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LECTURE 1. SEMANTICS AND ITS LINGUISTICS STUDIES

Level: B2
1
Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Aіms:

To introduce the subject of semantics

To investigate the notion of semantics

 To raise students’ awareness on linguistics and linguistic studies.

Objectives:

 to help students to comprehend the notion of Semantics.

 to get students understand the connection of Semantics with other branches
of Linguistics.
 to discuss Semantic and linguistic studies.
Mode
Part / Objective of
Procedure Time Materials
Activity s intera
ction

Lead-in T asks Ss to answer the questions To get SS Teach 10 Whiteboar

from Power Point Presentation. thinking er- min d,OHP.
Part 1
about and Stude
1. What do you know
interested nts.
about semantics?
in the
2. Why do we need
topic
Semantics?
3.Define the notion of
Linguistics?
4.Define the notion of
“meaning”.
5.What types of meaning
do you know?
6.Have you heard about
semasiology?
7.Is there any connection
between Semantics and other
branches of Linguistics?

2
 Part 2 Explanation of the new topic To Teach 30 PPT
Teacher explains the topic and introduce er-
min
students make notes in their the topic Stude
lecture copybooks and discussing nts
main points with teacher and
other students.

Part 3 After lecture teacher gives To put SS Teach 10

Concept Checking knowledg er-
Activity min
Questions(CCQs)to check e into Stude
1
students’ comprehension, practice,t nts
o check ss
awareness
.

Part 4 Teacher asks students to divide To put SS Group 10

into pairs and do clustering on knowledg work
Activity min
the topic. Then students speak on e into
2
their results to the teacher. practice

Part 5 Teacher presents the thematic To raise Group 10 Video,OH

video. Students watch the video students’ work min P
Video
and answer to the questions. awareness projector.
watchin
on the
g.
topic.

Handout 4

Consoli Teacher consolidates the topic To The 10mi Discussio

dation. and asks questions from ss. consolidat whole n n.
e topic. class.

3
 Lecture materials
Plan of the lecture:
1. What is the study of semantics in linguistics?
2. Why do we study semantics in linguistics?
3. What is semantics in linguistics with examples?
4. What are the two types of semantics in linguistics?
5. What are the 7 types of semantics in linguistics?
6. What is the function of semantics?
7. Semantic analysis.
What does semantics study?
Semantics is the study of meaning, but what do we mean by ‘meaning’?
Meaning has been given different definitions in the past.
Meaning = Connotation?
Is meaning simply the set of associations that a word evokes, is the meaning of a
word defined by the images that its users connect to it?
So ‘winter’ might mean ‘snow’, ‘sledging’ and ‘mulled wine’. But what about
someone living in the amazon? Their ‘winter’ is still wet and hot, so its original
meaning is lost. Because the associations of a word don’t always apply, it was
decided that this couldn’t be the whole story.

Meaning = Denotation?

It has also been suggested that the meaning of a word is simply the entity in the
World which that word refers to. This makes perfect sense for proper nouns like
‘New York’ and ‘the Eiffel Tower’, but there are lots of words like ‘sing’ and
‘altruism’ that don’t have a solid thing in the world that they are connected to. So,
meaning cannot be entirely denotation either.
Meaning = Extension and Intension
So, meaning, in Semantics, is defined as being Extension: The thing in the world
that the word/phrase refers to, plus Intension: The concepts/mental images that the
word/phrase evokes.[3]
Semantics is interested in:
How meaning works in language:
The study of semantics looks at how meaning works in language, and because of
this it often uses native speaker intuitions about the meaning of words and phrases
to base research on.
How the way in which words are put together creates meaning:

4
One of the things that Semantics looks at, and is based on, is how the meaning of
speech is not just derived from the meanings of the individual words all put
together, as you can see from the example below.
The Principle of Compositionality says that the meaning of speech is the sum of
the meanings of the individual words plus the way in which they are arranged into
a structure.[5]
The relationships between words:
Semantics also looks at the ways in which the meanings of words can be related to
each other. Here are a few of the ways in which words can be semantically related:
 Synonymy – Words are synonymous/ synonyms when they can be used to
mean the same thing (at least in some contexts – words are rarely fully identical in
all contexts). Begin and start, Big and large, Youth and adolescent.
 Antonymy Words are antonyms of one another when they have opposite
meanings (again, at least in some contexts). Big and small,
Come and go, Up and down.
 Polysemy – A word is polysemous when it has two or more related
meanings. In this case the word takes one form but can be used to mean two
different things. In the case of polysemy, these two meanings must be related in
some way, and not be two completely unrelated meanings of the word. Bright
(shining) and bright (intelligent). Mouse (animal) and mouse (computer hardware).
 Homophony – Homophony is similar to polysemy in that it refers to a single
form of word with two meanings, however a word is a homophone when the two
meanings are entirely unrelated. Bat (flying mammal) and bat (sports equipment).
Pen (writing instrument) and pen (small cage).

One of the aspects of how meaning works in language is ambiguity. A sentence is

ambiguous when it has two or more possible meanings, but how does ambiguity
arise in language? A sentence can be ambiguous for either of the following
reasons:
Lexical Ambiguity:
A sentence is lexically ambiguous when it can have two or more possible
meanings due to polysemous (words that have two or more related meanings) or
homophonous (a single word which has two or more different meanings) words.
Example of lexically ambiguous sentence: Prostitutes appeal to the Pope. This
sentence is ambiguous because the word ‘appeal’ is polysemous and can mean ‘ask
for help’ or ‘are attractive to’.
Structural Ambiguity:

5
 A sentence is structurally ambiguous if it can have two or more possible meanings
due to the words it contains being able to be combined in different ways which
create different meanings.
Example of structurally ambiguous sentence: Enraged cow injures farmer with axe.
In this sentence the ambiguity arises from the fact that the ‘with axe’ can either
refer to the farmer, or to the act of injuring being carried out (by the cow) ‘with
axe’

Semantics in the field of Linguistics

Semantics looks at these relationships in language and looks at how these
meanings are created, which is an important part of understanding how language
works as a whole. Understanding how meaning occurs in language can inform
other sub-disciplines, such as Language Acquisition, to help us to understand how
speakers acquire a sense of meaning, and Sociolinguistics, as the achievement of
meaning in language is important in language in a social situation.
Semantics is also informed by other sub-disciplines of linguistics, such as
Morphology, as understanding the words themselves is integral to the study of
their meaning, and Syntax, which researchers in semantics use extensively to
reveal how meaning is created in language, as how language is structured is central
to meaning.
What is semantics in linguistics with examples?
In linguistics, semantics is the subfield that studies meaning.[10] Semantics can
address meaning at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, or larger units
of discourse. Two of the fundamental issues in the field of semantics are that
of compositional semantics (which applies to how smaller parts, like words,
combine and interact to form the meaning of larger expressions, such as sentences)
and lexical semantics (the nature of the meaning of words).[10] Other prominent
issues are those of context and its role on interpretation, opaque
contexts, ambiguity, vagueness, entailment, and presuppositions.[10]
Several disciplines and approaches have contributed to the often-disagreeing field
of semantics. One of the crucial questions which unites different approaches to
linguistic semantics is that of the relationship between form and meaning. [11] Some
major contributions to the study of semantics have derived from studies in the
1980–1990s in related subjects of the syntax–semantics interface and pragmatics.
[10]

The semantic level of language interacts with other modules or levels (like syntax)
in which language is traditionally divided. In linguistics, it is typical to talk in
terms of "interfaces" regarding such interactions between modules or levels. For
6
semantics, the most crucial interactions are considered those with syntax
(the syntax–semantics interface), pragmatics,
[10]
and phonology (regarding prosody and intonation).
Disciplines and paradigms in linguistic semantics
Formal semantics
Main article: Formal semantics (linguistics)
Formal semantics seeks to identify domain-specific operations in minds which
speakers perform when they compute a sentence's meaning on the basis of its
syntactic structure. Theories of formal semantics are typically placed on top of
theories of syntax, such as generative syntax or combinatory categorial grammar,
and provided a model theory based on mathematical tools, such as typed lambda
calculi. The field's central ideas are rooted in early twentieth century philosophical
logic, as well as later ideas about linguistic syntax. It emerged as its own subfield
in the 1970s after the pioneering work of Richard Montague and Barbara
Partee and continues to be an active area of research.
Conceptual semantics
Main article: Conceptual semantics
This theory is an effort to explain the properties of an argument structure. The
assumption behind this theory is that syntactic properties of phrases reflect the
meanings of the words in them.[12] With this theory, linguists can better deal with
the fact that subtle differences in word meaning correspond to other differences in
the syntactic structure that the word appears in. [12] The way this is gone about is by
looking at the internal structure of words. [13] These small parts that make up the
internal structure of words are termed semantic primitives.[13]
Cognitive semantics
Main article: Cognitive semantics
Cognitive semantics approaches meaning from the perspective of cognitive
linguistics. In this framework, language is explained by general human cognitive
abilities rather than a domain-specific language module. The techniques
originating from cognitive semantics are typically used in lexical studies such as
those put forth by Leonard Talmy, George Lakoff, Dirk Geeraerts, and Bruce
Wayne Hawkins. Some cognitive semantic frameworks, such as that developed by
Talmy, take into account syntactic structures as well.
Lexical semantics
Main article: Lexical semantics
Lexical semantics is a linguistic theory that investigates word meaning. This theory
understands that the meaning of a word is fully reflected by its context. Here, the
meaning of a word is constructed from its contextual relations. [15] Therefore, a
distinction between degrees of participation as well as modes of participation are
7
made.[15] In order to accomplish this distinction, any part of a sentence that bears a
meaning and combines with the meanings of other parts is labeled as a semantic
constituent. Semantic constituents that cannot be broken down into more
elementary parts are labeled minimal semantic constituents.
Cross-cultural semantics
Various fields or disciplines have long been contributing to cross-
cultural semantics. Are words like love, truth, and hate universal?[16] Is even the
word sense – one that is so central to semantics – universal, or a concept
entrenched in a long-standing but culture-specific tradition? [17] These are the kind
of crucial questions that are discussed in cross-cultural semantics. Translation
theory, ethnolinguistics,linguistic anthropology and cultural linguistics specialise
in the field of comparing, contrasting, and translating words, terms and meanings
between languages.(see J. G. Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Franz Boas, Edward
Sapir, and B. L. Whorf). Philosophy, sociology, and anthropology have long-
established traditions in contrasting the different nuances of the terms and concepts
we use. Online encyclopaedias such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophyand Wikipedia itself have greatly expanded the possibilities of
comparing the background and usages of key cultural terms. In recent years, the
question of whether key terms are translatable or untranslatable has been
increasingly important in global discussions, especially since the publication of
Barbara Cassin's Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, in 2014.
Computational semantics
Main article: Computational semantics
Computational semantics is focused on the processing of linguistic meaning. In
order to do this, concrete algorithms and architectures are described. Within this
framework the algorithms and architectures are also analysed in terms
of decidability, time/space complexity, data structures that they require
and communication protocols.
SEMANTIC ANALYSIS
The purpose of semantic analysis is to draw exact meaning, or you can say
dictionary meaning from the text. The work of semantic analyzer is to check the
text for meaningfulness.
We already know that lexical analysis also deals with the meaning of the words,
then how is semantic analysis different from lexical analysis? Lexical analysis is
based on smaller token but on the other side semantic analysis focuses on larger
chunks. That is why semantic analysis can be divided into the following two parts
−
Studying meaning of individual word
8
It is the first part of the semantic analysis in which the study of the meaning of
individual words is performed. This part is called lexical semantics.
Studying the combination of individual words
In the second part, the individual words will be combined to provide meaning in
sentences.
The most important task of semantic analysis is to get the proper meaning of the
sentence. For example, analyze the sentence “Ram is great.” In this sentence, the
speaker is talking either about Lord Ram or about a person whose name is Ram.
That is why the job, to get the proper meaning of the sentence, of semantic
analyzer is important.
Elements of Semantic Analysis
Followings are some important elements of semantic analysis −
Hyponymy
It may be defined as the relationship between a generic term and instances of that
generic term. Here the generic term is called hypernym and its instances are called
hyponyms. For example, the word color is hypernym and the color blue, yellow
etc. are hyponyms.
Homonymy
It may be defined as the words having same spelling or same form but having
different and unrelated meaning. For example, the word “Bat” is a homonymy
word because bat can be an implement to hit a ball or bat is a nocturnal flying
mammal also.
Polysemy
Polysemy is a Greek word, which means “many signs”. It is a word or phrase with
different but related sense. In other words, we can say that polysemy has the same
spelling but different and related meaning. For example, the word “bank” is a
polysemy word having the following meanings −
 A financial institution.
 The building in which such an institution is located.
 A synonym for “to rely on”.
Difference between Polysemy and Homonymy
Both polysemy and homonymy words have the same syntax or spelling. The main
difference between them is that in polysemy, the meanings of the words are related
but in homonymy, the meanings of the words are not related. For example, if we
9
talk about the same word “Bank”, we can write the meaning ‘a financial
institution’ or ‘a river bank’. In that case it would be the example of homonym
because the meanings are unrelated to each other.
Synonymy
It is the relation between two lexical items having different forms but expressing
the same or a close meaning. Examples are ‘author/writer’, ‘fate/destiny’.
Antonymy
It is the relation between two lexical items having symmetry between their
semantic components relative to an axis. The scope of antonymy is as follows −
 Application of property or not − Example is ‘life/death’,
‘certitude/incertitude’
 Application of scalable property − Example is ‘rich/poor’, ‘hot/cold’
 Application of a usage − Example is ‘father/son’, ‘moon/sun’.
Meaning Representation
Semantic analysis creates a representation of the meaning of a sentence. But before
getting into the concept and approaches related to meaning representation, we need
to understand the building blocks of semantic system.
Building Blocks of Semantic System
In word representation or representation of the meaning of the words, the following
building blocks play an important role −
 Entities − It represents the individual such as a particular person, location
etc. For example, Haryana. India, Ram all are entities.
 Concepts − It represents the general category of the individuals such as a
person, city, etc.
 Relations − It represents the relationship between entities and concept. For
example, Ram is a person.
 Predicates − It represents the verb structures. For example, semantic roles
and case grammar are the examples of predicates.
Now, we can understand that meaning representation shows how to put together
the building blocks of semantic systems. In other words, it shows how to put
together entities, concepts, relation and predicates to describe a situation. It also
enables the reasoning about the semantic world.
Approaches to Meaning Representations

10
Semantic analysis uses the following approaches for the representation of meaning
−
 First order predicate logic (FOPL)
 Semantic Nets
 Frames
 Conceptual dependency (CD)
 Rule-based architecture
 Case Grammar
 Conceptual Graphs
Need of Meaning Representations
A question that arises here is why do we need meaning representation? Followings
are the reasons for the same −
Linking of linguistic elements to non-linguistic elements
The very first reason is that with the help of meaning representation the linking of
linguistic elements to the non-linguistic elements can be done.
Representing variety at lexical level
With the help of meaning representation, unambiguous, canonical forms can be
represented at the lexical level.
Can be used for reasoning
Meaning representation can be used to reason for verifying what is true in the
world as well as to infer the knowledge from the semantic representation.
Lexical Semantics
The first part of semantic analysis, studying the meaning of individual words is
called lexical semantics. It includes words, sub-words, affixes (sub-units),
compound words and phrases also. All the words, sub-words, etc. are collectively
called lexical items. In other words, we can say that lexical semantics is the
relationship between lexical items, meaning of sentences and syntax of sentence.
Following are the steps involved in lexical semantics −
 Classification of lexical items like words, sub-words, affixes, etc. is
performed in lexical semantics.
 Decomposition of lexical items like words, sub-words, affixes, etc. is
performed in lexical semantics.
 Differences as well as similarities between various lexical semantic
structures is also analyzed.

11
 Questions

1. What do you know about semantics?

2. Why do we need Semantics?
3.Define the notion of Linguistics?
4. Define the notion of “meaning”.
5. What types of meaning do you know?
6. What do you know about semasiology?
7. Speak about Semantics and other branches of Linguistics?

Glossary.

Ambiguity: a sentence is ambiguous when it has two or more possible meanings

Connotation: a further association that a word suggests other than its literal
dictionary meaning.

Formal semantics- formal semantics seeks to identify domain-specific operations

in minds which speakers perform when they compute a sentence's meaning on the
basis of its syntactic structure

Homonymy: the words having same spelling or same form but having different
and unrelated meaning.

Representation: When someone represents something it usually means attaching

an association to an element that could be physical, virtual or a view/idea

Seme: element of a sememe, defined as the extreme of a binary relational function

between sememes. The seme is the smallest unit of signification defined by
analysis.

Sememe: signified of a morpheme.

Sentence: syntactic structure of an utterance.

Signification: signified of a linguistic unit defined by abstracting context and

communicational situation. Any given signification is an artefact.

Signified: content of a linguistic unit

12
References:
1. Leech, G., (1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning, 2nd edition.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics#:~:text=In%20linguistics%2C
%20semantics%20is%20the,or%20larger%20units%20of%20discourse.
3. https://monkeylearn.com/blog/semantic-analysis/

LECTURE 2. LANGUAGE SIGN AND THE NOTION OF LEXICAL

MEANING.

Level: B2

Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Aіms:

To introduce the notion of language sign.

To investigate the notion of lexical meaning.

 To raise students’ awareness on the types of lexical meaning.

Objectives:

 to help students to comprehend the notion of language sign.

 to get students understand the connection of language sign and the notion of
lexical meaning
 to discuss types of meaning.
Mode
Part / Objective of
Procedure Time Materials
Activity s intera
ction

13
Lead-in T asks Ss to answer the questions To get SS Teach 10 Whiteboar
from Power Point Presentation. thinking er- min d,OHP.
Part 1
about and Stude
1. Can you define the
interested nts.
notion of meaning?
in the
2. What is language sign?
topic
3.Define the types of
meaning?
4.Define the notion of
“meaning”.
5.What types of meaning
do you know?
6.What is Lexical
meaning?
7.What is Denotational
meaning?

