Linguistics is the study of language, sometimes called the science of
language. The subject has become a very technical, splitting into separate fields: (phonetics and phonology), sentence structure (syntax, structuralism, and deep grammar), meaning (semantics), practical psychology (psycholinguistics) and contexts of language choice (pragmatics). But originally, as practised in the nineteenth century, linguistics was philology.
What is meaning?
Philosophers have struggled hard to arrive at something that will tell them where and how meaning is to be sought. Meaning is given in specified ways by the words themselves and syntax. Sentences should be composed of smaller units, each of which indicates the conditions to be satisfied to make each sentence true. There should be rules governing sentence composition.
➢ Language occurs in some context, and must express beliefs, hopes, intentions, etc. While these beliefs and hopes, etc. are no doubt states of the speaker's nervous system, the sentences should also relate to exterior objects and situations. Believing something is a relation to what is being believed: this relationship should be capable of being treated in some systematic way.
Theories of Meaning
It has been generally assumed that we have to understand two types
of meaning to understand what the speaker means by uttering a sentence. . . . A sentence expresses a more or less complete propositional content, which is semantic meaning, and extra pragmatic meaning comes from a particular context in which the sentence is uttered. In semantics and pragmatics, meaning is the message conveyed by words, sentences, and symbols in a context. Also called lexical meaning or semantic meaning.
➢ In The Evolution of Language (2010), W. Tecumseh Fitch points out that semantics is "the branch of language study that consistently rubs shoulders with philosophy. This is because the study of meaning raises a host of deep problems that are the traditional stomping grounds for philosophers. • Word Meanings
Word meanings are like stretchy pullovers, whose outline contour is visible, but whose detailed shape varies with use: 'The proper meaning of a word . . . is never something upon which the word sits like a bird on a stone; it is something over which the word hovers like a bird over a ship's stern. • Meaning in Sentences
It may justly be urged that, properly speaking, what alone has meaning is a sentence. Of course, we can speak quite properly of, for example, 'looking up the meaning of a word' in a dictionary. Nevertheless, it appears that the sense in which a word or phrase 'has a meaning' is derivative from the sense in which a sentence 'has a meaning': to say a word or phrase 'has a meaning' is to say that there are sentences in which it occurs which 'have meanings'; and to know the meaning which the word or phrase has, is to know the meanings of sentences in which it occurs. All the dictionary can do when we 'look up the meaning of a word' is to suggest aids to the understanding of sentences in which it occurs. Hence it appears correct to say that what 'has meaning' in the primary sense is the sentence.
Other Theories of Meaning
1. Hermeneutic Theory
It is the theory and methodology of text interpretation, especially the
interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. The hermeneutic approach holds that the most basic fact of social life is the meaning of an action. Social life is constituted by social actions, and actions are meaningful to the actors and to the other social participants. Moreover, subsequent actions are oriented towards the meanings of prior actions; so understanding the later action requires that we have an interpretation of the meanings that various participants assign to their own actions and those of others. It focuses on defining shared linguistic meaning for a representation or symbol.
2. Consensus Theory
It holds that meaning and truth are whatever is agreed about, or in some versions, might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group. Such a group might include all human beings, or a subset thereof consisting of more than one person. Among the current advocates of consensus theory as a useful accounting of the concept of "truth" is the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation.
3. Postmodern Theory - Interpretation/Re-interpretation is inevitable. - You never read the same text twice the same way. - Reality is not fix: knowledge can be contradictory. Because of the contextual nature of knowledge, individuals can hold two completely incongruent views of one subject at the same time. The postmodern approach to learning is founded upon the assertion that there is not one kind of learner, not one particular goal for learning, not one way in which learning takes place, nor one particular environment where learning occurs (Kilgore, 2001).
