 Semantics is the branch of linguistics concerned with word meaning.  Turn to page 27 of your text book to read the description of semantics.  Anyone who speaks a language natively has a truly amazing capacity to understand the meanings of texts. E.G. Take the sentence “I can’t untie that knot with one hand”. From this sentence you can easily understand that: › The sentence is about the abilities of the speaker/writer › The sentence is also about a knot – perhaps one that the speaker is pointing at or has previously referred to. › The sentence denies that the speaker/writer has a certain ability › Untying is a way of making something not tied › The sentence doesn’t mean that the knot has one hand; it has to do with how many hands are used to do the untying.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. -William Shakespeare

 The relationship between the form of a word and its meaning is totally arbitrary ; in other words, there is no necessary relationship between the assigned word and its meaning. › E.G. chair, happiness, apple, anger, fish, religious, eat etc. are all just seemingly random morphemes attributed to certain objects, feelings, actions and concepts.  These words are simply a matter of convention ; that is, learning a language means learning the agreed-upon meanings of strings of sounds. We are not free to change these meanings at will.  Even new words enter a language with an agreed-upon meaning.  As we have discussed before, onomatopoetic words bear a closer, more symbolic, relationship between form and meaning. E.G. woof, roof-roof, bow-wow etc.However, even these have an element of arbitrariness. › E.G. Dogs in English go woof woof and in German wau wau and in Korean meong meong!

 There are many different kinds of meaning addressed under the banner of semantics.  In this unit, we will explore: › Denotation › Connotation

 Denotation refers to meaning such as we find in an everyday dictionary. Meaning that is constantly associated with a word.  For example, the dictionary definition of the word skinny is ‘very thin’. › While ‘very thin’ is always the literal meaning of the word, it is not always how we intend to convey or how we interpret the word skinny. › We may wish to express skinny in a positive or negative sense, thus adding additional meaning that is not necessarily addressed by the dictionary definition.

 Connotation refers to the ideas and feelings associated with the words. Connotations may arise out of speakers’ (or listeners’) beliefs, experiences, prejudices, or even the context in which the word is used. › Sets of words can have the same sense, but at the same time differ hugely in their connotations: E.G. ‘She’s generous’ versus ‘She’s a spendthrift’; ‘He’s strong-minded’ versus ‘He’s pigheaded’. › You’ll notice that the second statement of each of these pairs have obvious unpleasant connotations in comparison to the first. Why is that?  Connotation, unlike denotation, will vary between individuals and communities.  The existence of connotation makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find cases of absolute meaning.

 Often two words mean roughly the same thing, except that one has an unfavourable, the other, a favorable, connotation. Thus, although you may like to think of yourself as an idealist, people who do not sympathise with your attitudes might call you a dreamer. For the following pairs of terms, write short explanations of why you might like to be described by one term but not the other. 1. self-confident/conceited 2. assertive/pushy 3. firm/stubborn 4. hard-working/workaholic 5. flexible/indecisive 6. casual/sloppy 7. mature/old