Part 2 Explanation of the new topic To Teach 30 PPT

Teacher explains the topic and introduce er-
min
students make notes in their the topic Stude
lecture copybooks and discussing nts
main points with teacher and
other students.

Part 3 After lecture teacher gives To put SS Teach 10

Concept Checking knowledg er-
Activity min
Questions(CCQs)to check e into Stude
1
students’ comprehension, practice,t nts
o check ss
awareness
.

Part 4 Teacher asks students to divide To put SS Group 10

into pairs and discuss on the knowledg work
Activity min
topic. e into
2
practice

14
 Part 5 Teacher presents the video. To raise Group 10 Video,
Students watch the video and students’ work min OHP
Video
answer to the questions. awareness projector.
watchin
on the
g.
topic.

Handout 4

Consoli Teacher consolidates the topic To The 10mi Discussio

dation. and asks questions from ss. consolidat whole n n.
e topic. class.

LECTURE 2. LANGUAGE SIGN AND THE NOTION OF LEXICAL

MEANING
Plan of the lecture:
1. The definition of Language and Language Sign.
2. The difference between Signifier and Signified.
3. The definition of meaning and concept (notion).
4. The nature of Lexical meaning.
5. Denotation and Connotation.
Language is defined as following:
-the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a
structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture. For
ex: “a study of the way children learn language”
-a system of communication used by a particular country or community, for ex:
“the book was translated into twenty-five languages”
Language is a sign system. This system is open and dynamic. It is the combination
of grammar, syntax, lexical, phonetic and morphological levels. Every level has its
own rules and laws. Each level consists of the minimum units of the language, they
are: morpheme, phoneme, words, word combinations, sentences.

15
Sign is a physical marker which carries some information and it gives direct, brief,
precise information about anything. It is opposed to Symbol. Example: the gesture
of waving one’s hand. It is a sign, so what does it mean if somebody waving hand.
It can be a sign of hello, hi to someone or it can be a sign of farewell. It depends
on situation. So, the movement of the hand or gesture is perfect example of sign.
Language Sign consists of 2 parts:
1. Signifier
2. Signified.
Signifier is actual sound when we can pronounce any kind of word. For example:
the word “phone”. It definitely has sound. The sound of the word “phone” it comes
under the category of Signifier.
But, when we pronounce any kind of word, it definitely carries a picture in our
mind. For instance: when we see the phone, it gives a mental picture to our mind
that mental picture is Signified.
According to the language, Signifiers can be different because there are
multiple languages around the world, so Signifier can be changed, but Signified
remains the same.
Meaning and concept (notion).
When examining a word one can see that its meaning though closely connected
with the underlying concept is not identical with it.
To begin with, concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is the thought of
the object that singles out the most typical, the most essential features of the object.
So all concepts are almost the same for the whole of humanity in one and the same
period of its historical development. The meanings of words, however, are
different in different languages. That is to say, words expressing identical concept
may have different semantic structures in different languages. E.g. the concept of
"a building for human habitation" is expressed in English by the word “house”, in
Russian – “дом”, but their meanings are not identical as house does not possess the
meaning of “fixed residence of family or household”, which is part of the meaning
of the Russian word дом; it is expressed by another English word “home”.
The difference between meaning and concept can also be observed by comparing
synonymous words and word-groups expressing the same concept but possessing
linguistic meaning which is felt as different in each of the units, e.g. big, large; to
die to pass away, to join the majority, to kick the bucket; child, baby, babe, infant.
Concepts are always emotionally neutral as they are a category of thought.
Language, however, expresses all possible aspects of human consciousness.
Therefore, the meaning of many words not only conveys some reflection of
objective reality but also the speaker's attitude to what he is speaking about, his
state of mind. Thus, though the synonyms big, large, tremendous denote the same
16
concept of size, the emotive charge of the word tremendous is much heavier than
that of the other word.
Meaning is a certain reflection in our mind of objects, phenomena or relations that
makes part of the linguistic sign - its so-called inner facet, whereas the sound form
functions as its outer facet. There are 2 basic types of meaning:
1. Grammatical meaning is defined as the expression in Speech of relationships
between words. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalized
than the lexical meaning. It is recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of
different words as the meaning of plurality in the following words students, boob,
windows, compositions.
2. Lexical meaning. The definitions of lexical meaning given by various authors,
though different in detail, agree in the basic principle: they all point out that lexical
meaning is the realisation of concept or emotion by means of a definite language
system.
- The component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent
in all the forms of this word and in all possible distributions of these forms.
[Ginzburg R.S., Rayevskaya N.N.];
- The semantic invariant of the grammatical variation of a word [Nikitin M.V.];
- The material meaning of a word, i.e. the meaning of the main material part of the
word which reflects the concept the given word expresses and the basic properties
of the thing (phenomenon, quality, state, etc.) the word denotes. [Mednikova
E.M.].
Lexical meaning has denotation and connotation:
Denotation is the conceptual content of a word is expressed in its denotative
meaning. To denote is to serve as a linguistic expression for a concept or as a name
for an individual object. It is the denotational meaning that makes communication
possible.
Connotation is the pragmatic communicative value the word receives depending
on where, when, how, by whom, for what purpose and in what contexts it may be
used. There are four main types of connotations:
- stylistic,
-emotional,
-evaluative,
-expressive or intensifying.
Stylistic connotations is what the word conveys about the speaker's attitude to the
social circumstances and the appropriate functional style (slay vs kill), evaluative
connotation may show his approval or disapproval of the object spoken of (clique
vs group), emotional connotation conveys the speaker's emotions (mummy vs

17
mother), the degree of intensity (adore vs love) is conveyed by expressive or
intensifying connotation.
The interdependence of connotations with denotative meaning is also different for
different types of connotations. Thus, for instance, emotional connotation comes
into being on the basis of denotative meaning but in the course of time may
substitute it by other types of connotation with general emphasis, evaluation and
colloquial stylistic overtone. E.g. terrific which originally meant “frightening” is
now a colloquialism meaning “very, very good' or 'very great”: terrific beauty,
terrific pleasure.
The orientation toward the subject-matter, characteristic of the denotative meaning,
is substituted here by pragmatic orientation toward speaker and listener; it is not so
much what is spoken about as the attitude to it that matters.
Fulfilling the significative and the communicative functions of the word the
denotative meaning is present in every word and may be regarded as the central
factor in the functioning of language.
The expressive function of the language (the speaker's feelings) and the pragmatic
function (the effect of words upon listeners) are rendered in connotations. Unlike
the denotative meaning, connotations are optional.
Connotation differs from the implicational meaning of the word. Implicational
meaning is the implied information associated with the word, with what the
speakers know about the referent. A wolf is known to be greedy and cruel
(implicational meaning) but the denotative meaning of this word does not include
these features. The denotative or the intentional meaning of the word wolf is "a
wild animal resembling a dog that kills sheep and sometimes even attacks men". Its
figurative meaning is derived from implied information, from what we know about
wolves – “a cruel greedy person”, also the adjective wolfish means “greedy”.
Polysemy is very characteristic of the English vocabulary due to the monosyllabic
character of English words and the predominance of root words. The greater the
frequency of the word, the greater the number of meanings that constitute its
semantic structure. A special formula known as “Zipf's law” has been worked out
to express the correlation between frequency, word length and polysemy: the
shorter the word, the higher its frequency of use; the higher the frequency, the
wider its combinability, i.e. the more word combinations it enters; the wider its
combinability, the more meanings are realized in these contexts.
The word in one of its meanings is termed as lexico-semantic variant of this word.
For example the word table has at least 9 lexico-semantic variants:
1. a piece of furniture;
2. the persons seated at a table;
3. sing. the food put on a table, meals;
18
4. a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.;
5. pl. slabs of stone;
6. words cut into them or written on them (the ten tables);
7. an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.;
8. part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to be operated on;
9. a level area, a plateau.
The problem in polysemy is that of interrelation of different lexico-semantic
variants. There may be no single semantic component common to all lexico-
semantic variants but every variant has something in common with at least one of
the others.
All lexico-semantic variants of a word taken together form its semantic structure or
semantic paradigm. The word face, for example, according to the dictionary data
has the following semantic structure:
1.The front part of the head: He fell on his face,
2.Look, expression: a sad face, smiling faces, she is a good judge of faces.
3.Surface, facade: face of a clock, face of a building, He laid his cards face down.
4.fig. Impudence, boldness, courage; put a good/brave/ boldface on smth, put a
new face on smth, the face of it, have the face to do, save one's face.
5.Style of typecast for printing: bold-face type.
In polysemy we are faced with the problem of interrelation and interdependence of
various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word.
No general or complete scheme of types of lexical meanings as elements of a
word's semantic structure has so far been accepted by linguists. There are various
points of view. The following terms may be found with different authors: direct /
figurative, other oppositions are: main / derived; primary / secondary; concrete/
abstract; central/ peripheral; general/ special; narrow / extended and so on.
Meaning is direct when it nominates the referent without the help of a context, in
isolation; meaning is figurative when the referent is named and at the same time
characterised through its similarity with other objects, e.g. tough meat - direct
meaning, tough politician - figurative meaning. Similar examples are: head - head
of a cabbage, foot -foot of a mountain, face - put a new face on smth.
Differentiation between the terms primary / secondary main / derived meanings is
connected with two approaches to polysemy: diachronic and synchronic.
If viewed diachronically polysemy, is understood as the growth and development
(or change) in the semantic structure of the word.
The meaning of the word table in Old English was the meaning “a flat slab of
stone or wood”. It was its primary meaning, others were secondary and appeared
later. They had been derived from the primary meaning.

19
Synchronically polysemy is understood as the coexistence of various meanings of
the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English
language. In that case the problem of interrelation and interdependence of
individual meanings making up the semantic structure of the word must be
investigated from different points of view, that of main/ derived, central /peripheric
meanings.
An objective criterion of determining the main or central meaning is the frequency
of its occurrence in speech. Thus, the main meaning of the word table in Modern
English is “a piece of furniture”.
Polysemy is a phenomenon of language, not of speech. But the question arises:
wouldn't it interfere with the communicative process ?
As a rule the contextual meaning represents only one of the possible lexico-
semantic variants of the word. So polysemy does not interfere with the
communicative function of the language because the situation and the context
cancel all the unwanted meanings, as in the following sentences: The steak is
tough- This is a tough problem -Prof. Holborn is a tough examiner.
By the term “context” we understand the minimal stretch of speech determining
each individual meaning of the word. The context individualizes the meanings,
brings them out. The two main types of linguistic contexts which serve to
determine individual meanings of words are the lexical context and the
grammatical context. These types are differentiated depending on whether the
lexical or the grammatical aspect is predominant in determining the meaning.
In lexical context of primary importance are lexical groups combined with the
polysemantic words under consideration.
The adjective heavy in isolation possesses the meaning “of great weight, weighty”.
When combined with the lexical group of words denoting natural phenomena as
wind, storm, etc. it means “striking, following with force, abundant”, e.g. heavy
rain, wind, storm, etc. In combination with the words industry, arms, artillery and
the like, heavy has the meaning “the larger kind of something as heavy industry,
artillery”
In grammatical context it is the grammatical (mainly the syntactic) structure of the
context that serves to determine various individual meanings of a polysemantic
word. Consider the following examples: 1) I made Peter study; He made her
laugh; They made him work (sing, dance, write...) 2) My friend made a good
teacher 3) He made a good husband.
In the pattern "to make + N(Pr)+ V inf' the word make has the meaning “to force”,
and in the pattern “to make + A + N” it has the meaning "to turn out to be". Here
the grammatical context helps to determine the meaning of the word “to make.
So, linguistic (verbal) contexts comprise lexical and grammatical contexts. They
20
are opposed to extra linguistic contexts (non-verbal). In extra- linguistic contexts
the meaning of the word is determined not only by linguistic factors but also by the
actual situation in which the word is used.

QUESTIONS:
1. What is Language?
2. What is Sign?
3. Can you clarify Signifier with examples?
4. What is Signified” Give examples.
5. What is the difference between meaning and concept? Prove with examples.
6. What basic types of meaning are there?
7. Can you define Grammatical meaning?
8. What is Lexical meaning?
9. What is Denotational meaning?
10. What is Connotational meaning?
11. Can you count 4 types of Connotational meaning?
12. What is lexical context?
13. What is grammatical context?
14. What is Polysemy?
15. What is Extension?
16. What is Degradation?
17. What is Metaphor?
18. What is Metonymy?

Glossary

1.Extension (widening of meaning). The extension of semantic capacity of a word,

i.e. the expansion of polysemy in the course of its historical development, e.g.
manuscript originally “smth hand-written”.
2.Connotation-
3.Dennotation-
4.Narrowing of meaning. The restriction of the semantic capacity of a word in the
historical development, e.g. meat in OE meant “food and drink”.
5.Elevation (or amelioration). The semantic change in the word which rises it
from humble beginning to a position of greater importance, e.g. minister in earlier
times meant merely “a servant”.
21
6.Degradation (or_degeri.eration). The semantic change, by which, for one reason
or another, a word falls into disrepute, or acquires some derogatory emotive
charge, e.g. silly originally meant “happy”.
7.Metaphor. The transfer of name based on the association of similarity. It is the
application of a name or a descriptive term to an object to which it is not literally
applicable, e.g. head of an army, eye of a needle.
8.Metonymy. The transfer of name based on the association of contiguity. It is a
universal device in which the name of one thing is changed for that of another, to
which it is related by association of ideas, as having close relationship to one
another, e.g. the chair may mean “the chairman”, the bar –“the lawyers”.
9. Polysemy- a further association that a word suggests other than its literal
dictionary meaning.
10. Pragmatics- Pragmatics is the aspect that studies the relationship
between language signs and those who use them to communicate.

LECTURE 3.ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE FOR THE

INTERPRETATION OF LEXICAL MEANING.

Level: B2

Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Aіms:

To introduce language elements

To investigate the notion of lexical meaning

 To raise students’ awareness on elements of language and interpretation of

lexical meaning.

Objectives:

 to help students to comprehend the notion of language elements.

 to get students understand the connection of language elements with lexical
meaning.
 to discuss the notion of meaning.
Part / Procedure Objective Mode Time Materials
s of
Activity
intera
22
 ction

Lead-in T asks Ss to answer the questions To get SS Teach 10 Whiteboar

from Power Point Presentation. thinking er- min d,OHP.
Part 1
about and Stude
QUESTIONS interested nts.
in the
1. What kind of basic
topic
elements of language are
defined?
2. What is the smallest units
of sound that make up a
language?
3. What is morphology?
4. What is a lexical meaning
in linguistics?
5. What is a denotative
meaning?
6. Define logical, emotive
and nominal meanings.

Part 2 Explanation of the new topic To Teach 30 PPT

Teacher explains the topic and introduce er-
min
students make notes in their the topic Stude
lecture copybooks and discussing nts
main points with teacher and
other students.

Part 3 After lecture teacher gives To put SS Teach 10

Concept Checking knowledg er-
Activity min
Questions(CCQs)to check e into Stude
1
students’ comprehension, practice,t nts
o check ss
awareness
.

Part 4 Teacher asks students to divide To put SS Group 10

into pairs and do clustering on knowledg work
Activity min
the topic. Then students speak on e into
2
23
 their results to the teacher. practice

Part 5 Teacher presents the thematic To raise Group 10 Video,OH

video. Students watch the video students’ work min P
Video
and answer to the questions. awareness projector.
watchin
on the
g.
topic.

Handout 4

Consoli Teacher consolidates the topic To The 10mi Discussio

dation. and asks questions from ss. consolidat whole n n.
e topic. class.

Lecture materials

Elements of language for the interpretation of lexical meaning.

Plan

1. Components of language
2. Basic elements of language
3. The main concept of lexical meaning
Language is one of the most important parts of any culture. It is the way by which
people communicate with one another, build relationships, and create a sense of
community. There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today, and
each is unique in a number of ways.

Spoken language, written language, and their associated components (i.e.,

receptive and expressive) are each a synergistic system comprised of individual
language domains (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics)
that form a dynamic integrative whole (Berko Gleason, 2005).

24
Phonology The study of speech structure within a language, including both the
patterns of basic speech units and the accepted rules of pronunciation, is known as
phonology.2 The smallest units of sound that make up a language are called
phonemes. For example, the word “that” contains three phonemes the “th”
represents one phoneme /th/, the “a” maps to the short a sound /ă/, and the “t” to its
basic sound /t/.

Morphology Moving to the next level of language, we find the study of the
smallest units of meaning, morphemes. Morphemes include base words, such as
“hat,” “dog,” or “love,” as well as affixes, such as “un-,” “re-,” the plural “s” or
“es,” and the past tense “ed.” Knowledge of the morphology of our language is
critical to vocabulary development and reflects the smallest building blocks for
comprehension.

Syntax The study of how individual words and their most basic meaningful units
are combined to create sentences is known as syntax. As words are grouped
together when we communicate, we must follow the rules of grammar for our
language, in other words, its syntax. It is the knowledge of syntax that allows us to
recognize that the following two sentences, while containing different word order
and levels of complexity, have the same meaning.  The boy hit the ball.  The ball
was hit by the boy. Syntax also allows us to accept “I went to the store” as a
meaningful (grammatical) sentence while “To store went I” would not be
acceptable English.

