of contrastive features. Conceptual Meaning - can be studied in terms of contrastive 1. chair – a – a seat typically having four legs and a back for one person 2. sugar – a – a sweet crystallizable materials consist wholly of sucrose, is colorless or white when oure tending to brown when less refined, is obtained comercially from sugar cane 3. book – a – a set of written, printed or blank sheets bound together into a volume 4. sun – sun – the the luminous celestial body around which the earth and the other planets revolve, from which they receive heat and light, which is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium 5. child – child – aa young person especially between infancy and youth Connotative Meaning - .To a large extent, the notion of reference overlaps with conceptual meaning. The contrastive features become attributes of the referent, including not only physical characteristics, but also psychological and social properties, typical rather than invariable. Connotations are apt to vary from age to age, from society to society
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
man – man – strong, strong, tough woman – woman – frail, frail, prone to tears water – life – life tears – tears – sadness, sadness, happiness, pain flower – youth, – youth, fleeting
Social Meaning - is that which a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use. In part, we ‘decode’ the social meaning of a text through our recognition of different dimensions and levels of style
1. 2. 3. 4.
The use of the words “anger” and hatred”. Hatred denotes stonger feelings “like” and “love” Love denotes stronger feelings of attachment. “mother” and “mom” Mother is more formal than mom. “home” and “house” House may refer to the physical stucture and and home may refer to the feeling of happiness one may experience exp erience with family members 5. Pretty and beautiful Affective Meaning - The way language reflects the personal feelings of th e speaker, his/ her attitude towards his/ her interlocutor or towards the topic of discussion, Sca ling our remarks according to politeness, intonation and voice- timbre are essential factors in expressing affective meaning which is largely a pa rasitic category, because it
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
You’re so great you even managed man aged to get 3 out of 50. (it is delivered with sarcasm) I don’t hate you. (but it was delievered delieve red in such a way that the speaker speaker seemed insincere) I’m I’m sorry. (there was sincerity in the voice) I’m sorry. (with no hints of sincerity) I’m disappointed. (the voice hinted sadness)
Reflected Meaning - arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense. On hearing, in a church service, the
1. Light of my life (people may react differently when “light” and “life” re used separately. In this example, the word “life” rubs off on the sense of “light”) 2. Beauty and the beast Collocative Meaning - consists of the associations a word acquires on acc ount of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment/ collocate with it.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Good collocates with “bad” “person” “heart” Blue collocates with “sky” and “water” Clear collocates with “water” and “sight” Bright collocates with “ideas” “light” and “colors” Colorful collocates with “flowers” “butterfly” and “life”
Thematic Meaning - eanswhat is communicated by the way in which a speaker/ writer organizes the message in terms of ordering, focus or emph asis. Emphasis can be illustrated by word- order:
1. The pair of shoes belongs to her. She owns the pair of shoes 2. The mayor donated the goods. The goods were donated by the Mayor.
