu
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semantics

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al
meaning) is the basic propositional NG
Conceptual meaning (logical or cognitive

meaning which corresponds to the primary Example:

dictionary definition.
Man: = +HUMAN+MALE+ADULT
Woman: =+HUMAN-MALE+ADULT
Conceptual meaning can be explained by
breaking words into different semantic
constituents.
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Conotativ
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Connotative meaning is regarded as incidental,

e comparatively unstable, in determinant, open ended,

variable according to age, culture and individual, whereas
conceptual meaning is not like that . It can be codified in

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terms of limited symbols.
Conotative is the communicative value of an expression
over and above its purely conceptual content. Conotative
is something that goes beyond mere referent of a word
and hints at its attributes in the real world. It is something
Another example is the word rose in conceptual meaning
more than the dictionary meaning. GRAPHIC
means flower, but in connotativePHOTOGRAPH
meaning can means as
DESIGNER
freshness or a symbol of love or romance. ER
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Social Example: “I ain’t done nothing” The line tells us about the
speaker and that is the speaker is probably a black American,

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underprivileged and uneducated. Because of the way they
convey the language is a little bit different than those we know
which is related to the social meaning phenomenon

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There are some variation according to: dialect, time, province,
Social Meaning is the meaning that is concerned
status, modality, and singularity.
with the social circumstances of the use of a
linguistic expression. For example, some dialectic
words inform us about the regional and social
background of the speaker. In the same way, some
stylistic usages let us know something of the social
relationship between the speaker and the hearer
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Affective
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affective meaning refers to what is convey about the feeling and attitude of the speak through use of
language. Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of the words used.
Emotional expressions occurs when we adopt an impolite tone to express friendliness.

Example: “you are a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobation and I hate you” Or “I hate you, you idiot”.
p roarej eleft
We c t with
01a little doubt about the speaker’s feelings towards the listener. Here speaker seems to have a
very negative attitude towards his listener. This is called affective meaning.
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REFLEC
TED
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Reflected meaning and collocative

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meaning involve interconnection.
Reflective meaning occurs in cases of
multiple conceptual meaning.
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At the lexical level of language, Reflected
meaning arises when a word has more than one
conceptual meaning or multiple conceptual
meaning. In such cases while responding to one
sense of the word we partly respond to another
sense of the word too.

Ex: “Gay” was used to refer happiness, but now

Gay means homosexual
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COLLOCA
TIVE
MEANING
Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the
company of certain words. Words collocate or co-occur with certain
words only .
Ex: ‘Pretty’ and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’. However, they
slightly differ from each other because of collocation or co-occurrence.
The word ‘pretty’ collocates with – girls, woman, village, gardens,
Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its flowers, etc.
usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words. Collocative On the other hand, the word ‘handsome’ collocates with – ‘boys’ men,
meaning is expressed characteristics word combinations. etc. so it should just be ‘pretty woman’ and ‘handsome man’. There’s no
Pretty Man or Handsome woman
 Thematic
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It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms
of ordering focus and emphasis . Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its implications
properly. For example, the following statements in active and passive voice have same conceptual meaning
but different communicative values.

Example :
1) Mrs. Smith donated the first prize
p ro j e c t 01 2) The first prize was donated by Mrs. Smith.
In the first sentence “who gave away the prize “is more important, but in the second sentence “what did Mrs. Smith gave
is important”. Thus the change of focus change the meaning also.
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I n ot h e r c a s es , th e ma tic m e an in g s m a y b e stre s s a n d
in t o n a t i o n r a th e r th a n g ra m ma tica l c on s tru ctio n th at
hi g h l i gh t s t h e in fo rm a tio n in on e pa rt o f a s e n te n c e.

E x a m p l e : I s a w B ill driv in g h is Po rs c h e tod a y.

p ro j e c t 01
Thankyo
u!