Name : Azzahra Wafiq Aziza

NIM : 2193321016

Class : English Education B19

Subject : Translate in ELT

Types of Meaning

Leech’s seven types of meaning. In part of introductionfrom the article I can include that
semantic in the broad sense of the term may be consideres to study ‘all that is communicated by
language, but some scholars would like to restrict semantics to the study of logical or conceptual
meaning. Only those aspect of meaning which are logically acceptable leaving out devitation and
abnormalities.

According to Leech there are seven types of meaning :

1. Conceptual Meaning
From the article about The Meaning of Meaning Leech’s I can include that conceptual
meaning is called denotative or cognitive meaning. It refers to logical, cognitive or
denotative content. Whereas, for the thematic meaning, Leech (1985) stated that
the meaning is communicating in a way a speaker or writer constructs the message in
terms of ordering, focus and emphasis. As conceptual meaning is the same as what
scholars call ‘denotative’, or ‘designative’ meaning. And this meaning is assumed to be
the central factor in linguistic communication. Leech conciders conceptual meaning as
primary, because it is comparable in organization and structure to the syntactic and
phonological levels of language.
The symbol of the English phoneme / b / can be explained as consisting of a
bundle of contrastive features + bilabial, + voiced, + stop, -nasal these positive
combination of features differentiate this phoneme negatively from the phoneme / p /
which has the features
- + bilabial, -voiced, + stop, -nasal.
 - It is assumed that the distinctive sounds or phonemes of a language are
identifiable in terms of binary or largely binary contrastive features. Similar
the conceptual meanings of a language can be studied in terms of contrastive
semantic features.

For example, the meaning of the English word woman can be specified as consisting of
the semantic features + HUMAN, -MALE, +ADULT.

- This word is differentiated from the word man having the features
+HUMAN, +MALE, and +ADULT and the word boy having the features
+HUMAN, +MALE, and -ADULT.

2. Connotative Meaning
Leech calls connotative meaning is the communicative value an expression has by virtue
of what it refers to over and above its purely conceptual contents. These are the features
of the referent or denotatum or segment of the real world which are not included in the
conceptual meaning. Of the different features of the referent few are contrastive or
criterial features which provide the basic criterion of the correct use of the word.
- For example, the conceptual meaning of the English word 'woman' has the
three contrastive features (+ Human, - Male, +Adult).

From this we infer that the three properties 'human', 'adult', and 'female' must provide the
criterion of the correct use of that word. These contrastive features in real world terms
become attribute of the referent or denotatum. This means that all persons to whom the
word, 'woman' is used to refer to will have the properties 'human', 'adult', 'female'. But
the referent of the word woman will have a large number of additional non- criterial
properties, which the users of the word woman expect a referent of woman to possess.

3. Social Meaning
These two meanings are concerned with two aspects of communication which are derived
from the situation or environment in which an utterance or sentence is produced in a
language. Of these two, social meaning is that information which a piece of language (i.e.
a pronunciation variation, a word, phrase, sentence, etc.,) conveys about the social
circumstances of its use. Social Meaning is the meaning conveyed by the piece of
language about the social context of its use is called the social meaning. The decoding of
a text is dependent on our knowledge of stylistics and other variations of language.We
recognize some words or pronunciation as being dialectical i.e. as telling us something
about the regional or social origin of the speaker. Social meaning is related to the
situation in which an utterance is used.
- E.g. “I ain’t done nothing” The line tells us about the speaker and that is the
speaker is probably a black American, underprivileged and uneducated.
“Come on yaar, be a sport. Don’t be Lallu” The social meaning can be that of
Indian young close friends.
- Stylistic variation represents the social variation. This is because styles show
the geographical region social class of the speaker. Style helps us to know
about the period, field and status of the discourse.
- For example, ‘steed ’, ‘horse and ‘nag’ are synonymous. They all mean a kind
of animal i.e. Horse. But they differ in style and so have various social
meaning. ‘Steed’ is used in poetry; ‘horse’ is used in general, while ‘nag’ is
slang. The word ‘Home’ can have many use also like domicile (official),
residence (formal) abode (poetic) , home (ordinary use).
4. Affective Meaning
Affective meaning is the aspect of meaning which “reflects personal feelings of the
speaker, including his attitude to the listener or his attitude to something he is talking
about" (Leech, 1981, p.15). Affective It refers to emotive association or effects of words
evoked in the reader, listener. It is what is conveyed about the personal feelings or
attitude towards the listener.
- E.g. ‘home’ for a sailor/soldier or expatriate and ‘mother’ for a motherless
child, a married woman (esp. in Indian context) will have special effective,
emotive quality.

For Leech affective meaning refers to what is convey about the feeling and attitude of
the speak through use of language (attitude to listener as well as attitude to what he is
saying). Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of
the words used
 - E.g. “You are a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobation and I hate you” or
“I hate you, you idiot”. We are left with a little doubt about the speaker’s
feelings towards the listener. Here speaker seems to have a very negative
attitude towards his listener. This is called affective meaning.

5. Reflected Meaning
Reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning or multiple
conceptual meaning. In church service ‘the comforter and the Holy Ghost ’refer to the
third in Trinity. They are religious words. But unconsciously there is a response to their
non-religious meanings too. Thus the ‘comforter’ sounds warm and comforting while the
‘Ghost’ sounds ‘awesome’ or even ‘dreadful’. One sense of the word seems to rub off on
another especially through relative frequency and familiarity
- e.g. a ghost is more frequent and familiar in no religious sense.

6. Collacative Meaning
Leech calls collocative meaning is the component range of application.
Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the company of certain
words. Words collocate or co-occur with certain words only.
- E.g. Big business not large or great. Collocative meaning refers to associations
of a word because of its usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of
words. ‘Pretty’ and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’.
- The word ‘pretty’ collocates with – girls, woman, village, gardens, flowers,
etc. On the other hand, the word ‘handsome’ collocates with – ‘boys’ men,
etc. so ‘pretty woman’ and ‘handsome man’. The verbs ‘wander’ and ‘stroll’
are quasi- synonymous- they may have almost the same meaning but while
‘cows may wander into another farm’, they don’t stroll into that farm because
‘stroll’ collocates with human subject only.

7. Thematic Meaning
Thematic meaning is that "what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or writer
organizes the message, in terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis" (Leech, 1981,p.19).
- For example, in English a sentence in the active voice differs from its passive
voice equivalent in thematic meaning though both the sentences have same
conceptual meaning,
- Eg. Mr. Smith donated the first prize. The first prize was donated by Mr.
Smith Of these two sentences, the active sentence seems to be the answer for
the implicit question "What did Mr. Smith donate", while the passive sentence
seem" to answer the implicit question "who donated the first prize". In
contrast to suggests that we know Mr. Smith while implies we do not know
Mr. Smith but only that someone donated the first prize.