Semantics Not only does the grammatical structure of our language provide the
needed clues for understanding, we also have a wealth of figurative language and
rich description that adds color and nuance to our communication. Semantics refers
to the ways in which a language conveys meaning.3 It is our understanding of
semantics that allows us to recognize that someone who is “green with envy” has
not changed hue, or that “having cold feet” has less to do with the appendage at the
end of our legs and more to do with our anxiety about a new experience. Because
semantics moves beyond the literal meaning of words and is culture-dependent,
this is among the most difficult aspects of language for individuals who are not
native speakers and even those who speak the same language but come from
different cultures and convey meaning using words in unique ways. Anyone who
has attempted to converse with a teenager in his own vernacular can appreciate the
importance of sharing a semantic base for communicating clearly.

Pragmatics “‘Pragmatics’ refers to the ways the members of the speech

community achieve their goals using language.”4 The way we speak to our parents
is not the same as the way we interact with a sibling, for example. The language
25
used in a formal speech may bear little resemblance to what we would hear at a
lunch with five friends. The conversational style of day-to-day interactions is quite
different from the language used even when reading a storybook to a toddler.
Knowing the difference and when to use which style is the essence of pragmatics.

Five basic elements of language defined.

Language is communicative

Language is arbitrary in nature

Language is structured

Language is generative

Language is dynamic

Language is communicative. The quality of being communicative, by definition, is

a willingness to dispense information. Ancient Roman society preserved records
and instructed their progeny in the form and vocabulary, the lexicon of their
language. Because of its communicative nature, that ancient language, Latin,
existed for centuries, perpetuating generational culture, which sustained that
society and continues to provide the rudiments for medical and scientific
terminology.

Language is arbitrary in nature. One word describing an object may very well be
another—such as the word door could as easily have been assigned to a window.
Language is based on random choices by groups of people (nations, even) to
communicate needs and wants, a collective system for commerce. The arbitrary
nature of language can be called into question since objects have names based on
their initial uses; however, for this brief treatment, it stands as a ruler for language.

The evidence that language is arbitrary is overwhelming. The fact that there are
hundreds of languages attests that anything can be called anything! Take the word
"yes." In English, "yes," means to agree or answer in the affirmative. In Spanish,
"si" is to agree or reply in the affirmative. In French, "oui" is to agree or answer in
the affirmative. In Xhosa, it is "ewe." Depending on what language a person uses,
what English people call "yes" could be any sound.

Language is structured. There is a pattern of organization in a given language that

takes an identifiable shape. The patterns are familiar enough to be identifiable to
all other users of that language. Language has basic building blocks that set it aside
from other forms of communication.

26
It would be difficult to build a house without a blueprint. Even if there is no
written blueprint, there is a mental template to reference so that others can fashion
something similar to the first house. In other words, for those out there thinking
that they can build a house without directions, it is not so. The directions are
mental and/or physical. Even languages that have no written form have building
blocks in common with written languages. There is a sure way to put words
together to make them intelligible to the hearers.

Language is generative. Language constantly creates new phrases and new

structures—it generates more of itself. It is comparable to a living thing that
reproduces, changes, and even dies. Even though Latin is a dead tongue, those who
use it keep it alive or generative by speaking and writing it.

According to the definition of scientists "A word is a language sign that expresses
a concept by its forms and meanings". By concept we mean an abstract or general
idea of some phenomenon of objective reality including the subjective feelings and
emotions of human beings.

The meaning of a word is the means by which the concept is materialized. Both
lexical and grammatical meanings may be polysemantic. This means that a word
may have a number of meanings. The meanings are liable to change.

When there is a connection between different meanings, we call them shades of

meanings, sometimes separate meanings. When the process of breaking away from
the basic meaning has gone so far and we don't feel any connection between the
meanings, we have different words - homonyms.

The meanings of a word are the only means of materializing a concept in language,
though some concepts may be materialized not by means of words but by other
signs - by gestures, mimicry, music, painting, sculpture etc.

Impressions which have born by concepts are called imagery.

Imagery is mainly produced by the interplay of different meanings.

Among the lexical means we distinguish three types of meanings, which we call
logical, emotive and nominal meanings.

a) Logical Meaning

Logical meaning is the exact and definite name of an object, phenomenon or idea.
This meaning is also synonymously called denotative, referential or direct
meaning. Let's see the illustration of the logical meaning of the following words:

27
"empty" - having nothing inside, containing nothing. E.g.: an empty box; "fate" -
good or bad luck coming to a person; ' moon" - the body which moves round the
earth once a month and shines at night by light reflecting from the sun. E.g.:
Scientists have explored the surface of the moon.

Logical meaning may be primary and secondary (derivative). The above-given

examples are primary logical meanings. The secondary logical meaning or these
words are the following: "empty" - not meaning anything; "feeling empty" (calloq)
- hungry; words "empty of meaning" - meaningless words.

All the meanings fixed by English and American dictionaries constitute the
semantic structure of the word. The main and the major component of the semantic
structure of the word is its lexical meaning. And meanings which are not registered
in dictionaries but exist in our speech or written texts are called contextual
meanings. They don't enter the semantic structure of the word and exist only in a
text.

Let us compare meanings of the word "presence" in the following two sentences:
The governer said that he would not allow the presence of federal troops on the soil
of his state.

...the General has been faced with a problem as old as France's presence in Algeria.

In the first sentence the word "presence" means "...the state of being present",
whereas in the second sentence the meaning of the word expands into
"occupation", i.e. the seizure and control of an area, especially foreign territory, by
military forces. The first meaning is tne dictionary meaning of the word. The
second meaning is a contextual one. It lives only in the given text and disappears if
the context is altered. However there are definite reasons to assume when a number
of derivative meanings are given place in dictionaries on the basis of contextual
meanings. When the two meanings clearly co-exist in the utterance, we say there is
an interaction of dictionary and contextual meanings.

So a dictionary meaning is materialized in the context; a contextual meaning is

born in the context. Every word possesses an enormous potentiality for generating
new meaning.

Many derivative meanings appeared and later entered the semantic structure of a
word. E.g.: "a cut" - n; 1) act of cutting, stroke with a sword, whip etc; result of
such a stroke, a deep cut in the leg, cuts on the face after shaving. 2) reduction in
size, amount, length, etc: a cut in prices (salaries, production). The second meaning
of the word is considered to have derived from contextual meaning.
28
b) Emotive Meaning

The content of the word consists not only of the aggregate of lexical meanings.
Some additional meanings also exist in the content of the word. These additional
meanings are named in different terms: "emotive meanings", "connotative
meanings", "stylistic meanings" etc. These additional meanings, unlike lexical
meanings, do not have reference directly to the things or phenomena of the objec-
tive reality, but they refer to the reelings and emotions of the speaker towards these
things or to his emotions. These emotive meanings are fixed in most of dictionaries
and are components of the semantic structure of words as well as the lexical
meanings of these words. E.g.: "I feel so darned lonely." (G. Green). The italicized
word has no logical meaning. It has only emotive meaning. Its function is to reveal
the subjective, evaluating attitude of the writer to things and events spoken of.
Some words with emotive meanings have lost their logical meaning and function
in the language as interjections. Such words as "alas", "oh", "ah", "pooh", "gosh*
and the like have practically no logical meaning at all; words like "the devil",
"Christ", "God", "goodness gracious", etc., are frequently used only in their
emotive meaning. The same can be said about the words bloody, damn and others.
Many words acquire an emotive meaning only in a definite context. In that case we
say that the word has a contextual emotive meaning. So, even colourless everyday
terms may, in some contexts, acquire unexpected emotional overtones, as for
instance "wall" in this illustration from a "Midsummer Night's Dream":
And thou, О wall, О sweet, О lovely wall, ...Thanks, courteous wall... О wicked
wall.
Emotive meanings of words play an important role in stylistics. Writers use the
words with emotive meaning for definite stylistic effects, thus calling the attention
of the reader to the meaning of such words.

The following words have also emotive meanings...

1. Interjections: O! Alas! Hey! Yogh!

Gosh!
2. Exclamatory words: Good! Well!
Look out! Hurrah! Hear, hear! Heavens!
3. Oaths and swear words: Upon my
word! The devil! Christ! God! Goodness gracious! Bloody, damn, bastard!
4. Qualitative and intensifying
adjectives and adverbs: awfully, terrible, wonderful, dreadful, fine, fantastic,
terrific.
29
Let us see the following example
"How horrible unjust of you", cried Lord Henry (O. Wilde)

1.
"Oh, this is becoming an awful bore for you... Thank you all the same, it is awfully
sweet of you". (H. Bates).

The emotive meaning of the italicized words is stronger than the logical meaning
and we may say that they have lost their logical meaning and retained their
emotive meaning.

Another class of words with emotive meaning has lost their logical meaning and
function in the language as interjections. Such words as alas, oh, ah, pooh, darn,
gosh and the like have practically no logical meaning at all; words like the devil,
Christ, God, goodness gracious, etc., are frequently used only in their emotive
meaning. The same can be said about the words bloody, damn.

There are groups of words in the language in which emotive meaning prevails.
Among them we have such words as: love, hate, motherland, scoundrel, traitor,
hero.

Suffixes having diminutive meanings may also be treated as adding emotive

meaning to words with neutral logical meaning: cubicle (cube), particle (part),
townlet (town), booklet (book), shirtie (shirt), birdie (bird).

Anything recognizable as having a strong impact on our senses may be considered

as having emotive meaning, either dictionary or contextual.

The context helps to distinguish if the word is used in its emotive meaning or in its
logical meaning.

с) Nominal Meaning

Words having nominal meanings are treated as proper nouns. In order to

distinguish the word with a nominal meaning one must know that it is spelt by a
capital letter. Such words as Longfellow, Black Sea, Smith have nominal meanings.
30
The logical meaning from which the nominal meaning originated may in the
course of time be forgotten.

Most proper names may be considered as homonyms of common nouns. For

example: Miss Hope (hope), Mrs. Brown (brown), Miss Sweet (sweet), Browning
(pistol).

It must be remembered that the nominal meaning will always be secondary to the
logical meaning.
The process of development of meaning may go still further. A nominal meaning
may assume a logical meaning due to certain circumstances. The result is that a
logical meaning takes its origin in a nominal meaning. Some features of a person
which have made him famous are recognized by the society and these features
become the basis for the new logical meaning. E.g.: hooligan - is probably derived
from the name of a rowdy family (the Irish name Houligan). The verb boycott was
first used in 1880 to describe the action of the Land League towards Captain
Boycott, an Irish landlord. The nominal meanings of these words have now
faded away and we perceive only one, the logical meaning.

QUESTIONS

1. What kind of basic elements of language are defined?

2. What is the smallest units of sound that make up a language?
3. What is morphology?
4. What is a lexical meaning in linguistics?
5. What is a denotative meaning?
6. Define logical, emotive and nominal meanings.

Glossary

Phonology- the study of speech structure within a language, including both the
patterns of basic speech units and the accepted rules of pronunciation, is known as
phonology.

Phonemes- the smallest units of sound that make up a language are called
phonemes. For example, the word “that” contains three phonemes the “th”
represents one phoneme /th/, the “a” maps to the short a sound /ă/, and the “t” to its
basic sound /t/.

31
 Morphology -Moving to the next level of language, we find the study of the
smallest units of meaning, morphemes. the smallest building blocks for
comprehension.

Syntax -The study of how individual words and their most basic meaningful units
are combined to create sentences is known as syntax. As words are grouped
together when we communicate, we must follow the rules of grammar for our
language, in other words, its syntax.

Semantics-Semantics refers to the ways in which a language conveys meaning.

Pragmatics -‘Pragmatics’ refers to the ways the members of the speech

community achieve their goals using language.”.

Nominal meaning- Words having nominal meanings are treated as proper

nouns

Logical Meaning-Logical meaning is the exact and definite name of an object,

phenomenon or idea.

Written language-Written language refers to a language that is written down and

used for recording events, ideas and feelings

Imagery-figurative language.

LECTURE 4. Lesson Plan 4. REFERENTIAL THEORY OF WORD

MEANING.

Level: B2

Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Aіms:

To introduce the subject of semantics and referential meaning

 To raise students’ awareness on linguistics and linguistic studies.

Objectives: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

 Understand the key principles of the Referential Theory in Cognitive

Semantics.

32
 Recognize the relationship between language, meaning, and the world from
a cognitive perspective.
 Analyze how referential theory fits within the broader framework of
cognitive semantics.
Mode
Part / Objective of
Procedure Time Materials
Activity s intera
ction

Lead-in T asks Ss to answer the questions To Teach 10 Whiteboar

from Power Point Presentation. provide er- min d,OHP.
Part 1
an Stude
o Brief discussion: "What is
overview nts.
meaning? How do we understand
of
words and concepts?"
Cognitive
o Explain how Cognitive Semantics
Semantics contrasts with formal as a field
semantic theories by of study.
emphasizing the role of
experience and cognition in
meaning-making.

Part 2 Explanation of the new topic To Teach 30 PPT

Teacher explains the topic and introduce er-
min
students make notes in their Referentia Stude
lecture copybooks and discussing l Theory nts
main points with teacher and and
other students. explain its
main
ideas in
the
context of
Cognitive
Semantics
.

Part 3 Students work in pairs to identify To put SS Teach 10

a word (e.g., "bird") and discuss knowledg er-
Activity min
its possible referents and mental e into Stude
1
image, considering prototypes practice,t
33
 (e.g., an eagle vs. a penguin). o check ss nts
awareness
o Class discussion on how
.
the mental image of "bird" might
differ depending on cultural or
personal experiences.

Part 4 o Provide students with a To put SS Group 10

sentence and ask them to identify knowledg work
Activity min
the referents of key words: e into
2
practice
 "The bank was full of
fish."

 "He hit the ball with a bat."

o Students share their

answers and discuss how the
referents change based on
context

Part 5 Teacher presents the thematic To Group 20 Video,OH

video. Students watch the video summariz work min P
Video
and answer to the questions. e the main projector.
watchin
points of
g.  How does the Referential
the lesson
Theory explain meaning in
and
language? Give examples from
encourage
real life conversation
reflection
 How is it different from on the
truth-conditional semantics? relevance
Provide examples from real life of
conversation Referentia
l Theory
in Handout 4
understan
ding
meaning

Consoli Teacher consolidates the topic To The 10mi Discussio

dation. and asks questions from ss. consolidat whole n n.

34
 e topic. class.

Lecture materials
Plan of the lecture:
Introduction
Semantics is the technical term used to refer to the study of meaning, and, since
meaning is a part of language, semantics is a part of linguistics. Unfortunately,
“meaning” covers a variety of aspects of language and there is no general
agreement about the nature of meaning, what aspects it may properly be included
in semantics, or the way in which it should be described. Meaning is so intangible
that one group of linguists, the structuralists, preferred not to deal with it or rely on
it at all. To illustrate what we mean by the intangible quality of “meaning”, think
of such words as “beauty”, “goodness”, “love”; it would be hard to find two people
who agree absolutely on what each of these words implies. A person may seem
good to one onlooker and a hypocrite to another. Similarly, we all think we know
what we mean by “boy” and “man”, but at what age does a boy cease to be a boy?
At thirteen? Fifteen? Eighteen? Twenty–one? Meaning is a variable and not to be
taken for granted. Meaning has become a matter of great concern to philosophers,
literary scholars and thinkers all over the world. Greek philosophers like Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle, and others in ancient China and in ancient India made many
statements about meaning and some of them are still relevant today. Because of the
limited scope of this paper, the researcher is going to discuss the main
assumptions, merits, and limitations of three well–known theories of meaning.
These theories are: referential theory of meaning, the non– referential theory of
meaning and generative grammarian theory of meaning. None of them is perfect;
each of them has merits and limitations. Since meaning is a complex phenomenon
and difficult to understand, it is hoped that many students can benefit from this
study and form certain views about meaning and how it operates.
In the following sections, each theory will be explained with some detail
I .The Referential Theory of Meaning
a. Meaning as the Relationship between Words and Objects
Greek philosophers say that there is a relationship between words and objects. In
other words, the best way of indicating the meaning of a word is to refer to the
object represented by that word. In their points of view, the best definition of the
meaning of a word is its ostensive definition: defining an object by pointing to that
object. This view has been criticized because it works very well only with concrete
words, such as dog, house, table, sun, door,..etc, but it does not with abstract
words– such as, the, and, because, ambition, happiness,..etc.
35
b. Meaning as a Triangular Relationship
Ogden and Richard (1923:11) explained the meaning of a word with the help of a
triangle.
Reference (Thought)
Symbol Referent
The symbol is the spoken or written word; the reference is the information that the
spoken or written shape of the word conveys to the reader/ hearer; and the referent
is the thing or the object we talk about. The broken line means that there is no
direct relationship between word and the object that it refers to. Their view about
meaning is nearly the same as of the Greek philosophers. The only new thing they
added is that it is the human mind that links an object
References: with the word used for that object. Again, this view works only with
concrete words, but it does not with abstract ones.
c. Bloomfield’s View of Meaning
Bloomfield (1933) stated that the context of situation was an essential part of
meaning. He defined the meaning of a linguistic form as the situation in which the
speaker utters it and the response which it calls forth in the hearer. Palmer(1981)
used reference in the sense of non– linguistic world of objects and experiences. In
this sense, the word reference is used for the whole network of the contexts of
situations in which we live. In other words, both Bloomfield and Palmer focus on
the context of situations. Bloomfield also thinks of meaning as something
describable in terms of stimuli and responses like Skinner who came after him.
Skinner (1957) Views meaning as a result of stimuli and responses made by
participants in a verbal act of communication. Like Skinner, Bloomfield explained
his view of meaning with the help of an imagined verbal communication between
Jack and Jill.
Jill, who is hungry, sees an apple. The apple in this case is the stimulus. This
stimulus can produce in Jill a response in the form of an action and Jill can go and
get the apple. Jill’s response may as well be in the form of a verbal action and she
may ask Jack to go and get the apple for her. Jill’s verbal action operates as a
linguistic response of his getting the apple for Jill. For him, meaning can be
defined as the non–linguistic events that precede and follow that verbal action.
Bloomfield (p. 139) also states that “we can define the meaning of a speech form
accurately when this meaning has to do with some matter of which we possess
scientific knowledge”. He believes that speech is a physical event and the human
behaviors and language as part of human behavior are subject to the laws of
science which were applicable in the case of other physical events in the universe.
He thinks that knowledge obtained from research in physical sciences would solve
all linguists’ problems.
36
 His belief may work well in the area of phonology, the phonetic laboratory. But
in semantics, his view seems untrue because it is impossible for us to provide a
scientifically accurate definition of the meaning of every word in a language. He
himself asserts that “the statement of meaning is, therefore, the weak point in
language study, and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far
beyond the present state” (p. 140). Leech (1981:2) has described this statement as “
a pessimistic note, which turned out to be the virtual death–knell of semantics in
the USA for the next twenty years”.
Reference:
Leech, G., (1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning, 2nd edition.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics#:~:text=In%20linguistics%2C
%20semantics%20is%20the,or%20larger%20units%20of%20discourse.

https://monkeylearn.com/blog/semantic-analysis/

Questions:

1. Who have statements on referential theory?

2. What is ostensive meaning?
3. What can you say about broken line?
4. What did you get about Bollomfield’s theory?
Glossary:

The Referential Theory of Meaning- Meaning as the Relationship between

Words and Objects
Ostensive definition- defining an object by pointing to that object.

