Denotation and Connotation

It is recognized that word meaning is not homogeneous and is made up of various components. There are two important elements of the meaning: the denotational - the realization of the notion (which makes communication possible) and the connotationaL i.e. the pragmatic communicative value of the word.

The denotationof a word is the direct explicit meaning that makes communication possible. When we say that a word denotes something we mean that it is the name of a thing. To denote is to serve as a linguistic expression for a concept. The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its denotative meaning.

The connotation of a word is what the word implies in addition to its denotational meaning. E.G.: a hovel denotes ?a small house? and besides implies that it is a miserable dwelling place, dirty, in bad repair, and, in general, unpleasant to live in. We call connotation what the word conveys about the speaker's attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate functional style, about his approval or disapproval of the object spoken, or the degree of intensity.

There are four main types of connotation. They are: stylistic (e.g. to beat it - to retire, horse-steed), emotive (e.g. dog - dogie), evaluative (e.g. famous/ well-known - notorious), and expressive or intensifying (e.g. splendid, superb, fantastic, beastly, etc. are used colloquially as terms of exaggeration).

The connotation is the idea suggested by its place near or in association with other words or phrases. For example, childlike and childish both have the denotation of ?like or characteristic of a child?. However the two words have their own connotations. Childlike suggests the favourable qualities considered typical of a child: innocence and trustworthiness, for example: childlike is generally favourable on all age levels. Childish connotes the unfavourable characteristics of a child: foolishness or immaturity, for example: when applied to adults, childish is almost invariably a term of reproach.

Often a word's connotation will be fully explained in the dictionary. Yet the context of the word can also help to reveal the generaland added meanings. The context is the part of the statement in which the word or passage at issue occurs, that which leads up to and follows a particular expression. Compare the following sentences:

1. The actress captured perfectly the character's childlike qualities in her performance.

2. Your childish behaviour is quite annoying in a grown person.

Denotative and connotative components make up the semantic structure (or semantic paradigm) of a word. Semantic structure is closely connected with polysemy.

Polysemy

Polysemy is the ability of a word to possess several meanings (or lexico-semantic variants - LSV). It is the name given since M. Breal to the use of the same word in two or more distinct meanings.

Many words in English are polysemantic or have a complicated semantic structure. There are few monosemantic (having only one meaning) words in English. They are mainly special terms like morpheme, antibiotics, numerals, etc. In a polysemantic word various meanings (lexico-semantic variants) coexist at a certain period of the development of the English language. All lexico-semantic variants of a word taken together form its semantic structure.

Thus, semantic structure of a word is the interrelation and the interdependence of all its lexico-semantic variants. It is determined not only by the number of its lexico-semantic variants but also by their types. The semantic structure of a word is a flexible category, it changes with the development of the language.

Polysemy (as well as semantic structure) exists only in language, it is a phenomenon of language not of speech. Polysemy belongs to paradigmatic description, syntagmatically we do not deal with polysemy.

Paradigmatic relations define the word meaning through its interrelations with other members (in dictionaries) within one of the subgroups of vocabulary units. Syntagmatic relations define the word meaning in the flow of speech in different combinations through various contexts.

There are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiation and concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the center and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning. In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings to the primary one. Often the last meanings have nothing to do with the primary ones, and in such cases homonyms appear. This phenomenon is called the split of polysemy.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 657