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Kovalenko_lexicology

Electronic resources:

    1. Слово. Матеріал з Вікіпедії — вільної енциклопедії [Електронний ресурс]. – http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Слово – 15:37, 2 вересня 2009.

    2. Тараненко О.О. Слово [Електронний ресурс] / Олександр Онисимович Тараненко. – http://litopys.org.ua/ukrmova/um91.htm – 13:11, 1 травня 2006.

    3. Jsoftware.com [Електронний ресурс]. – www.jsoftware.com/books/help/jforc/glossary.htm 12:55, 1 травня 2006.

    4. Linguistics. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Електронний ресурс]. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics 2 September 2009 at 18:09.

    5. Word. At Answers.com [Електронний ресурс]. — http://www.answers.com/topic/word 12:47, 1 травня 2006.

    6. Miller G.A. Wordnet.Princeton.edu [Електронний ресурс] / Miller G.A., Fellbaum C., Tengi R., Langone H. — http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 12:51, 1 травня 2006.

    1. SEMASIOLOGY

Semasiology is a branch of lexicology and semantics that studies word meaning and semantic relations between words. The term was first used by Christian Karl Reisig in 1825 in his Vorlesungen über lateinische Sprachwissenschaft (Lectures on Latin Linguistics). The major fields of study of semasiology are:

    1. WORD AS A SIGN. THE STRUCTURE OF MEANING

Signification and meaning in Ancient and Medieval philosophy / Word as a sign / Sign structure (the signifier, the signified and the interpretant) / Lexical vs Grammatical meaning / Denotation / Signification / Connotation /Loaded words /

Words are linguistic signs. A sign is regarded as an entity that indicates another entity to some agent for some purpose. Signs possess and convey meaning.

In linguistics, meaning is understood as the content carried by the words or other signs exchanged in communication through language. Restated, the communication of meaning is the purpose and function of language.

In the European tradition, meaning was first studied by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC). Aristotle’s ideas have laid the foundation of all contemporary academic research. He described words as symbols of mental experience and mental experiences as images of the elements of the real world: “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images” (Aristotle, 2004, p.1).

A Latin Christian church father and philosopher Augustine (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430) treats words as signs that stand for different objects and emotions. Here is how he describes his own experience of language acquisition in the early childhood: “So it was that by frequently hearing words, in different phrases, I gradually identified the objects which the words stood for and, having formed my mouth to repeat these signs, I was thereby able to express my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me the verbal signs by which we express our wishes and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the behest of my elders” (Augustine, 1955, p.17).

In his paper “On Christian Doctrine” (Augustine, 2002, p.6) Augustine comes very closely to the idea of the signifier (the word or any other sign) and the signified (what is meant). And at the same time he contemplates on the difference between the signified (actual reality named) and the image of this reality in the speaker’s mind. Thus, he tries to solve the paradox between the idea that God (as the signified) is inconceivable and the use of the word God and the image behind it. Jeffrey Ringer explains one of Augustine’s quotations about the incomprehensibility of God: “Several inferences can be drawn from this passage. The first is that, for Augustine, God is ineffable. The second is that inherent even in the previous statement is the division between signifier and signified. "God" is not ineffable; rather, the signified or essence of God is. Human language cannot convey the meaning of God but produces the signifier "God" or "Deus" to point to the signified reality, working in the same fashion as Hilton's "Jhesu." The meaning of God escapes signification” (Ringer, 2003, p.6).

The medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225 – 7 March 1274) explored the double nature of the symbol. In his opinion, God speaks with the help of things (that have names-signifiers in human language) the way people speak with the help of words: “I answer that, The author of Holy Scripture is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property, that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal.

That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it” (Aquinas, 1911). In other words, the signified can in certain circumstances serve as the signifier to some other signified. The spiritual sense of things can today be treated as symbolic or metaphorical sense, the second layer of meaning found behind the first, literal meaning.

According to this classic tradition, meaning is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they mean (intend, express or signify). The presence of meaning necessarily causes the recipient perceiving the sign to think of something else.

Ferdinand de Saussure described language in terms of signs. He in turn described the sign in terms of the signified and signifier. The signifier is the sound of the linguistic object (like Socrates, Saussure didn't much concern himself with the written word). The signified, on the other hand, is the mental construction or image associated with the sound. The sign, then, is essentially the relationship between the two. The signifier will have a form that a person can see, touch, smell, and/or hear, and the signified will represent an idea or mental construct of a thing rather than the thing itself.

Charles Peirce introduced the new understanding of a sign as containing three elements: the signifier, the signified and the interpretant. In his understanding, while the signifier is the material representation of the sign, the signified is basically the object, phenomenon, process or quality denoted by the sign, and the interpretant is an abstract idea which links the signifier with the signified.

Speaking about the meaning of the word, one should distinguish between lexical and grammatical meaning.

Grammatical meaning of the word is a generalised, abstract linguistic meaning, characteristic of a group of words. An example of grammatical meaning is the generalised meaning inherent in parts of speech (object, live being or phenomenon – for nouns, quality – for adjectives, process – for verbs).

Some words contain only grammatical meaning without any separate lexical meaning. For example, the word the definitely has a meaning, but it is not represented anyhow in the real world.