The broken line- means that there is no direct relationship between word and the
object that it refers to.

Reference- is used for the whole network of the contexts of situations in which we
live.

LECTURE 5. Lesson Plan 5. Semantic structure of the word.

Level: B2

Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

37
Aіms:

To introduce the subject of semantics and semantic structure of the word.

 To raise students’ awareness on linguistics and linguistic studies.

Objectives: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

 Understand the key principles of the semantic structure of the word.

 Recognize the relationship between language, meaning, and the world from
a cognitive perspective.
 Analyze the semantic structure of the word.
Mode
Part / Objective of
Procedure Time Materials
Activity s intera
ction

Lead-in T asks Ss to answer the questions To Teach 10 Whiteboar

from Power Point Presentation. provide er- min d,OHP.
Part 1
an Stude
What is the meaning of a word?
overview nts.
2.Characterize the referential of
approach. Cognitive
Semantics
3.Characterize the functional and
approach. semantic
4.What is the grammatical meaning
meaning of a word?

5.What is the lexical meaning of

a word?

Part 2 Explanation of the new topic To Teach 30 PPT

Teacher explains the topic and introduce er-
min
students make notes in their Referentia Stude
lecture copybooks and discussing l Theory nts
main points with teacher and and
other students. explain its
main
ideas in
38
 the
context of
Cognitive
Semantics
.

Part 3 Students define the following To put SS Teach 10

words and word combinations. knowledg er-
Activity min
e into Stude
1 Dull, adj.
practice,t nts
1. A dull book, a dull film o check ss
awareness
2. A dull student .
3. Dull weather, a dull day, a dull
color

4. A dull sound

5. A dull knife

6. Trade is dull

7. Dull eyes (arch.)

8. Dull ears (arch.)

Part 4 Find the synonyms of the To put SS Group 10

following words and word knowledg work
Activity min
combinations. e into
2
practice
lonely, adj.

notorious, adj.

celebrated, adj.

to glare, v.

to glance, v.

to shiver, v.

Part 5 Teacher presents the thematic To Group 20 Video,OH

video. Students watch the video summariz work min P
Video
e the main
39
watchin and answer to the questions. points of projector.
g. the lesson
Explain meaning in cognitive
and
semantics? Give examples from
encourage
real life conversation
reflection
What is semantic structure of on the
words? Provide examples from relevance
real life conversation of
Referentia
l Theory
in
understan Handout 4
ding
meaning

Consoli Teacher consolidates the topic To The 10mi Discussio

dation. and asks questions from ss. consolidat whole n n.
e topic. class.

Lecture materials
Plan of the lecture:
Introduction

LECTURE 5. SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF A WORD.

TYPES OF MEANING
Plan of the lecture:
1. The definition of a meaning.
2. The meaning and concept.
3. Components of word meaning.
4. The factors accounting for semantic changes.
5. Semantic change.
The definition of the meaning is especially difficult due to the complexity of the
process by which language and human consciousness serve to reflect the reality
and adopt it to human needs. Nowadays there is no universally accepted definition
of the meaning, or rather a definition all the basic features of meaning and
being simultaneously time operational. The branch of lexicology devoted to
the study of meaning is called semasiology. Meaning is a realization of a
notion or a motion by means of definite language system. The modern
approach to semasiology is based on the assumption that the inner form of
40
the word presents a structure which is called the semantic structure of the word.
The basic principle of a structural semantic approach is that words do not exist in
isolation. The meanings of words are defined through the sense relations
they have with other words. There are different approaches to define the meaning
of the word. Referential Approach distinguishes between the three closely
connected components with meaning, that is 1) the sound-form of the
linguistic sign,
2) the concept underlying this sound form and 3) the referent, i.e. the part
or aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign refers. All major works on
semantic theory have so far been based on referential concepts of meaning.
The best known referential model of meaning is the so-called "basic triangle". The
sound-form of the linguistic sign [d/\v] is connected with our concept of a bird
which it denotes and through it with the referent, i.e. the actual bird. The
diagram implies that the meaning is a correlation between the sound-form of
a word, the underlying concept and the concrete object it denotes. The question
arise: in what way does the meaning correlate with each element of the
triangle and in what relation does meaning stand to each of them?1.It is easily
observed that the sound form of the word is not identical with its meaning.
There is no inherent connection between the sound cluster [d/\v] and the meaning
of the word dove. The connection is conventional and arbitrary. It can be easily
proved by comparing the sound forms of different languages conveying one
and the same meaning: dove, голубь, ... The words have different sound forms but
express the same meaning.
The meaning of the word though closely connected with the underlying
concept is not identical. Concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is
the thought of an object that singles out its essential features. Concepts are the
result of abstraction and generalization. Thus they are almost the same for
the whole of humanity in one and the same period of its historical
development. The meanings of words, however, are different in different
languages. Compare: “a building for human habituation” –HOUSE, ДОМ; “fixed
residence of family or household” –HOME, ДОМ. These examples show that the
concepts expressed by one and the same word in one language can be expressed by
two different words in the other language.3.Distinguishing meaning from the
referent is of the utmost importance. Firstly, meaning is linguistic, whereas the
referent is beyond the scope of language. One and the same object can be
denoted by more than one word of a different meaning, e.g., the referent
“CAT” be denoted by the words “cat”, “animal”, “Tom”, “this”, “pet”, etc. All
these words have the same referent but different meanings. Besides, there are
words that have distinct meaning but do not refer to any existing thing, e.g.,
41
mermaid –an imagery sea creature that has the upper body of a woman and a fish
tail. The conclusion is obvious –meaning is not to be identical with any of
the three points of the triangle, but closely connected with them. Functional
approach. In recent years a new and entirely different approach to meaning, known
as the functional approach, has begun to take shape in linguistics and especially in
structural linguistics. The functional approach maintains that the meaning of
a linguistic unit can be studied only through its relation to other linguistic units. In
a very simplified form this view may be illustrated by the following: we
know, for instance, that the meaning of the two words move and movement is
different because they function in speech differently. Comparing the contexts
in which we find these words we cannot fail to observe that they occupy
different positions in relation to other words. (To) move, e.g., can be followed
by a noun (move the chair), preceded by a pronoun (we move), etc. The position
occupied by the word movement is different: it may be followed by a
preposition (movement of smth), preceded by an adjective (slow movement),
and so on. As the distribution of the two words is different, we are entitled
to the conclusion that not only they do belong to different classes of words, but
that their meanings are different, too. The same is true of different meanings of one
and the same word. Analyzing the function of a word in linguistic contexts
and comparing these contexts, we conclude that meanings are different (or the
same) and this fact can be proved by an objective investigation of linguistic
data. For example, we can observe the difference of the meanings of the word
take if we examine its functions in different linguistic contexts, take the tram
(the taxi, the cab, etc.) as opposed to take to somebody. The functional
approach is sometimes described as contextual as it is based on the analysis of
various contexts. That is the context that determines which of the possible
meanings of a polysemantic word is used.
Word-meaning is not homogeneous. It is made up of various components. These
components are described as types of meaning. The two main types of meaning are
the grammatical (categorical) meaning and the lexical (material) meaning. The
grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationship
between words. GM is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets
of individual forms of different words: the tense meaning (asked, thought,
walked); the case meaning(girl's, boy's, night's);the meaning of plurality (joys,
tables, places). Grammatical meaning is generalized in the most abstract part of the
meaning of the word; it is common to all the words belonging to this part of
speech. It is that part of meaning which recurs in the identical forms of
different words of the same class, e.g., big, bigger, the biggest. The lexical
meaning is the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and
42
distributions. The word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone possess different
grammatical meanings of tense, person, number, but in each form they have
one and the same semantic component denoting 'the process of movement'. Lexical
meaning is not indivisible, it may be analyzed in three components: denotational,
connotational, and pragmatic. One part of meaning expressing a notion is
called denotation. Denotational meaning establishes correlation between the
name and the object, process or characteristic feature of concrete reality (or
thought) which is denoted by the given word. Denotation expresses a notion.
Denotation is objective, it reflects objective reality through notions. The other
part of meaning may express a personal attitude of the speaker to the object of
speech, or it may characterize the role of the speaker in the process of
communication. The subjective part of meaning is the connotation of the word.
Connotations are subjective, they characterize the speaker, his attitude, his
social role. There are four types of connotation:
1. Emotional connotation shows the emotional attitude of the speaker to the object
of speech, e.g., daddy –father 2. Evaluative connotation characterizes the object
positively or negatively, e.g., clique –group 3. Expressive connotation
characterizes an object as having a great degree of some quality. It is subdivided
into: a) Quantitative (in which meaning is the component of the words very
or much), e.g., calamity, disaster, b)Imaginative type to which words in
figurative meaning belong, e.g., a monkey. 4. Stylistic connotation characterizes
the social role of the speaker. All the words which are used in limited
spheres of communication are marked by stylistic connotation, e.g., to do in, to
kick the bucket. The pragmatic aspect conveys information on the
situation of communication. It includes: •Information on the “time and space”
relationship of the participants, e.g., come –go, behold –beholder,•Information on
the participants and the given language community, e.g., compare: they
chucked a stone at the cops and after casting a stone at the police... . The
language used maybe indicative of the social status of a person, his profession,
education and so on.•Information on the tenor of discourse that is usually based on
social or family roles of the participants: a stranger talking to a stranger; two
friends discussing matters of the interest, a teacher talking to a student and
a student interviewed by the dean, etc. •Information on the register of
communication (formal, informal, neutral).
Motivation denotes the relationship between the phonemic or morphemic
composition and structural pattern of the word on the one hand, and its meaning on
the other. Motivation can be of three types: morphological, phonetical and sematic.
Morphological motivation implies a direct connection between the
morphological structure of the word and its lexical meaning. One-morpheme
43
words, e.g., sing, tell are non-motivated. The meaning of words composed of
more than one morpheme is the combined meaning of the morphemes and the
meaning of the structural pattern of the word itself, e.g., finger-ring (кольцо,
которое носят на пальце руки) and ring-finger (палец, на котором носят
обручальное кольцо) -the morphemes are phonetically identical with identical
lexical meaning. The difference in the meaning can be accounted for by
the difference in the arrangement of the component morphemes. Morphological
motivation is relative. The degree of motivation varies from complete
motivation to lack of motivation with various grades of partial motivation, e.g.,
endless ~ completely motivated(lexically and structurally); cranberry -partially
(there is no lexical meaning of the morpheme cran-).Phonetical motivation is a
direct connection between the phonetical structure of the word and its
meaning, e.g., swish, sizzle, boom, splash mean a direct imitation of the sounds
these words denote. Semantic motivation is based on co-existence of direct
and figurative meanings of the same word. Mouth -a part of the human face, but at
the same time it can be applied to any opening or outlet: the mouth of a river, of
cave. Jacket is a short coat and also a protective cover for a book. As to
compounds, their motivation is morphological if the meaning of the whole is
based on the direct meaning of the components, and semantic if the
combination is used figuratively: watchdog -a dog kept for watching property
(morphologically motivated); a watchful human guardian (semantically
motivated).
Word meaning is liable to change in the course of the historical development of the
language. The factors accounting for semantic changes may be roughly subdivided
into two groups: •extra-linguistic; •linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes various
changes in the life of the speech community are meant, i.e. changes in
economic and social structure, changes in scientific concepts. hlaford-original
meaning -'bread-keeper' («хранитель хлеба»), and later on 'master, ruler'
(«повелитель, лорд). Linguistic causes: 1. Discrimination/ differentiation of
synonyms. In OE the word land meant both 'solid part of earth's surface' and
'the territory of a nation'. In the Middle English period the word country was
borrowed as its synonym. The meaning of the word land was somewhat altered and
'the territory of a nation' came to be denoted by the borrowed word country.2.
Ellipsis. In a phrase made up of two words one of these is omitted and its meaning
is transferred to a partner, e.g., to starve in Old English (OE) meant 'to die'
and was habitually used in collocation with the word hunger. In the 16th
century the verb to starve itself acquired the meaning 'to die of hunger'.3. Fixed
context may be regarded as another linguistic factor in semantic change. For
example, the word token, when brought into competition with the loan word sign,
44
became restricted in use to a number of set expressions, such as love token,
token of respect and also became specialized in meaning.
A necessary condition of any semantic change is some connection, some
association between the old meaning and the new one. There are two kinds
of association involved in various semantic changes: similarity of meanings;
contiguity of meanings. Similarity of meanings or metaphor may be described
as the semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some
way resembles the other. The word hand acquired the meaning ‘a pointer of a
clock or a watch’ because of a similarity of one of the functions performed by the
hand: ‘to point to smth’. Contiguity of meanings or metonymy may be
described as the semantic process of associating two referents one of which
makes part of the other or is closely connected with it. This can be illustrated
by the use of the word tongue —‘the organ of speech’ in the meaning of
‘language’(as in mother tongue). The word bench acquired the meaning 'judges'
because it was on the bench that judges used to sit in law courts. Similarly the
House acquired the meaning of 'members of the House' (Parliament)
Results of semantic change can be generally observed in the changes of the
denotational meaning of the word: restriction of meaning and extension of
meaning. Restriction of meaning can be illustrated by the semantic development of
the word hound which used to denote 'dog of any breed' but now denotes only 'a
dog used in the chase'. If the word with a new restricted meaning comes to
be used in the specialized vocabulary of some limited group within the
speech community it is usual to speak of the specialization of meaning.
Extension of meaning may be illustrated by the word target which originally meant
'a small round shield' but now means 'anything that is fired at'. If the word with
the extended meaning passes from the specialized vocabulary into common
use, the result of the semantic change is described as the generalization of
meaning. Results of semantic change can be also observed in the alteration
of the connotational aspect of meaning: amelioration of meaning and
deterioration of meaning. Deterioration (or the pejorative development) of
meaning implies the acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge.
For example, the word boor was originally used to denote 'a peasant' and then
acquired a derogatory connotational meaning and came to denote ‘a clumsy or ill-
bred fellow’. Amelioration of meaning implies the improvement of the
connotational component of meaning. For instance, the word minister originally
denoted ‘a servant ’but now —'a civil servant of higher rank, a person
administering a department of state'.
Polysemy has an exceptional importance for the description of a language
system and for the solutions of practical tasks connected with an adequate
45
understanding of the meaning of a word and its use. A word may have several
meanings. Then it is called a polysemantic word. Words having only one
meaning are called monosemantic. Monosemantic words are few in number.
These are mainly scientific terms. The bulk of English words are
polysemantic. V.V.Vinogradov, the Russian linguists, admitted the
importance of differentiating the meaning from the usage (a contextual
variant). Meanings are fixed and common to all people, who know the language
system. The usage is only a possible application of one of the meanings of a
polysemantic word, sometimes very individual, sometimes more or less
familiar. Meaning is not identical with usage. Thus, it may be confirmed that
polysemy exists only in the language, not in speech. A.I.Smirnitsky developed
Vingradov’s theory further and introduced the term 'a lexico-semantic variant'
(LSV). A lexico-semantic variant is a two-facet unit (двусторонняя единица),
the formal facet of which is the sound-form of a word, while the content facet is
one of the meanings of the given word, i. e. the designation (обозначение)
of a certain class of objects. Words with one meaning are represented in the
language system by one LSV, polysemantic words —by a number of LSVs. All
lexico-semantic variants of a word form a homogenous semantic
structure ensuring the semantic unity of the given word. All LSVs are linked
together by a certain meaning —the semantic pivot of the word called the
semantic center of the word. Thus, the semantic center of the word is the part of
meaning which remains constant in all the lexico-semantic variants of the word.
The word in one of its meanings is termed a lexico-semantic variant of this word,
e.g., the word table has at least 9 lexico-semantic variants:•a piece of furniture;•the
persons seated at table;•the food put on a table;•a thin flat piece of stone, metal,
wood;•a slab of stone;•plateau, extensive area of high land;•an orderly arrangement
of facts, etc. There can be distinguished two approaches: diachronic and
synchronic. Within the diachronic approach polysemy implies that a word may
retain its previous meaning or meanings and at the same time acquire one or
several new ones. Thus, according to this approach in the semantic structure of
a word two types of meaning can be singled out: the primary meaning and
the secondary meaning. Within the synchronic approach it is the coexistence of
various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the
development of the English language. The meaning that first occurs to us
whenever we hear or see the word table is 'an article of furniture'. This emerges as
the central (or basic) meaning of the word, and all other meanings are marginal
(or minor) meanings.

