Types of Meanings in Stylistics

1. Connotative and Denotative Meanings

2. Types of Connotative Meaning
 The meaning of word is often complex, having such
component as a picture, an idea, a quality, a relationship
and personal feelings and association.

 The sentence meaning being directly predictable from the

grammatical and lexical features of the sentence,
while utterance meaning includes all the various types of
meaning. It is the part of meaning of a sentence that is
directly related to grammatical and lexical features, but is
obtained either from associated prosodic and
paralinguistic features or from the content, linguistic and
non-linguistic
 Denotative meaning is also called as primary meaning, that is the
meaning suggested by the word when it used alone.
 Envelope; a flat, usually square or rectangular, paper container for a
letter.

 Sentence: I have posted my letter to you with blue color envelope.

 Watch; a small clock which is worn on a strap around the wrist or,
sometimes, connected to a piece of clothing by a chain. My watch
seems to have stopped – it says 10:15 but I'm sure it must be later. He
glanced nervously at his watch.
 Compare:
 Edge of the table
VS
 Edge of tomorrow
 According to Leech (1974: 40-41) connotative
meaning is the communicative value an
expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over
and above its purely conceptual content.

Connotations are:
-unstable
-variable
-open-ended
Components of connotative meaning:

 1) emotive;
 2) evaluative;
 3) expressive;
 4) stylistic.
 Emotive component

 Emotions like joy, disappointment, pleasure, anger, worry,

surprise are more short-lived.

 Feelings imply a more stable state, or attitude, such as love,

hatred, respect, pride, dignity, etc. The emotive component of
meaning may be occasional or usual (i.e.inherent and
adherent)
 Compare:

 “You should be able to control

feelings of anger, impatience and
disappointment dealing with a child’’
 “He is a BIG boy already!”
 Evaluative component
 charges the word with negative, positive, ironic or other types of
connotation conveying the speaker's attitude in relation to the
object of speech.

To sneak:

-to move silently and secretly, usu. for a bad purpose

Sneakers:

-shoes with a soft sole

 Expressive component:
 increases or decreases the expressiveness of the message.

Compare:
 "She was a sweet little thing"

VS
 “She was a small thin delicate thing with spectacles"

Intensifiers:
"absolutely, frightfully, really, quite"
 Stylistic component:
 A word possesses stylistic connotation if it belongs to a certain functional style
or a specific layer of vocabulary (such as archaisms, barbarisms, slang, jargon,
etc)

Compare:

Yonder, slumber, thence, immediately

VS

Price, index, negotiate

 Types of connotative meaning:
 Affective meaning:
the personal feeling of speakers,
including his/her attitude to the listener,
or his/her attitude to something he/she
talking about.

(1)”I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but I

wonder if you would be so kind as to
lower your voice as a little”
(2) “Will you belt up”.
 Reflected meaning:
a single word or phrase is
associated with more
than one sense or meaning.

"He gave me a cold look"

"I'm reading a book"
"I'm feeling blue"
 Collocative meaning:

association with words

which tend to collocate
(or co-occur) with the
expression in question.
 Thematic meaning:

 It is what is communicated by the way in which a

speaker or writer organizes the message in terms
of ordering (linguistics elements of a sentence
focus and emphasis (of the information).