Lexical meaning of the word may be described as the content of the word (Гак, 1998, с.261-263). It reflects the ideas about an object, phenomenon, process or quality in the mind. Lexical meaning of the word can be represented in the form of a dictionary definition.

Structurally, lexical meaning consists of denotation, signification and connotation.

Denotation is the objective representation of an object, phenomenon, process or quality. It can be described as the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. D. Crystal explains the notion of denotation in the following way: “Most of our discussion about the lexicon has been taken up with the dictionary meaning of lexemes - what is often called their denotation. A denotation is the objective relationship between a lexeme and the reality to which it refers: so, the denotation of spectacles is the object which balances on our nose in front of the eyes; and the denotation of purple is a colour with certain definable physical characteristics. A denotation identifies the central aspect of lexical meaning, which everyone would agree about - hence, the concept of a 'dictionary definition'” (Crystal, 1995, p.170).

Denotation may be understood in, at least, two ways:

1) Denotation of a certain concrete object, phenomenon, quality or process.

2) Denotation of a certain abstract linguistic unit, including a multitude of objects, phenomena, qualities or processes that are named by the given word.

In other words, a word may refer to the whole class of objects, as in “The tiger is a wild animal”, as well as to a certain representative of a class, e.g., “Suddenly, the tiger attacked the hunter”. In the first case, the word tiger is about the whole species of tigers as generally understood, while in the second case a very particular animal is meant.

Signification is understood as the kernel of the lexical meaning. Signification can be explained as the reflection of denotation in human conscience.

It may be possible that two expressions have the same denotation, but different signification. For example, the vertebrates and live beings that have a scull are different by signification but possess the same denonative meaning.

Signification always states a certain range of qualities of denotation – constant or temporary, absolute or relative.

Connotation is an emotional, evaluative or stylistic element of meaning. It can either be occasional, or semantically inherent to the word. Generally speaking, connotation is an additional component of the meaning, based on an emotional attitude of the speaker to the object denoted by the word.

Connotation refers to the personal aspect of lexical meaning – often, the emotional associations which a lexeme incidentally brings to mind. So, for many people, bus has such connotations as 'cheapness' and 'convenience'; for others, 'discomfort' and ‘inconvenience'; for many children, it connotes 'school'; and for many American adults, in this connection, it has a political overtone (because of the I960s policy in the USA of 'bussing' children to school as a means of promoting social integration in ethnically divided urban communities).

The subjective nature of connotation is opposed to the objective content of denotation. Connotation arises when the denotative relationship between a signifier and its signified is inadequate to serve the needs of communication. The second level of meaning is termed connotative. This meaning is not an objective representation of the thing, but a new usage produced by the language group.

Connotations vary according to the experience of individuals, and are to some degree unpredictable. On the other hand, because people do have some common experiences, many lexemes in the language have connotations which would be shared by large groups of speak­ers. Among the ­“widely-r­ec­ognized conn­otations of city, for example, are ‘hustle’, ‘crowds’, ‘dust’, ‘excitement', 'fun', and 'sin'”(Crystal, 1995, p.170).

Connotative meanings are to some extent a social phenomenon. They are developed by the community. The connotation of the name can be compared with the attribute or attributes which could be used to describe the name. The denotation of the name is any object to which the name applies. For example, the word city connotes the attributes of largeness, populousness. It denotes individual objects such as London, New York, Paris.

There is a related distinction in linguistics between the objective meaning, or denotation of a word such as vulgar, and the positive or negative association or connotation we attach to such a word. Vulgar derives from the Latin word for common and literally means ubiquitous, found everywhere, which was its original meaning. The word has now acquired the negative connotation of ‘gross’ or ‘crudely obscene’ (also ‘of showy ostentatiousness’).

When a lexeme is highly charged with connotations, we commonly refer to it as loaded. The language of politics and religion is full of such loaded expressions: capitalist, fascism, radical federalism, democracy, bureaucracy, politician; priest, dogma, pagan, orthodox, sect, heresy, fundamentalist. The language of science and law, on the other hand, attempts (not always successfully) to avoid vocabulary which is highly connotative. In general, the more a domain or topic is controversial, the more it will contain loaded vocabulary, providing people with the lexical ammunition they need to reinforce their point of view.

Connotations can play an important role in explaining the way in which lexemes are used. A group of synonyms, for example, cannot by definition be distinguished in terms of their denotation, but they usually display noticeable differences of connotation, as in the case of car, automobile, runabout, buggy, banger, bus, hot rod, jalopy, old crock, racer, and so on. Indeed, in describing an unconventional design, the connotations may become critical marketing considerations.

Connotations are also an important means of conveying personal attitude and point of view. “Bertrand Russell, on a BBC Brains Trust programme some years ago, gave a perfect illustration of this when he 'conjugated' the following 'irregular verb': I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool. The idea prompted the British periodical, The New Statesman, to set a competition for its read­ers. Here are some of the published entries: I am sparkling. You are unusually talkative. He is drunk. I am a creative writer. You have a journalistic flair. He is a prosperous hack. I day dream. You are an escapist. He ought to see a psychiatrist. Many other triplets could be devised: slender / thin / skinny, frank / blunt / insolent, overweight / plump / fat...” (Crystal, 1995, p.170).

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