QUESTIONS:
46
1.What is the meaning of a word?
2.Characterize the referential approach.
3.Characterize the functional approach.
4.What is the grammatical meaning of a word?
5.What is the lexical meaning of a word?
6.What is the denotational aspect of the lexical meaning?
7.What is the connotational aspect of the lexical meaning?
8.What is the pragmatic aspect of the lexical meaning?
9.What types of motivation are known to you? Characterize each.
10.What linguistic causes of semantic change can be singled out?
11.What are the results of the change from the denotational aspect of the lexical
meaning?
12.What are the results of the change from the connotational aspect of the lexical
meaning?
13.What two kinds of the nature of semantic change can be distinguished?
14.What is polysemy?
15.Is it important to differentiate between “meaning” and “usage”?
16.What is a lexico-semantic variant of the word? Give examples.
17.What does the term “semantic center of the word” denote?
18.What types of meaning can be singled out within the diachronic approach to
polysemy?
19.What types of meaning can be singled out within the synchronic approach to
polysemy?
Glossary:
The semantic structure of the word -the modern approach to semasiology is
based on the assumption that the inner form of the word.
Concept- the thought of an object that singles out its essential features.
Reference.
Denotation- One part of meaning expressing a notion.
Connotation- the subjective part of meaning.
Deterioration (or the pejorative development) of meaning implies the
acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge.
Leech, G., (1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning, 2nd edition.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics#:~:text=In%20linguistics%2C
%20semantics%20is%20the,or%20larger%20units%20of%20discourse.

https://monkeylearn.com/blog/semantic-analysis/
47
LECTURE 6. Lesson Plan 6. Approaches to the meaning of words.

Level: B2

Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Aіms:

To introduce the subject of semantics and semantic meaning of the word.

 To raise students’ awareness on linguistics and linguistic studies.

Objectives: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

 Understand the key principles of the semantic structure of the word.

 Recognize the relationship between language, meaning, and the world from
a cognitive perspective.
 Analyze the semantic structure of the word.
Mode
Part / Objective of
Procedure Time Materials
Activity s intera
ction

Lead-in T asks Ss to answer the questions To Teach 10 Whiteboar

from Power Point Presentation. provide er- min d,OHP.
Part 1
an Stude
1.What is the meaning of a
overview nts.
word?
of
2 . What are synonyms? Cognitive
Semantics
3. Say why synonyms are one of and
the language’s most important semantic
expressive means. Illustrate your meaning
answer with examples.

4. Synonyms are sometimes

described as words with “dual”
characteristics. What is meant by

48
 this?

Part 2 Explanation of the new topic To Teach 30 PPT

Teacher explains the topic and introduce er-
min
students make notes in their Referentia Stude
lecture copybooks and discussing l Theory nts
main points with teacher and and
other students. explain its
main
ideas in
the
context of
Cognitive
Semantics
.

Part 3 Students define To put SS Teach 10

knowledg er-
Activity Negative connotation: scrawny min
e into Stude
1
Positive connotation: slim practice,t nts
o check ss
Students give examples for awareness
another words’ positive anf .
negative synonyms

Part 4 Students find Words With To put SS Group 10

Negative Connotations in adverts knowledg work
Activity min
e into
2
practice

Part 5 Teacher presents the thematic To Group 20 Video,OH

video. Students watch the video summariz work min P
Video
and answer to the questions. e the main projector.
watchin
points of
g. Explain meaning in cognitive
the lesson
semantics? Give examples from
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 real life conversation Referentia
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Handout 4
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understan
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meaning

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Lecture materials

Lecture 6.Approaches to the definition of word meaning: functional,

referential and others.

There are three classical theories of meaning:

-analytical or referential (F.de Saussure’s disciples)

Meaning is the relation between the object or phenomenon named and the name
itself;

-notional or conceptual (Aristotle, John Locke, A.I. Smirnitskiy, etc.)

Meaning is a certain representation of an object / phenomenon / idea / relation in

the mind;

-functional or contextual (L. Bloomfield)

Meaning is the situation in which a word is uttered, i.e. its context.

Types and aspects of word meaning.

Aspects of Meaning

-Objective aspect (denotation): word ↔ referent;

-Notional aspect, i.e. significant features common for classes of objects

(signification): word ↔ sense;

-Pragmatic aspect, i.e. the speaker’s attitude to the referent (connotation);

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-Systemic or differential aspect, i.e. the relations of the signified word with other
words within a word-group or in speech.

Types of meaning:

Word-meaning is not homogeneous but is made up of various components the

combination and the interrelation of which determine to a great extent the inner
facet of the word.

Grammatical meaning is the meaning which unites words into big groups such as
parts of speech or lexico-grammatical classes. It is recurrent in identical sets of
individual forms of different words, e.g. stones, apples, kids, thoughts have the
grammatical meaning of plurality.

Lexical meaning is the meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit; it is

recurrent in all the forms of this word and in all the possible distributions of these
forms, e.g. the word-forms write, writes, wrote, writing, written have different
grammatical meanings of tense, person, aspect, but the same lexical meaning ‘to
make letters or other symbols on a surface, especially with a pen or pencil’.

Components of Lexical Meaning

Lexical meaning is not homogenous either and may be analysed as including

denotative and connotative components.

Denotative (denotational) (Lat. denotatum ‘signified’) component is the

conceptual content of the word fulfilling its significative and communicative
functions; our experience is conceptualised and classified in it.

Connotative (connotational) (Lat. connoto ‘additional meaning’) component

conveys the speaker’s attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate
functional style, one’s approval or disapproval of the object spoken of, the
speaker’s emotions, the degree of intensity; unlike denotations or significations,
connotations are optional.

Types of Connotations

Stylistic connotation is concerned with the situation in which the word is uttered,
the social circumstances (formal, familiar), the social relationships between the
communicants (polite, rough etc.), the type and purpose of communication,
e.g. father (stylistically neutr.), dad (colloquial), parent (bookish).
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Emotional connotation is acquired by the word as a result of its frequent use in
contexts corresponding to emotional situations or because the referent
conceptualised in the denotative meaning is associated with certain emotions,
e.g. mother (emotionally neutr.), mummy (emotionally
charged); bright (emotionally neutr.), garish (implies negative emotions).

Evaluative connotation expresses approval or disapproval, e.g. modern is often

used appreciatively, newfangled expresses disapproval.

Intensifying connotation expresses degree of intensity, e.g. the

words magnificent, gorgeous, splendid, superb are used colloquially as terms of
exaggeration.

Connotation and Denotation

Denotation is when you mean what you say, literally. Connotation is created when
you mean something else, something that might be initially hidden. The
connotative meaning of a word is based on implication, or shared emotional
association with a word. Greasy is a completely innocent word: Some things, like
car engines, need to be greasy. But greasy contains negative associations for most
people, whether they are talking about food or about people. Often there are many
words that denote approximately the same thing, but their connotations are very
different. Innocent and genuine both denote an absence of corruption, but the
connotations of the two words are different: innocent is often associated with a
lack of experience, whereas genuine is not. Connotations are important in poetry
because poets use them to further develop or complicate a poem's meaning. You
may live in a house, but we live in a home. If you were to look up the words house
and home in a dictionary, you would find that both words have approximately the
same meaning- "a dwelling place." However, the speaker in the sentence above
suggests that home has an additional meaning. Aside from the strict dictionary
definition, or denotation, many people associate such things as comfort, love,
security, or privacy with a home but do not necessarily make the same associations
with a house. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of a
home? of a house? Why do you think that real-estate advertisers use the word
home more frequently than house? The various feelings, images, and memories
that surround a word make up its connotation. Although both house and home have
the same denotation, or dictionary meaning, home also has many connotations.
Read the following sentences. Type in all your answers (ten) for this page on the
answer sheet, and then send it in to Mrs. Dowling! o Annette was surprised. o
Annette was amazed. o Annette was astonished. 1. What is the general meaning of
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each of the three sentences about Annette? Do the words surprised, amazed, and
astonished have approximately the same denotation? 2. What additional meanings
are suggested by astonish? Would one be more likely to be surprised or astonished
at seeing a ghost? 3. Which word in each pair below has the more favorable
connotation to you? o thrifty-penny-pinching o pushy-aggressive o politician-
statesman o chef-cook o slender-skinny Since everyone reacts emotionally to
certain words, writers often deliberately select words that they think will influence
your reactions and appeal to your emotions.

Connotation and Denotation

For another example of connotations, consider the following:

negative There are over 2,000 vagrants in the city.

neutral There are over 2,000 people with no fixed address in the city.

positive There are over 2,000 homeless in the city.

All three of these expressions refer to exactly the same people, but they will invoke
different associations in the reader's mind: a "vagrant" is a public nuisance while a
"homeless" person is a worthy object of pity and charity. Presumably, someone
writing an editorial in support of a new shelter would use the positive form, while
someone writing an editorial in support of antiloitering laws would use the
negative form.

In this case, the dry legal expression "with no fixed address" quite deliberately
avoids most of the positive or negative associations of the other two terms -- a
legal specialist will try to avoid connotative language altogether when writing
legislation, often resorting to archaic Latin or French terms which are not a part of
ordinary spoken English, and thus, relatively free of strong emotional associations.

Many of the most obvious changes in the English language over the past few
decades have had to do with the connotations of words which refer to groups of
people. Since the 1950's, words like "Negro" and "crippled" have acquired strong
negative connotations, and have been replaced either by words with neutral
connotations (ie "black," "handicapped") or by words with deliberately positive
connotations (ie "African-Canadian," "differently-abled").

“I know what you said, but what did you mean?”

Language meaning is continually shifting, is always contextual, and is influenced

by historical, cultural, and economic factors. For instance, terms that were used

53
years ago such as gangster and thug denoted (that is, specifically referred to or
explicitly meant) individuals involved in criminal activities, who were prone to
violence, and who had general disregard for laws and social order. Also,
particularly during the Depression era, gangsters and thugs were associated with
male immigrants from Italy, Ireland, and other European countries. However,
today’s gangsters and thugs are associated with African-American males, and the
terms are used to connote (that is, suggest or imply) that these individuals are
concerned with accumulating material wealth, are hyper-sexual, and are threats to
middle-class suburban folks. The terms also suggest a particular urban ethic and a
particular cultural cachet that far transcend the original suggestion of criminal
activity. Just think of the category of “gangster rap,” a musical genre that Page 7 of
8 Connotation and Denotation practitioners have argued captures the “truth” of the
black, urban male experience. The terms thug and gangster have also become
prevalent all across youth culture, designating clothing styles, postures, attitudes,
values, etc. and spawning a vast array of related terms. Much has changed since the
30s, and these changes are reflected in language as demonstrated by the above
example. House vs. home; kill vs murder; religion vs faith; Connotation and
Denotation The connotation of some words—or the attitudes we associate with
them—can easily be seen when we examine pairs of words that are essentially
similar in meaning, but different in the favorable or unfavorable attitudes they
evoke in most people. Listed below are ten pairs of words that evoke negative or
positive feelings. For each pair, place a plus sign after the word that conveys a
more favorable attitude and a minus sign after the word that carries a less favorable
attitude. • refreshing – chilly • plain – natural • clever – sly • cackle – giggle • snob
– cultured • cop – officer • skinny – slender • statesman – politician • smile – smirk
• domineering – assertive Now, come up with some word pairs of your own:
Denotative language is factual; connotative carries emotional overtones A recipe is
denotative; an advertisement connotative

Types of connotations

I. The connotation of degree or intensity can be traced in such groups of

synonyms as to surprise – to astonish – to amaze – to astound; to like – to admire
– to love – to adore – to worship.

II. In the group of synonyms to stare – to glare – to gaze – to glance – to peep – to

peer, all the synonyms except to glance, to peep denote a lasting act of looking at
somebody or something, whereas to glance, to peep describe a brief look. These

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synonyms may be said to have a connotation of duration in their semantic
structure.

III. The synonyms to stare – to glare – to gaze are differentiated from other words
of the group by emotive connotations, and from each other by the nature of the
emotion they imply.

One should be warned against confusing words with emotive connotations and
words with emotive denotative meanings, e.g. angry – furious – enraged; fear –
terror – horror. In the latter, emotion is expressed by the leading semantic
component whereas in the former it is an accompanying, subsidiary characteristic.

IV. The evaluative connotation conveys the speaker’s attitude towards the
referent, labelling it as good or bad. So in the group well-known – famous –
notorious – celebrated, the adjective notorious bears a negative evaluative
connotation and celebrated a positive one. Confer: a notorious murderer, robber,
coward, but a celebrated scholar, artist, singer.

V. The causative connotation can be illustrated by the examples to shiver and to

shudder, in whose semantic structures the cause of the act or process of trembling
is encoded: to shiver with cold, from a chill; to shudder with horror, fear, etc.

VI. The connotation of manner can be singled out in some groups of verbal
synonyms. The verbs to stroll – to stride – to trot – to swagger – to stagger – to
stumble all denote different ways and types of walking.

VII. The above mentioned verbs to peep and to peer are differentiated by
connotations of duration and manner. But there is some other peculiarity in their
semantic structures.

One peeps at smb./smth. through a hole, an opening, a newspaper, a curtain, etc. It

seems as if “the set of scenery” is actually built within the word’s meaning and is
reflected in the word’s semantic structure. We shall call this the connotation of
attendant circumstances.

One peers at smb./smth. in darkness, through the fog, from a great distance. So, in
the semantic structure of to peer are encoded circumstances preventing one from
seeing clearly.

VIII. The synonyms pretty, handsome, beautiful have been mentioned as the ones
which are more or less interchangeable. Yet, each of them describes a special type
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of human beauty: beautiful is mostly associated with classical features and a
perfect figure, handsome with a tall stature and fine proportions, pretty with small
delicate features and a fresh complexion. This connotation may be defined as the
connotation of attendant features.

IX. Stylistic connotations stand somewhat apart for two reasons. Firstly, some
scholars do not regard the word’s stylistic characteristic as a connotative
component of its semantic structure. Secondly, stylistic connotations are subject to
further classification, namely: colloquial, slang, dialect, poetic, terminological,
archaic. Here again we are dealing with stylistically marked words, but this time
we approach the feature of stylistic characteristics from a different angle: from the
point of view of synonyms’ frequent differentiation characteristics.

Here are some examples of synonyms which are differentiated by stylistic

connotations. The word in brackets starting the group shows the denotation of the
synonyms.

(Girl). Girlie (coll.) – девушка, особенно стриптизёрша; lass, lassie (dial.); bird,
birdie, jane, fluff, skirt (sl.), maiden (poet.) – дева; damsel (arch.) – девица.

Answer these questions.

1. What are synonyms?

2. Say why synonyms are one of the language’s most important expressive
means. Illustrate your answer with examples.
3. Synonyms are sometimes described as words with “dual” characteristics.
What is meant by this?
4. Which word in a synonymic group is considered to be the dominant
synonym?
5. Can the dominant synonym be substituted for certain other members of a
group of synonyms? Is the criterion of interchangeability applicable in this case?
6. The meanings of two apparent synonyms may be in a way opposed to each
other. Why are such words still regarded as synonyms? Give examples.
7. How are synonyms traditionally defined? On what criterion is this
definition based? Which aspects of this definition are open to criticism?
8. What types of synonyms were defined in V.V.Vinogradov’s classification
system?
9. How can synonyms be defined in the terms of componential analysis? On
what criterion is this definition based?

56
10. Show how the dual nature of synonyms can be clearly seen if they are
regarded through semantic criterion.
11. Why is the definition of synonyms based on the criterion of
interchangeability open to question?
12. What is the modern approach to classifying synonyms? Give examples.
13. What connotations differentiate the verbs to peep and to peer; the
adjectives pretty, handsome and beautiful?

Reference
Leech, G., (1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning, 2nd edition.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics#:~:text=In%20linguistics%2C
%20semantics%20is%20the,or%20larger%20units%20of%20discourse.

https://monkeylearn.com/blog/semantic-analysis/

Theme 7. Connection of structure and meaning of the word.

Aіms: To raise SS’ awareness of the structure of English words,meaning and its
types: to help students to comprehend the notion of the structure of English word:

to get students understand the notion of meaning and its types: to discuss the
connection between the structure and meaning of the words.

Morphological Structure:

Morphology deals with the internal structure of words. Words are composed of
smaller units called morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units of
language.

Free morphemes: These can stand alone as words (e.g., "book," "run").

Bound morphemes: These cannot stand alone and must attach to other
morphemes (e.g., "un-" in "unkown," "-ing" in "running").

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The structure of a word determines its grammatical properties (e.g., tense, number,
case), which influence its meaning.

Semantics: 1. Semantics is concerned with how words convey meaning. The

meaning of a word can be analyzed through its denotation (literal meaning) and
connotation (implied or emotional associations).

2. The meaning of a word can evolve or shift over time (e.g., "gay" used to mean
"happy" but now often refers to sexual orientation).

Phonology and Syntax:

The phonological structure (sound) of a word may also impact its meaning,
especially in languages with homophones or tonal differences.

The syntax (sentence structure) also plays a role in determining the meaning of
words in context.

Structuralist Approach:

1. The structuralist theory, pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, emphasizes that

the relationship between the structure of a word (its signifier, i.e., sound or written
form) and its meaning (signified) is arbitrary. The connection is not intrinsic but
rather socially agreed upon by speakers of a language.

