For this and other reasons, many linguists nowadays no longer accept a strict division between the field of semantics and fields like pragmatics.
The Principles Of Semantics Free Advertisement ContentLearn more DOI: 10.1057978-1-137-57185-49 In book: English Language, Edition: 2nd, Publisher: Palgrave, Editors: Jonathan Culpeper et al, pp.134-145 Cite this publication Daniel Van Olmen 14.12 Lancaster University Panos Athanasopoulos Discover the worlds research 17 million members 135 million publications 700k research projects Join for free Advertisement Content uploaded by Daniel Van Olmen Author content All content in this area was uploaded by Daniel Van Olmen on Jan 19, 2018 Content may be subject to copyright.This definition, of course, immediately raises the question: what does a semanticist take meaning to be The answer is not so straightforward.The English verb mean and its derivations show that the term is used in numerous ways that have little to do with linguistics. Mean, meaning and meaningful in the sentences in 9.1, for instance, can be paraphrased as intend, purpose and significant and do not really relate to language in any way. She means no harm. Many of our patients lack meaning in their lives. Does your job make a meaningful contribution to society What is more, not even all linguistic meaning is traditionally regarded as included under the heading of semantics. One could characterize meaning in linguistics roughly as the content expressed in communication by means of language or as the message that a speaker conveys to a hearer. In this sense, the sentence its raining can be said to possess two different meanings as a reply to the questions in 9.2. Imagine a foreign student at a UK university. He is asked about the weather during a phone call with his dad and uses the sentence as a simple description of the current meteorological conditions in the country. This student is later invited to go for a run by his girlfriend and he utters the same sentence. As a response to her inquiry, it s raining is not a mere statement, however. It probably means no, I dont here. What is the weather like in the UK at the moment b. ![]() They would relegate meaning arising in context or requiring reference to language users to other fields of linguistics, like pragmatics (see Chapter 10). So what type of meaning are they interested in They would argue that the two ways in which its raining is used in 9.2 have something in common which does not depend on the speaker, the hearer or the situation. It is this shared core that semantics has typically concentrated on. In essence, it deals with the objective content of a message, which depicts situations or events and can be affirmed or refuted. Semantics has, in other words, been concerned more with its raining as a statement about the weather than as a roundabout way of declining an invitation. The distinction between semantics and the study of other linguistic meaning looks useful at first sight. It allows scholars to investigate how meaning comes about in isolation and how it can then be manipulated in communication. Upon closer inspection, however, meaning relies on usage to such an extent that it is often hard to draw or maintain the distinction. Consider the words strong and powerful, which appear to have very similar meanings. ![]() Strong coffee sounds perfectly normal but powerful coffee is a little weird and, the other way around, a powerful engine is fine but a strong engine sounds strange. To tell the two words apart, it seems almost inevitable to take their actual usage into account. In Fi rths (1957: 11) famous words, you shall know a word by the company it keeps.
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