In linguistics, meaning is what the source
or sender expresses, communicates, or conveys
in their message to the observer or receiver,
and what the receiver infers from the current
context.
The sources of ambiguity
Ambiguity means confusion about what is conveyed,
since the current context may lead to different
interpretations of meaning. Many words in
many languages have multiple definitions.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of how context affects
meaning. The two primary forms of context
important to pragmatics are linguistic context
and situation context.
Linguistic context is how meaning is understood
without relying on intent and assumptions.
In applied pragmatics, for example, meaning
is formed through sensory experiences, even
though sensory stimulus cannot be easily articulated
in language or signs. Pragmatics, then, reveals
that meaning is both something affected by
and affecting the world. Meaning is something
contextual with respect to language and the
world, and is also something active toward
other meanings and the world. Linguistic context
becomes important when looking at particular
linguistic problems such as that of pronouns.
Situation context refers to every non-linguistic
factor that affects the meaning of a phrase.
An example of situation context can be seen
in the phrase "it's cold in here", which can
either be a simple statement of fact or a
request to turn up the heat, depending on,
among other things, whether or not it is believed
to be in the listener's power to affect the
temperature.
Semantic meaning
Semantics is the study of how meaning is conveyed
through signs and language. Linguistic semantics
focuses on the history of how words have been
used in the past. General semantics is about
how people mean and refer in terms of likely
intent and assumptions. These three kinds
of semantics: Formal, Historical, and General-Semantics
are studied in many different branches of
science. Understanding how facial expressions,
body language, and tone affect meaning, and
how words, phrases, sentences, and punctuation
relate to meaning are examples of Semantics.
Denotations are the literal or primary meaning[s]
of [a] word[s]. Connotations are ideas or
feelings that a word invokes for a person
in addition to its literal or primary meaning.
During the 19th century, Philosopher John
Stuart Mill defined semantic meaning with
the words "denotation" and "connotation".
The original use of "meaning" as understood
early in the 20th century occurred through
Lady Welby, after her daughter translated
the term "semantics" from French.
Conceptual meaning
Languages allow information to be conveyed
even when the specific words used are not
known by the reader or listener. People connect
words with meaning and use words to refer
to concepts. A person's intentions affect
what is meant. Meaning as intent harkens back
to the Anglo-Saxon and is associated today
still, with the German verb "meinen" as to
think or intend.
Semiotics
Ferdinand de Saussure described language in
terms of Signs, which he in turn divided into
signifieds and signifiers. The signifier is
the sound of the linguistic object. The signified
is the mental construction, or image associated
with the sound. The sign, then, is essentially
the relationship between the two.
S to other signs, which means that "bat" has
meaning only because it is not "cat" or "ball"
or "boy". Signs are essentially arbitrary,
as any foreign language student is well aware:
there is no reason that bat couldn't mean
"that bust of Napoleon over there" or "this
body of water". Since the choice of signifiers
is ultimately arbitrary, the meaning cannot
somehow be in the signifier. Saussure instead
defers meaning to the sign itself: meaning
is ultimately the same thing as the sign,
and meaning means that relationship is between
signified and signifier. All meaning is both
within us and communal. Signs "mean" by reference
to our internal lexicon and grammar, and despite
their being a matter of convention, signs
can only mean something to the individual.
However, while meanings may vary to some extent
from individual to individual, only those
meanings which stay within a boundary are
seen by other speakers of the language to
refer to reality: if one were to refer to
smells as red, most other speakers would assume
the person is talking nonsense.
See also
Fields
General Semantics, semiotics, pragmatics
Perspectives
Logical positivism
Ordinary language philosophy
Theories
Causal theory of names
Definite descriptions
Theory of descriptions
Universal grammar
Considerations
Ideasthesia
Idea
Image
Information
Meaning
Metaphor
Sense
Symbol
Symbol grounding
Sphoṭa
Important theorists
J. L. Austin
Roland Barthes
Rudolf Carnap
Noam Chomsky
Eugenio Coseriu
Umberto Eco
Viktor Frankl
Gottlob Frege
Paul Grice
Roman Jakobson
Saul Kripke
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Charles Sanders Peirce
Bertrand Russell
Ferdinand de Saussure
John Searle
P. F. Strawson
Willard Van Orman Quine
Ludwig Wittgenstein
References
^ Nick Sanchez. "Communication Process". New
Jersey Institute of Technology. Retrieved
January 14, 2012. 
^ Fred Wilson. "John Stuart Mill". Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford. Retrieved
October 8, 2010. 
Further reading
Akmajian, Adrian, Richard Demers, Ann Farmer,
and Robert Harnish. Linguistics: an introduction
to language and communication, 4th edition.
1995. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Allan, Keith. Linguistic Meaning, Volume One.
1986. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things With Words.
1962. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bacon, Sir Francis, Novum Organum, 1620.
Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann. The Social
Construction of Reality : A Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge. 1967. First Anchor
Books Edition. 240 pages.
Blackmore, John T., "Section 2, Communication",
Foundation theory, 2000. Sentinel Open Press.
Blackmore, John T., "Prolegomena", Ernst Mach's
Philosophy - Pro and Con, 2009. Sentinel Open
Press.
Blackmore, John T. Semantic Dialogues or Ethics
versus Rhetoric, 2010, Sentinel Open Press
Chase, Stuart, The Tyranny of Words, New York,
1938. Harcourt, Brace and Company
Davidson, Donald. Inquiries into Truth and
Meaning, 2nd edition. 2001. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dummett, Michael. Frege: Philosophy of Language,
2nd Edition. 1981. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Frege, Gottlob. The Frege Reader. Edited by
Michael Beaney. 1997. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
Gauker, Christopher. Words without Meaning.
2003. MIT Press
Goffman, Erving. Presentation of Self in Everyday
Life. 1959. Anchor Books.
Grice, Paul. Studies in the Way of Words.
1989. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hayakawa, S.I. The Use and Misuse of Language,
11th edition, 1962 [1942]. Harper and Brothers.
Ogden, C.K. and I.A. Richards, The Meaning
of Meaning, New York, 1923. Harcourt Brace
& World.
Schiller, F.C.S., Logic for Use, London, 1929.
G. Bell.
Searle, John and Daniel Vanderveken. Foundations
of Illocutionary Logic. 1985. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Searle, John. Speech Acts. 1969. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Searle, John. Expression and Meaning. 1979.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stonier, Tom: Information and Meaning. An
Evolutionary Perspective. 1997. XIII, 255
p. 23,5 cm.
External links
"Conceptual role semantics" by Ned Block
A summary of Wittgenstein's view of meaning
Meaning at CCMS
Meaning from a translator's point of view
Meaning.ch - research group
Semiotics and Saussure at CCMS
USECS as the general catalog of meanings