Word Formation Processes:

1. Derivation: Adding prefixes or suffixes to a base word (e.g.,

"happiness" from "happy").
2. Compounding: Combining two or more words to create a new
meaning (e.g., "notebook," "sunflower").
3. Blending: Merging parts of two words (e.g., "brunch" from
"breakfast" + "lunch").
4. Clipping: Shortening a longer word (e.g., "ad" from "advertisement").

Pragmatics:

1. The context in which a word is used can also affect its meaning.
Pragmatics refers to how the context and the social aspects of
language use shape the interpretation of words.

THE STRUCTURE OF WORD.

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Aim: to understand Word Formation, to explore Morphemes and Their
Functions, to Understand Word Structure and Syntax, to analyz Derivation
and Inflection: to explore Word-Formation Processes:

The word is the basic unit of language, uniting meaning and form, consisting of
one or

more morphemes.

-Morphemes are also meaningful elements, but they cannot be used

independently.

-Words can be used as a complete utterance

A form is said to be free if it may stand alone without changing its meaning;

if not, it is a bound form, because it always bound to something else:

for example, if we compare the words sportive and elegant and their parts, we see
that sport, sportive, elegant may occur alone as utterances, whereas eleg- -ive, -ant
are bound forms because they never occur alone.

According tothe role they play in constructing words morphemes are subdivided
into: ROOTS and AFFIXES.

The latter are further subdivided, according to their position, into prefixes, suffixes
and infixes, according to their function and meaning, into derivational and
functional affixes, the latter are also called ending or outer formatives).

A stem may also be defined as the part of the word that remains unchanged
throughout its paradigm. The stem of the paradigm hearty - heartier - (the) heartiest
is hearty. It is a free stem, but as it consists of a root morpheme and an affix, it is
not simple but derived.
Thus, a stem containing one or more affixes is a derived stem. If after deriving the
affix the remaining stem is not homonymous to a separate word of the same root,
we call it a bound stem. Thus, in the word cordial (proceeding as if from the heart);
the adjective-forming suffix can be separated on the analogy with such words as
bronchial [bronkial] radial, social. The remaining stem, however cannot form a
separate word by itself: it is bound. In cordial-ly and cordial-ity, on the one hand,
the stems are free.

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 The notion of meaning and its types.

It is universally recognized that word meaning is not homogeneous, but it is made

up of various components, which are described as types of meaning. There are 2
types of meaning to be found in words and word forms:

1) the grammatical meaning;

2) the lexical meaning.

Such word forms as "girls", "writers", "tables", etc., though denoting different
objects of reality have smth in common, namely the grammatical meaning of
plurality, which can be found in all of them. Thus, the grammatical meaning is the
component of meaning in the word forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.) by
lexical meaning we designate the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all
its forms and disrtibutations, while by grammatical meaning we designate the
meaning proper to sets of word forms common to all words of a certain class.

Power-capacity of producing some effect.

Semasiology

Semasiology (from Gr. semasia - "signification") deals not with every kind of
linguistic meaning only. This does not mean that we need not pay attention to the
grammatical meaning. On the contrary, grammatical meaning must be taken into
consideration in so far as it bears a specific influence upon lexical meaning.

The main objects of semasiological study are as follows: semantic development of

words,

its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical
meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of word, semantic groupings and
connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, etc.

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND WORD.

We are going to consider the correlation between structure and meaning on the
example of root morpheme.

Roots are main morphemic vehicles of a given idea in a given language at a given
stage of its development.

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heart- is the common root of the following series of words; heart, hearten,
dishearten, heartily, heartless, hearty, heartiness, sweetheart, heart-broken, kind-
hearted, wholeheartedly, etc.

In some of this, for example, in hearten, there is only one root; in others the word
the root -heart- is combined with some other root, thus forming a compound like
sweetheart.

Unlike roots, affixes are always bound forms. The difference between affixes and
prefixes is not confined to their respective position, suffixes being "fixed after" and

prefixes "fixed before" the stem. It also concerns their function and meaning. A
suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new
derivative.

In the phrases a morning 's drive, a morning 's ride, a morning 's walk the words
drive, ride, walk receive the lexico-grammatical meaning of a noun not due to the
structure of their stem, but because they are preceded by a noun in the Possessive
case.

An English word does not necessarily contain formulates indicating to what part of
speech it belongs. This holds true even with respect to inflectable parts of speech,
i.e. nouns, verbs, adjective.

Not all roots are free forms, but productive roots (roots capable of the producing
new words) usually are.

-Unlike roots, affixes are always bound forms. The difference between affixes and
prefixes is not confined to their respective position, suffixes being "fixed after" and
prefixes "fixed before" the stem. It also concerns their function and meaning.

Motivation. The term motivation is used to denote the relationship existing

between the morphemic or phonemic composition and structural pattern of the
word on the one hand, and its meaning on the other. There are three main types of
motivation:

-phonetical motivation,

-morphological motivation.

-semantic motivation.

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As to compounds, their motivation is morphological if the meaning of the whole is
based on the literal meaning of the components, and semantic if the combination of
components is used figuratively. Thus eyewash as 'a lotion for the eyes' is
motivated morphologically. The same applies to such compounds as air-taxi,
crash-land, pressure-cabin, etc. If, on the other hand, eyewash is used
metaphorically and means 'something said or done to deceive a person so that he
thinks what he sees is good, though in fact it is not', the motivation is semantic.
Compare also: heart-breaking, time-server, lick-spittle.

When the connection between the phonetical and morphological structure of the
word and its meaning is conventional and there is no understandable reason why
the word has this phonemic shape and morphological composition, the word is said
to be n о n-m о t i-v a t e d.

Conclusion

The connection between the structure and meaning of words is a central concept in
linguistics. By studying how words are formed, their meanings, and the social
context in which they are used, we gain a deeper understanding of language's
complexity and its role in communication. Morphology, semantics, and pragmatics
all contribute to how structure and meaning interrelate in language.

Glossary of Key Terms

1. Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language (e.g., "book," "un-,"

"-ing").
2. Free Morpheme: A morpheme that can stand alone as a word (e.g., "play,"
"dog").
3. Bound Morpheme: A morpheme that must attach to a free morpheme (e.g.,
"pre-" in "preview").
4. Denotation: The literal or dictionary definition of a word.
5. Connotation: The associated or implied meanings of a word beyond its
denotation (e.g., "home" connotes warmth, safety, or comfort).
6. Phonology: The study of sounds in language.
7. Syntax: The arrangement of words and phrases to create sentences.
8. Semantics: The study of meaning in language.
9. Pragmatics: The study of how context influences the interpretation of
meaning.
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 10. Structuralism: A theory that the meaning of a word is arbitrary and
established by social agreement, with the structure of language being central
to understanding communication.

Related Questions on the Connection of Structure and Meaning

1. How does the morphological structure of a word influence its meaning?

2. In what ways do denotation and connotation of a word differ, and how
do they relate to its structure?
3. What is the role of syntax in shaping the meaning of a word in a
sentence?
4. What is the significance of word formation processes such as derivation,
compounding, and clipping in understanding word meaning?
5. How does the theory of structuralism explain the connection between the
structure and meaning of words?
6. How can the context (pragmatics) alter the meaning of a word even
when its structure remains the same?
7. How do homophones and homonyms challenge the connection between
word structure and meaning?
8. What is the relationship between phonology and meaning in languages
with tonal distinctions (e.g., Mandarin)?

Theme 8. Theory of Cognitive Semantics of Words

The cognitive semantics theory argues that the meaning of words is inherently
linked to our sensory and perceptual experience of the world, our actions, and the
way we categorize things mentally. Language is viewed as a reflection of these
cognitive processes rather than a system of abstract symbols that only correspond
to an external reality.

Embodiment:

1.Cognitive semantics emphasizes that word meanings are grounded in bodily

experience. Words and concepts derive their meanings from the human body’s
interaction with the world. This is reflected in terms like up/down, in/out, and
on/off, which often have clear physical counterparts that influence their meanings.

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2.For example, verticality is conceptualized due to human perception of gravity,
resulting in concepts like up or down being closely tied to our embodied
experience.

Conceptualization:

Cognitive semantics focuses on how people conceptualize the world through

language. We categorize experiences, objects, and actions to make sense of the
world. These mental representations or conceptual schemas are reflected in the
structure of language.

Words are seen as pointers to these mental models. For instance, the word "bird"
may not just refer to any flying creature, but to a concept that includes attributes
like wings, feathers, and beaks.

Prototype Theory:

According to prototype theory, categories (e.g., "bird," "furniture," "vehicle") do

not have rigid boundaries. Instead, there are central examples or prototypes of a
category, with other members of the category seen as more or less typical. For
instance, a robin is often the prototype of a bird, while a penguin may be a less
prototypical member, but still a bird.

Metaphor and Metonymy:

Metaphor is central to cognitive semantics. It argues that abstract concepts are

often understood through more concrete, embodied experiences. For example,
“time is money” is a metaphor that maps the conceptual domain of time onto the
domain of money, suggesting both are valuable and finite resources.

Metonymy refers to a type of conceptualization where one thing stands for

something closely related. For example, using "the White House" to refer to the
U.S. President's Administration is an example of metonymy.

Image Schemas: These are recurring, fundamental structures of experience that

shape how people understand the world. Image schemas are the building blocks of
thought and provide basic frameworks for conceptualizing experiences. Examples
include the containment schema (e.g., "in a box"), the path schema (e.g., "from
here to there"), and the force schema (e.g., "pushing an idea").

Blending and Conceptual Integration:

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Conceptual blending involves merging different mental spaces to form new
meanings. For example, the concept of a computer mouse blends the idea of an
animal (a mouse) with a tool used to interact with a computer, creating a new
conceptual space.

Contextual and Dynamic Meaning:

Cognitive semantics argues that meaning is dynamic and context-dependent.

Words do not have a fixed meaning but take on different shades of meaning
depending on the situation, culture, and individual experience.

Conclusion

Cognitive semantics offers a rich perspective on the relationship between

language and thought, showing that meaning is not just an abstract representation
but is grounded in human experience. Through embodiment, conceptualization,
prototypes, and processes like metaphor, metonymy, and image schemas,
cognitive semantics emphasizes that words carry meaning because of how we
perceive and categorize the world around us. Language is seen as a reflection of
our mental models and conceptual structures, with meanings evolving from our
experiences and the cognitive processes through which we understand the world.

Glossary of Key Terms in Cognitive Semantics of Words

1. Cognitive Semantics: A branch of linguistics that studies how human

cognition shapes the meaning of words, emphasizing how meanings are
rooted in bodily experiences and conceptual structures.
2. Embodiment: The idea that language and meaning are grounded in human
sensory and physical experiences with the world.
3. Conceptualization: The mental process of categorizing and structuring
experience, knowledge, and perception, which shapes how language
conveys meaning.
4. Prototype Theory: The concept that categories have central, ideal examples
(prototypes) that represent the category more accurately than less typical
examples.
5. Metaphor: A figure of speech in which one idea or concept is understood in
terms of another, typically grounded in concrete experience. (e.g., "Time is
money")

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 6. Metonymy: A figure of speech where one concept is used to stand for
another that is closely associated with it (e.g., "The crown" referring to a
king or queen).
7. Image Schema: A recurrent structure of experience that shapes the way
people conceptualize the world (e.g., container, path, force schemas).
8. Blending: The cognitive process of merging concepts from different mental
spaces to form new meanings or ideas.
9. Mental Representation: Cognitive structures or maps that represent the
knowledge, experiences, or concepts in the mind, influencing how we
understand and use language.
10. Frame: A mental structure that organizes knowledge about a particular
subject or scenario (e.g., the restaurant frame involving ordering, serving,
and paying for food).

Related Questions on Cognitive Semantics of Words

1.How does embodiment shape the meaning of spatial and directional terms
such as "up," "down," "in," and "out"?

2.How does prototype theory help explain the categorization of words and
concepts in language?

3.What role do image schemas play in shaping our understanding of words

like "container," "path," or "force"?

4. In what ways do metaphors shape the meaning of abstract concepts?

5. How does conceptual blending create new meanings for words or phrases?

6. How can cognitive semantics help explain polysemy (words with multiple
meanings) and context-dependent meaning?

Theme 9: Correlation of notion and meaning

Aіms: To raise SS’ awareness of the structure of English words,meaning and its
types; to help students to comprehend the notion of the structure of English word:
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to get students understand the notion of meaning and its types: to discuss the
connection between the structure and meaning of the words.

There are two main approaches to the study of words and

meanings: the onomasiological and semasiological. The former deals with

the idea of linguistic denoting of notions. The latter is interested in the semantic

peculiarities of names and the character of their functioning in the language.

E.g. one object can have several names and one name can be used for denoting

different objects: плавать- to swim, to float, to drift: to swim – плыть-

участвовать в соревнованияхб быть погруженным etc.

The notion of the lexical system is connected with the systematic nature of a

language vocabulary.

Linguistic relationships between words are basically of two types: syntagmatic and
paradigmatic.

Syntagmatic. relations are based on the linear character of speech, i.e. on the
influence of context.They define the meaning the word has when it is used in
combination with other words in the flow of speech: to give a book – to give a
smile.

Paradigmatic relations are those relations that exist between individual lexical
items which make up a subgroup of vocabulary items, e.g. synonimic relations.
Paradigmatic relations define the meaning of the word through its interrelation
with other members of the subgroup, e.g. to give, to present, to confer etc.

2. Links with other branches of linguistics

In the actual process of communication, different elements of language system

(phonemes, morphemes, words rtc.) are interdependent and stand in definite
relations to one another. Lexicology is connected with various branches of
linguistics, studying these elements. It is connected with phonetics, grammar,
stylisics, history of a language and sociolinguistics.

The connection of lexicology with phonetics is very important. It can be explained

by the fact that words consist of phonemes, and therefore phonemes participate in

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signification. Their functions are constitutive and distinctive, thus they build up
morphemes, and distinguish between meanings.

Such factors as stress help to see the word-unity and discriminate between the
words: `torment –to tor`ment; `present-to pre`sent or to distinquish compounds
from homonymous word combinations: `blackbird - 'black'bird.

Historical phonetics and historical phonology help in the diachronic study of

synonyms, homonyms and polysemy.

There is also a close link of lexicology and stylistics. The latter also studies many
key problems of lexicology, such as the problems of meaning, synonymy and
differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication and EMs
and SDs, which are various lexical forms that exist in the language for the purpose
of intensifications of an utterance. Both instylistics and lexicology speak about
such notions as connotations and imagery.

Lexicology is also connected with History of the language, as the latter studies the
changes and the development of the vocabulary of a language.

The connection between grammar and lexicology is one of the important issues in
linguistics. I.V. Arnold insists that a close connection between lexicology and
grammar is conditioned by the ties between the objects of their study. Even
isolated words bear a definite relation to the grammatical system of the language
because they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico-
grammatical characteristic of the word class to which they belong. But words
seldom occur in isolation. They are arranged in certain patterns conveying the
relations between the things they denote, so alongside with their lexical meaning
they possess some grammatical meaning. The ties between lexicology and
grammar are particularly strong in the sphere of word-formation which before
lexicology became a separate branch of linguistics had even been considered as
part of grammar. Even today some scholars continue insisting on the grammatical
status of lexicology.The morphological structure of the English word are largely
dependent upon the peculiarity of the English grammatical system.

Lexicology is bound up with sociolinguistics, which studies the social causes of

the changes in the vocabulary of a language. The vacubulary of a language directly
reacts to the changes in social life, thus with new objects and notions new words to
denote them come into existence.

Meaning and notion. Types of meaning.

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Speaking about the word, we speak about two more notions: the meaning and the
sign.

As well as many other linguistic notions the sign is a complicated one. The
simplest one is the sign is a unity of form substituiting for some object and the
information about it.

There are numerous classifications of signs. The most famous one was given by
Ch. Pearce, the American philosopher, the founder of semiotics (the study of signs
and languages in general, including all sorts of codes, such as military signals,
traffic signals, etc.) According to him, all the signs can be divided into 3
types: symbols, indexes, icons. Symbols are conventional, their form is not
connected with the object (denotatum) itself. Most words are symbols in any
case, e.g. happiness. Indexes are indicatory(demonstrative), e.g. jestures. Icons are
signs whose form resembles the object they denote. They are typical of primitive
languages, but exist everywhere., e.g. pictures of telephones. Speaking about the
iconic development of an utterance Jacobson gives the example: Veni,vidi, vici.

The branch of science that deals with meanings is

called semasiology or semantics. Semasia means “signification” (from
Greek sema ‘sign’ and semantikos ‘significant’). The traditional point of view is
that semasiology is a branch of lexicology, though many scholars think differntly
and speak about semasiolgy in general. M. Breal, for instance, devoted much
attention to a semasiological treatment of grammar. H. Hatzfeld said that
semasiology should include syntax.

If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in meaning which words

undergo. Descriptive (synchronic) approach demands a study not of individual
words but of semantic structures typical of the language studied.

The main objects of semasiological study are: semantic development of words, its
causes and classification, types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic
structure of words, semantic grouping and connections in the vocabulary system,
i.e. synonyms, antonyms, terminological systems, etc.

“Semasiology”is often used as a synonym to “semantics”. They are synonyms but

the second word has abroder meaning and is found not only in linguistics but also
in logic

Besides the term “semantics” is used to denote the meaning itself. Normally we
speak about semantics of the word and not semaseology, but the latter studies the
former. The term “semanthology”also exists.
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The definition of lexical meaning has been given more than once by different
linguistic schools. It is one of the most complicated problems. The key problem
connected with it is the differentiation of meaning and concept (notion) which
should not be identified. Concept is mostly extralinguistic, the idea of the object,
stating its essential features.

Meaning in the traditional approach of F. de Saussure`s followers is considerd

as the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself. Descriptive
linguistics, among them L Bloomfield, considered meaning to be an exralinguistic
factor and defined it as the situation in which the word is uttered.

In this country definitions given by the majority of authors, however different in

detail, agree in one basic principle: they all point out that lexical meaning is the
realization of the notion by means of a definite language system.

A.I.Smirnitsky defined meaning as a certain reflection in our mind of objects,

phenomena or relations that makes part of the linguistic sign-its so-called inner
facet, where the sound form forms its outer facet.

In general two main approaches to the problem of meaning can be mentioned: the
so-called referential approach and the functional approach.

The referential approach tries to formulate the essence of meaning by establishing

the interdependence between words and things (notions, concepts) they denote.
The scholars who developed these ideas were C.K. Ogden and I.A Richards, who
suggested a model of relations between the meaning and the sign, the so-
called “basic” or “semantic” triangle.

The sign, or symbol is a lexical item, the referent or denotatum is a real object, the
thought of reference or concept (notion) is the thought of this object. According to
this theory the relations between names and things are viewed as a link through
concepts in our mind, which brings differences in people`s perception. So reality
can be seen differently by people speaking differnt languages: e.g. house and
home=дом. According to A. Palmer language helps to categorize reality. This idea
of the influence of language on our conception of the world is called the concept
of linguistic relativity. E.g. colours in English and in Russian: blue, red= синий/
голубой; красный, рыжий.

The relation between the sign and the referent is also regulated by the lexical
system of the concrete language. That is why we speak about the reference (a real
thing in the world) and sense (meaning) (in the language). Meaning is linguistic,
the referent is beyond it. There are words that have a distinct meaning, but no
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definite object can be distinguished, e.g. mermaid, and words that are applied to a
concrete denotatum (referent), but no exact meaning, e.g., Jane. So according to
Ogden and Richards, meaning is a relation in the mind between the facts and
events, on the one hand, and symbols on the other.

The referntial approach has been criticized. The main counterarguments are 1)
meaning in this approach comprises the interrelation of linguistic signs with
categories outside the scope of language (associations); 2) linguists operate with
subjective mental processes and the result of investigation depends on intuition.

The functional approach is connected with American structuralism and lies in the
idea that the meaning of the word may be studied only through its relations to other
linguistic units, i.e it is based on the distribution of the word. Distribution is a
position of a word in relation to other words. E.g. The meanings of the words to
hammer and hammer are different because these words function in speech
differently. The first word can be followed by a noun and preceded by a prounoun:
to hammer a nail; he hammered smth.The second word can be followed by a
preposition and preceded by an adjective: with a hammer; a new hammer. Here the
term context is used. Context is defined as the minimum stretch of speech
necessary and sufficient to determine which of the several meanings of the word is
used. This method itself is sometimes called contextual. Meaning in this approach
is understood as the function of the linguistic item (unit). J.R. Firth defined
meaning as function in a context.

One more important term in semasiology is seme, which is the minimal unit of
meaning. It shouldn`t be confused with morpheme, which is the smallest unit
having the meaning.

Aspects of meaning

Word-meaning is not homogeneous and it consists of several components. We

speak about grammatical, lexical and lexico-grammatical meaning.

Grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relations between

word-forms. It is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of
individual forms of different words, e.g. the meaning of plurality in nouns.

Lexical meaning is the meaning proper, e.g. the meaning of the process of
movement in the word to go (a meaning from a dictionary). The lexical meaning of
every word depends upon the part of speech to which the word belongs. Every
word may be used in a limited set of syntactical functions, and with a definite
valency. It has a definite set of grammatical meanings, and a definite set of forms.
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In the lexical meaning of every separate word the lexico-grammatical meaning
common to all the words of the class to which this word belongs becomes
particularized. E.g.The meaning of a specific property in such words as bright,
clear, good is a particular realization of the lexico-grammatical meaning of
qualitative adjectives.

The lexical meaning of the word is not homogeneous either. Various linguists
suggest different approaches. But traditionally such phenomena as denotative
aspect, significative aspect, connotative aspect and pragmatic aspect of meaning
are discussed. It is important that all the aspects are closely linked and distinguishe
only for scientific purposes.

The denotative aspect (component) of meaning (also called referential or

extensional meaning) is formed by the features forming denotation, which is
defined as the part of the word`s semantics which involves the relationship
between a linguistic unit and the non-linguistic entities to which it refers. Normally
it is the denotative aspect that forms dictionary definitions. E.g. a stool- a seat
without a supporting fot the back and arms. (табурет). The significative aspect is
often considered as reference not to a concrete object but a class of objects. E.G.
Belyevskaya gives an example: a concrete cat - denotative aspect (all cats realised
in one). I.V. Arnold considers it in a different way- significative aspect evokes a
general idea. Words in their significative meanings can be found in aphorisms and
sayings, here also belong abstract notions: philosophy, happiness.
The demonstrative aspect of meaning is revealed when the word serves to name
individual elements of reality: a table, a copy-book. Pronouns possess the
demonstrative function and almost exclude the significative function, i.e. they only
point out, they do not give any information about the object.

The meaning of many words can have complex associations which

form the connotational or connotative component of meaning. The connotative
component includes emotive, evaluative expressive and intensitive aspects.

The emotional content of the word is its capacity to evoke or directly express
emotion. Emotions expressed in words can be positive and negative: admiration,
respect, tenderness and other positive feelings on the one hand, and scorn, irony,
loathing, etc. on the other, e.g. garish, notorious.

Evaluation is understood as the component of meaning that gives information

about the positive or negative attitude to the object or phenomenon. There are 2
types of evaluation: logical (intellectual) and emotional. The former is the part of
the denotative meaning: to boss, to fuss, to deceive. The latter shows the emotional
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attitude of the speaker: to whine.The emotive and evaluative aspects are so tightly
connected, that often it is difficult to discriminate between them.

The intensive aspect of meaning accentuates the features typical of the denotative
meaning. Intensity correlates with evaluation. Elements of connotation are gradual,
e.g. small- tiny-minute; large-immense-huge-gigantic.

Types of connotations

Connotations can be of different types, the most usual are 5: a)

emotion, e.g. daddy as compared to father, b) evaluation, e.g. clique as compared
to group, c) intensity, e.g. adore as compared to love, d) stylistic
colouring, e.g. slay as compared to kill e) duration, e.g. to glance instead of to
look f) cause e.g. shiver (cold) compared with shudder(fear)

The pragmatic aspect of meaning forms the additional iformation about the
circumstances of communication and its participants. Information about the
circumstances of communication shows the register of communication: formal,
neutral and informal: e.g. infant-child –kid, buy-purchase, brotherly-
fraternal. Territorial variants of language can also be of importance: lift-elevator;
underground-subway. Speaking about the participants of communication we
should speak about their age – e.g. mummy (only a child can say); education,
social status etc.

Speaking about the meaning we should mention such an important phenomenon

as motivation.

The term motivation is used to denote the relationship existing between the
morphemic or phonemic composition and structural pattern of the word and its
meaning. When the connection between the phonetical and morphological struc-
ture of the word and its meaning is conventional and not synchronously
perceptible, the word is non-motivated: e.g. table

There are three main types of motivation: phonetical motivation, morphological

motivation and semantic motivation

The word buzz is motivated by a certain similarity between the sounds which make
it up, and those referred to by the sense, this type of motivation is called
phonetical. Examples are also: bang, cuckoo, giggle, purr, whistle, etc.

Morphological motivation can be seen in the derived word rethink in which its
morphological structure suggests the idea of thinking again.

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Semantic motivation is based on the co-existence of direct and figurative
meaning, e.g. mouth (a part of the face) - any opening or outlet the mouth of a
river. In its direct meaning the word mouth is not motivated, so that semantic
motivation is also only relative.

The motivation of compound words is morphological if the meaning of the whole

is based on the literal meaning of the components, and semantic if the combination
of components is used figuratively. I.V.Arnold give en example eyewash as “a
lotion for the eyes” is motivated morphologically. If, eyewash is used
metaphorically and means “something said to deceive”, the motivation is semantic.

Some linguists consider one more type of motivation that is called sound
symbolism or phonosemantics: flap, flip, flop, where fl is associated with quick
movement, gl with light and fire etc.

Words that are non-motivated at present may have lost their motivation. due to
changes in the vocabulary, their motivation is faded.

Speaking about the meaning of the word we also speak about its collocability or
valency which is realizationof the meaning of the word which depends on the
word`s association with other words.E.g. a handsome man, a pretty girl. We also
speak about free meanings and phraseologicaly bound ones. The latter are realized
only in set phrases or phraseological units.e.g. to raise – to show surprise (in the
phrase “to raise one`s eyebrows”)

There is a close relationship between the lexical meaning and the notion. Notion
denotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential
features and relations. Each notion is characterized by its scope and content. The
scope of the notion is determined by all the objects it refers to. The content of the
notion is made up of all the features that distinguish it from other notions.

The relationship between the linguistic lexical meaning and the logical notion
follows in some detail.

1. The relationship between the lexical meaning and the notion varies. A word may
have a notion for its referent (when it evokes a general idea, a notion, without
directly referring to any particular element of reality). E. g. A good laugh is the
sunshine in the house. A word may also have a particular individual object for its
referent. E. g. Do you remember what the young lady did with the telegram?

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To sum up, we can say that the logical notion is the referent of lexical meaning
quite often, but not always, because there may be other referents such as the real
objects.

2. The notion is always emotionally neutral. The meaning conveys both reflection
of objective reality and connotations revealing the speaker’s state of mind and his
attitude to what he is speaking about: admiration, respect, scorn, irony, etc.

Notion belongs to abstract logic, has no ties with any stylistic sphere and does not
contain any emotive component. The lexical meaning of many words cannot be
divorced from the typical sphere, where the words are used and the typical
contexts.

3. The complexity of the notion is determined by its relationships of the extra-

linquiitic reality reflected in human consciousness.

The structure of every separate meaning depends on the linguistic syntagmatic and
paradigmatic relationships, because meaning is an inherent component of
language. That is, the complexity of each word meaning is due to the fact, that it
combines lexical meaning with lexico-grammatical meaning with emotional
colouring, stylistic peculiarities.

. The grouping of meanings is different from the grouping of notions, because

frequently the words are polysemantic. E. g. to burn – ‘destroy in fire’, ‘be in
flames’.

5. Notions are mostly international, especially for the nations with the same level
of cultural development. Meaning may be nationally determined and limited. E. g.
‘go’ – the main meaning ‘move or pass from place to place’ is common in English
and Russian. But quite a considerable number of meanings of this word don’t
coincide (the words ‘come’ and ‘walk’ more precisely point out the direction and
character of movement). There is also difference between идти и ехать.

There are many cases when the English word combines the meanings of two or
more Russian words expressing similar notions: floor – пол, этаж; boat – судно,
лодка, пароход, шлюпка, корабль; cry – плакать, кричать.

Summing up, we can say that the lexical meaning of the word is the realization or
naming of a notion, emotion or object. All the specific features that distinguish the
lexical meaning from the notion are due to its linguistic nature.

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Glossary:

1. Notion: A notion is a mental concept or idea about something, often not fully
defined or clearly articulated. It refers to the general understanding or perception
one has about a subject or object.

2. Meaning: Meaning refers to the content that a word, phrase, sentence, or

symbol represents. It is the interpretation that the mind gives to a notion or a
concept, often communicated through language.
3. Semantics: The study of meaning in language, including how words and
sentences convey meaning. Semantics is concerned with how notions and
meanings are encoded and decoded in communication.
4. Signifier: A signifier is the form a word or symbol takes—its physical
representation (e.g., a spoken word, written letters, a gesture). It is linked to the
signified, which is the mental concept it represents.

5. Signified: The signified is the mental concept or idea that a signifier refers to. It
is not the object itself, but rather the idea or notion of the object in the mind.
6. Sign: A sign is the combination of a signifier and a signified. It is the
fundamental unit of communication in semiotics.
7. Pragmatics: The study of how context affects the interpretation of meaning.
Pragmatics considers how notions and meanings are influenced by factors like
social context, speaker intentions, and cultural background.
8. Contextual Meaning: The contextual meaning refers to how the meaning of a
word or phrase is influenced by the surrounding context, which can modify or add
to its basic or literal meaning.

9. Interpretation:Interpretation is the process by which the meaning of a notion

or a symbol is understood by an individual or a group, based on prior knowledge,
context, and personal experiences.
10. Conceptualization: Conceptualization refers to the mental process of forming
and organizing notions. It involves creating mental models of the world based on
experiences, information, and cultural influences.

Related Questions:

1. What is the relationship between a notion and meaning in language?

2. How do cultural factors influence the correlation of notion and
meaning?
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 3. Can meaning exist without a clear notion?
4. What role does context play in shaping meaning?
5. How does the theory of signs (semiotics) help explain the correlation
of notion and meaning?
6. Is meaning always subjective, or can there be objective meaning?
7. How do different schools of philosophy view the relationship between
notion and meaning?

8.How do metaphors influence the correlation of notion and meaning?

LECTURE 10. Discursive-synergetic features of meaning formation.

1. The definition of a Discursive-synergetic.

2. The Discursive-synergetic features.
3. Discourse functional properties.
4. Synergetics methods in relation to discourse analysis.
5. Functional properties as the basis for discourse synergistics analysis.

My 30 year University experience has proved that linguistic theories may be

helpful in teaching practical English, as they disclose the purposes and
functions of language units in social settings, reveal their pragmatic loading
and effects on people’s feelings and opinions, explain the language “life”
proceeding from meaning and function to form [7], [8], [12]. Therefore,
working out theoretical issues of linguistics we lay ground for their further
practical implementation with special emphasis on speech communicative
effectiveness; and that is exactly what linguistics is about – how to enhance the
role of language as a tool of human (preferably positive) interaction. On such
premises, scholars develop different concepts and theories giving practical keys
to better harmonized communication, one of them being the so-called linguo-
synergetics, i.e. the synergetic approach applied to language. Synergetics (from
Greek συνεργία – cooperation, cooperative action) born within natural sciences
(H. Haken, S.P. Kurdyumov, D. Pines, I. Prigogine, R.F. Thom, etc.) has
evolved into an interdisciplinary approach whose methods prove to be fruitful
for revealing self organization of flexible, dynamic properties of systems in
interaction with systemic, stabilizing ones. The central object of analysis make
complex unstable open non-linear 3rd International Multidisciplinary Scientific
77
Conference on Social Sciences & Arts SGEM 2016 systems and their inward
and outward coherent processes aimed at the preservation of a system in its
striving for self-regulation. The synergetic way of thinking is defined as
evolutionary, nonlinear and holistic, and presents, in fact, a stage of the
classical systems theory, but with some specificity: alongside the issues typical
for the traditional theory (systems inner structure and stable functional state)
synergetics is mostly focused on systems evolution and coherent advance to the
ultimate goal of their existence. According to P.A. Corning, N.A. Coulter, R.
Buckminster Fuller, H. Haken, E.N. Knyazeva, S.P. Kurdyumov, G. G.
Malinetsky, E.V. Ponomarenko, W. Wildgen and others, the main idea of
synergetics is the possibility of spontaneous ordering out of disorder in a
system self-organization process, when the resulting whole exceeds the simple
sum of its parts (figuratively speaking, “2+2=5”) [1], [2], [4], [5]. The purpose
of this lesson is to give a brief outline of linguo-synergetics as a theory of
language/speech/discourse self-organization and the way it analyses discourse
functional (pragma semantic) characteristics. This knowledge is useful for
forming people’s ability, on the one hand, to organize their speech in the most
efficient way, on the other hand, to see the general and specific peculiarities of
their partners’ rhetoric and thinking process in verbal communication.
SELF-ORGANIZATION IN SYNERGISTIC SYSTEMS
The general scheme of self-organization processes as viewed by synergetics
may be presented as follows [4], [9], [10]. A complex open integral system is
in the state of dynamic equilibrium and exchange with the environment
(external medium). This state is defined by its inherent factors – order
parameters. The system’s elements, subordinate to the order parameters, strive
for the best regulated area called ‘attractor’. The attractor makes the purpose of
the system’s existence, the most favourable regime for its functioning.
Alongside the development of the system’s initial state, the inner dynamic
processes and some signals from the external medium stimulate certain
fluctuations inside the system, which cause such essential functional shifts that
the system’s behaviour approaches the so-called bifurcation point(s) - the
turning-point(s) in the system development. At that point chaotic processes are
activated, and in order to oppose them and to preserve itself, the system has to
mobilize all its elements for common, coordinated actions, and to dissipate
extra matter, or information, or energy into the environment. Some so far stable
structures come under destruction and the least fluctuation can give an impetus
to the next stage of evolution. The dependence of the system’s behaviour on its
inner processes and fluctuations is defined as non-linearity. So, having
overcome a disordered state of bifurcation, the system passes to a new, though
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not necessarily better, organizational level, at which the analogous scenario
starts again. Thus, the aim of the synergetic analysis is to reveal the order
parameters and those cooperative processes which lead to self-organization of
the system. This approach has been widely implemented in physics, chemistry,
biology, psychology, economics, management and other areas, as complex
systems of different nature demonstrate analogous modes of behavior [4], [6],
[9]. In respect to language and speech linguosynergetics discloses the evolution
of the system as interchanging stages of order and disorder, equilibrium and
non-equilibrium, the search of optimal way to the Education and Educational
Research desirable aim of evolution and deviation from the initial direction of
the system development. English makes a typical example of a complex self-
organizing system [10], [11]. Its essential feature is the mutual influence and
interaction of discourse units and components in speech process, their ability to
dynamism and self-regulation. Systemic interdependence is observed on the
levels of phonetics, grammar, spelling and others. Thus, English grammar,
being mostly analytical, gives a lot of examples of selforganization. For
instance, the rules of the sequence of tenses stipulate the systemic use of tense
forms; the same concerns the use of modal verbs, of English prepositions and
post-positives, and many other grammatical phenomena. As some linguists say
(halfjokingly), each lexical item has grammar of its own. So, the systemic
grammatical wholeness of the language requires the mechanisms ensuring its
stability, the latter being synergetic by nature. Besides, the fact that English is a
widely spread world language and that quite a good part of its users are non-
native speakers, presumes that English inevitably suffers some chaotising,
disordering fluctuations [11]. Therefore, for English an absolutely necessary
condition of its self-preservation is the ability to maintain its systemic
wholeness, using certain mechanisms of adaptation, functional modifications,
and of course, some reciprocal influence on the medium.
SYNERGETICS METHODS IN RELATION TO DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
The application of synergetics methods to discourse leads to acknowledgement
of the following postulates [5], [10], [11], [13]: 1. Discourse is qualified as a
complex dynamic non-linear open hierarchal system. It means that discourse is
a system of elements and their interrelations within which: - different
components of lower levels (words, word combinations, etc.) are subordinate
to those of higher levels (utterances, speech acts, etc.); - components are in
constant movement and interaction (language units combine in various modes);
- their combinations can not be confined to pure addition, but evolve into new
structures; - the discourse system is in constant interchange of information with
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the environment (external medium). 2. Discourse exists in a non-linear external
medium, which itself includes two subsystems – a macro-medium, i.e. the
coherence and interaction of different external systems that provide speech
functions realization (like the means of communication system, the mental
processes system, the system of culture and ideology formation, etc.), and a
micro-medium, i.e. the system of language and, generally, the communicants’
conceptual systems, on the one hand, and the communicative situation, on the
other hand; discourse makes the area of their intersection. 3. The attractor of
discourse is the communicative purport of the author of the given text, as the
above mentioned ‘most favourable regime’ for discourse functioning 3 rd
International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences &
Arts SGEM 2016 is the one realizing the purport of speech production. On the
way to the attractor the system summons up the pragmatic and semantic
potentials of all its elements for coherent and mutually intensifying
(synergistic) functioning, when every element works as either a semantic
“intensifier” or, on the contrary, “dimmer” of the system’s both previous and
following states [13]. 4. The necessary conditions for discourse development
and adaptation as a dynamic system are: - functional non-linearity of discourse
(i.e. the dependence of its state and behaviour on any element and
relationship). Russian academician L.V. Shcherba characterized this
phenomenon (though with no reference to synergetics) as the process of sense
‘addition’ resulting not in a sense sum but in ‘new senses’ [15]; - the possibility
of active cooperation between discourse and its medium (especially micro-
medium). For example, in the course of speech certain deviations from the
initial communicative program may arise due to some reactions of the partners,
or to the necessity for additional information, or emotional influence, etc.; but
the realization of the communicative intention is still possible if the speaker
properly disguises or gets rid of those discourse elements that prevent from
achieving the communicative purpose, and introduces (from the medium) or
emphasizes those that promote it; so, the dissipation of the undesirable system
components stabilizes order and self-organization in discourse; - the possibility
of forming new regular linguo-mental and functional structures. Any
fluctuation in any element’s behavior can give rise to the whole system’s
emergent properties, as a result of a strong self-preservation tendency; then the
elements introducing destructive influence on discourse will be opposed and
“forgotten” by the system, and it will return to its regular regime, under which
discourse linguistic means are built up to achieve the purpose of
communication, and the return will be marked by new structural and functional
components based on the initial communicative program; otherwise, the
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systemity of the given communication episode will be ruined and the
communicative purpose not achieved. 5. Functional relations between
utterances act as order parameters of discourse. According to T. van Dijk [3],
functional relations present the specific semantic role/function of utterances in
respect to each other, which is based on semantic links between propositions
and on relations between the described facts and their properties in ‘possible
worlds’. So, in fact such relations are more precisely qualified as pragma-
semantic ones, i.e. as semantic links acquiring pragmatic increments in the
process of their linguistic actualization. They build up the systemic foundation
of communication, because semantic structures reflect the mental pattern of the
situation described. Considering that mental patterns have a more or less
typical (though not exactly similar) character with human beings, it becomes
clear that functional (pragma semantic) relations perform a stabilizing role and
make the appropriate criteria for discourse synergetic analysis. 6. The
processes and mechanisms of discourse self-organization may be modeled due
to the analogous, though not absolutely identical with different people,
character of speech production and speech perception and to the typical
character of functional links Education and Educational Research between
discourse components (like specification, generalization, explanation,
gradation, expansion, contradiction, etc.). In the final reckoning, discourse as a
synergistic object is defined as a self-organizing system of senses formed in the
text by an aggregate of all (oral and written) verbal means, which
synergistically mobilizes their functional potential on the way to the author’s
communicative purport. It is most important to understand that it is the
functional (pragmasemantic) space of discourse that the notion of self-
organization can be expediently applied to. Whether this notion per se can be
attributed to structural aspects of speech seems a disputable question, as no
doubt speech buildup is a voluntary process intended and performed by
communicants. But as to the functional properties, their full rhetorical capacity
definitely exceeds pure addition of successive components, and in this respect
discourse self-organization is a completely adequate concept. For instance, one
of the US President’s Office mailouts contains the following paragraph: Two
weeks ago, President Obama asked you to write and tell him how you’re doing.
And I can tell you, as one of the people who helps sort through the mail here at
the White House, that a lot of you answered. You told us how you’re feeling
about your family, your community, and our country. You shared stories about
what’s been going well, and what you wish was better. So if you were
wondering if those letters actually get read, the answer is yes [14]. The
occurrence of communication verbs in every sentence produces a
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demonstrative rhetorical impact: the message makes an impression of firm
links between the country leader and the citizens, though the text itself never
verbalizes the idea. Firstly, it emphasizes the President’s readiness for dialogue
and consideration for the public opinion. Secondly, it reveals people’s active
involvement in communication with him and trust in his commitment to social
needs. Consequently, manifold and systemic use of the verbs of
communication in the given discourse forms a persuasive pragmatic effect of
the authorities’ and citizens’ constant interaction and shared interests. Thus the
regulating semantic function of these verbs evolves into the pragmatic function
of generating new sense components, whereas viewed from a simplistic linear
position, this text will be perceived as a mere description of a number of
speech acts performed by both sides of interaction, the implicit inferences
being omitted.
FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES AS THE BASIS FOR DISCOURSE
SYNERGISTICS ANALYSIS
As stated above, discourse Synergistics is evident from the standpoint of its
functional plane. The algorithm of the synergetic analysis comprises
determination of the following points [11]: - the basic utterance which reflects
the topic of narration, - the discourse attractor (the communicative purport), -
the functional relations between utterances, - the types of pragma-semantic
interaction inside and outside the discourse 3 rd International Multidisciplinary
Scientific Conference on Social Sciences & Arts SGEM 2016 system,
including discursive strategies and tactics. Thus the proposed analytical
operations may be well demonstrated on the following extract from J. Archer’s
book As the Crow Flies: Let’s consider a different way of doing things.
Imagine one giant desk with all of the employees of our company sitting
around this desk. In the centre of that desk are all of the folders, documents,
spreadsheets, images that we need to do our work. When we need one of those,
we just reach over and get it. If we want to talk to someone about something
we just look across the table and talk. If we want to discuss something on a qt,
we pass the person a note. This is how we should be working. This is cloud
computing and it’s the wave of the future. What I am suggesting is a system
that will allow us to work more efficiently, communicate more effectively and
store information more sensibly. And what can be better than that [13]. Here
the speaker implements the strategy of persuading the audience to introduce a
new, more efficient, system of document circulation, which makes the attractor
(communicative purport) of his discourse. The basic (opening) utterance
reflects the initial proposition which, in terms of synergetics, corresponds to
the equilibrium state of the discourse semantic system – the speaker states the
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necessity for the company to find a better way of doing things. In the five
following sentences (till the end of the first paragraph) the situation (the initial
proposition) is disclosed through the description of its components. So,
between the first sentence and the other five the pragma semantic relationship
of decoding is actualized, while the primary functional interaction between the
following sentences is that of succession. Besides, the discourse components
directly embodying certain functional loading are incorporated. The expression
a different way signals the additional pragma semantic relation of opposition.
This type of functional links usually enhances the pragmatic tension of
discourse but such tension may be desirable; it encourages introduction of
optimistic attitude (positive thinking) and, as a result, in this case the relation
of opposition serves as an operator of the parties’ constructive interaction. The
speaker illustrates the alternative solution by a vivid image of a fictitious scene
(the tactic of metaphorical image construction) and with regard to previous
utterances this passage clearly reveals the new stage of functional evolution.
Here are activated the relations of decoding (enumerating the components of
the general state of things called different way), specification (the relation of
the general and the specific – in the description of the imaginary picture),
succession (the description of successive actions). The simplicity of
manipulations is stressed by adverb just (just reach over and get it). Then the
discourse functional plane transfers to the next stage (confirmation and
insistence), which clearly demonstrates the inevitable interaction of the
discourse with the external medium: knowing that generally innovations
require some efforts and may displease the employees (in terms of linguo
synergetics – threaten the attractor) the speaker proceeds to some
reinforcement in order to prevent dilution of the main communicative effect
(This is how we should be working). The advance of the sense system to the
functional attractor brings to life new sense components – such arguments as
well-coordinated work of the staff (work more efficiently), order in documents
(store information more sensibly), introduction of new technologies (it’s the
wave of the Education and Educational Research future), effective
communication (communicate more effectively). As a whole they implement
the tactic of creating a positive image of the new approach. The speaker’s
positive mood and confident tone testify to the promising development of the
sense system – assertion of brilliant perspectives in place of acknowledgement
of the former problems. Here several means function as intensifiers: syntactic
parallelism (This is how…– This is cloud computing; more efficiently – more
effectively – more sensibly), an emphatic construction (What I am suggesting
is), a rhetorical question with adjective better (And what can be better than
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that?). Personal pronoun we/us stresses the unity of those present as a staff
sharing common business interests. The expression the wave of the future adds
pathos of indisputability and durability of the forthcoming success. The
pragmasemantic system of arguments creates a cumulative effect of a
persuasive impact. The rhetorical question at the end of the presentation is
aimed at awakening the listeners’ reaction and, moreover, provoking
acceptance of (instead of consideration for) the speaker’s reasons (And what
can be better than that?). Implicitly the answer is suggested: “nothing can be
better than cloud computing”. Thus the semantic system of the presentation has
evolved starting with the equilibrium state (statement of the company’s needs),
through the bifurcation point (considering alternatives) to the functional
attractor, with order parameters and a new functional state (pragmatics of
persuasion) being formed. CONCLUSION To sum up, nonlinear functional, or
pragmasemantic, properties enable the discourse system to resist self-
destruction tendencies in case of emergence of new signals inside or outside
the system. That means that systemity in the discourse buildup is inalienable
from its dynamics on the way to the functional attractor. Discourse may come
to a new level of evolution, even if linear – consequent – addition of its units
meanings and functions does not result in the necessary combination of sense.
Functional nonlinearity of discourse (when the general sense is not equal to the
mechanical addition of components) is an endless source of sense
combinations, manipulating which the system of discourse may restore the
wholeness of its functional medium and reach the purport of communication.
Thus, we come to the conclusion that linguo-synergetics enhances methods of
analyzing dynamic (evolutionary) and stabilizing (systemic) properties of
discourse in their close interaction aimed at discourse functional development
and self-preservation. Teaching students to make out these phenomena in
discourse promotes their more developed linguistic feeling, better analytical
and communicative skills, more effective rhetorical impact on the partner(s) in
communication. Using elements of some adapted form of linguo-synergetic
analysis they polish their own communicative skills alongside the ability to
detect the partner’s attempts to produce a special influence or manipulate their
consciousness.

QUESTIONS:
1.What is the discourse ?
2. What is the synergetic-discourse?
3.Characterize the linguo-synergetics.
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4.What is the lexical meaning of a word ”synergetic”?
5.What is a goal of self-organization in synergistic systems?
6. What kind of information did you get about synergetics methods in relation
to discourse analysis?
7. What is the pragma semantic?
8. What is a role of pragma semantics in discourse?

Used literature :

[1] Coulter N.A. Human Synergetics. Revised Internet Edition, USA, URL:
http://www.synearth.net/coulter/synergetics.pdf (accessed: 25.06.2016). 3 rd
International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences &
Arts SGEM 2016
[2] Fuller R. Buckminster, Applewhite E.J. Synergetics. Explorations in the
Geometry of Thinking, USA, 1975.
[3] Dijk T. van. Studies in the Pragmatics of Discourse, Netherlands/Germany,
1981.
[4] Haken H. Synergetics. An Introduction, Germany, 1977.
[5] Khramchenko D., Radyuk A. The Synergy of Modern Business English
Discourse: Holistic Approach to Teaching Unconventional Rhetoric,
Proceedings of INTED2014 Conference (10th-12th March), Spain, 2014, pp.
6779-6783.
[6] Knyazeva E.N., Kurdyumov S.P. Foundations of Synergetics: Blow-up
Regimes, Self-Organisation, Tempoworlds, Russian Federation, URL:
http://spkurdyumov.ru/philosophy/foundatioms-of-synergetic/ (accessed:
25.06.2016).
[7] Malyuga E. Individual-oriented training in professional communication
teaching, ICERI2015 Proceedings. 8th International Conference of Education,
Research and Innovation (18-20 November, 2015), Spain, 2015, pp. 4807-
4811.
[8] Malyuga E., Tomalin B. English Professional Jargon in Economic
Discourse, Journal of Language and Literature, Azerbaijan, Vol. 5 (4), 2014,
pp. 172-180.
[9] Malinetsky G.G. Synergetics – from Past to Future, Model. Anal. Inform.
Sist., Russian Federation, 2012, vol. 19/issue 3, pp. 5-31.
[10] Ponomarenko E.V. Linguosynergetic Analysis and Systemic Regulation of
Discourse, The Second Biennial Conference on Cognitive Science (St.
Petersburg, 9-13 June, 2006), Conference Proceedings, Russian Federation,
vol. 1, pp. 137-138, 2006.
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 [11] Ponomarenko E.V. Linguosynergetics of Business Communication in
Terms of the Competence-Based Approach (Exemplified by English Language
Material) [Lingvosinergetika biznes-obshcheniya s pozicij kompetentnostnogo
podhoda (na materiale anglijskogo yazika)], Russian Federation, 2010 (in
Russian).
[12] Ponomarenko E. V., Malyuga E.N. Business English and Functional
Linguistics: Teaching Practical English in Perfect Harmony with Theory, 5th
International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI 2012),
Spain, pp. 4524- 4529, 2012.
[13] Ponomarenko E.V., Radyuk A.V. Semantic synergism as the basis for
actualization of communicative strategies and tactics in English Business
discourse. Scientific Newsletter of Voronezh State University of Architecture
and Civil Engineering. Series: Modern linguistic and methodical-and-didactic
research, Russian Federation, 2013, issue № 2 (3), pp. 24-30..
[14] Reeves F. What You Wrote the President. The White House blog. July 09,
2014, USA. URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/07/09/what-you-
wrotepresident?
utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email351-
text1&utm_campaign=dayinthelife (accessed: 25.06.2016).
[15] Shcherba L.V. Language System and Speech Activity [Yazykovaya
sistema i rechevaya deyatel'nost'], Russian Federation, 2004 (in Russian
LECTURE 12.THE THEORY OF PROTOTYPES

Questions
1. What is the notion of prototypes?
2. Prototype Theory and Vocabulary Learning
3. Prototype Theory and Polysemy

1. The emergence of this approach is usually associated with the work of the
American psychologist E. Roche, since it was she who in the early 70s formulated
its basic principles. Meanwhile, individual ideas of this approach, as well as the
term prototype itself, initially arose under the influence of the results of
psychological experiments conducted by American anthropologists B. Berlin and
P. Kay in the late 60s, analyzing the principles of color space categorization. The
origins of this approach can be traced to the earlier works of other scientists who
tried to discover the universal principles of categorization of the surrounding world
in how we recognize and classify objects of different nature and assign category
names to them (see, for example, the works of R. Brown: [Brown 1958], etc.).

86
 Indeed, on the one hand, we, without hesitation, recognize such objects as
notebooks, pens, books, tables, chairs, houses, etc., and designate them with the
appropriate words, since these objects have fairly clear boundaries (although these
boundaries also have a relative character, otherwise we would not additionally
distinguish between books, booklets and pamphlets, etc.). On the other hand, it is
not so easy to indicate and give an exact name, for example, to all parts of the body
or face, various colors, natural objects and phenomena. Who can, for example, say
exactly where what we call the temples passes into the cheekbones, and the
cheekbones pass into the cheekbones, or where the border between the top of the
tree and the trunk, rain and downpour, light rain and drizzle, and where one color
ends and another begins.
The boundaries of such objects are not clearly defined, although we have the
feeling that they exist in the real world (the cheek cannot be part of the cheekbone,
and the top of the hill is not included in the slope, etc.). Therefore, one may get the
impression that this classification is dictated to us by reality itself. At the same
time, this cannot be say about the physical parameters of length, height, width,
color and temperature characteristics, since we are not able to draw a clear line
between cold, warm and hot or distribute all possible color shades (which we can
distinguish, according to R. Brown and E. Lenneberg [Brown, Lenneberg 1954:
457], more than 7,500,000) between known words denoting color.
Consequently, the classification of physical objects and their parameters is
more of a thought process than a manifestation of the properties of nature itself.
This mental process of classification is called categorization, and its results are
called cognitive categories, for example, cognitive categories of color: red, yellow,
green, blue [Ungerer, Schmid 1997: 2]. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was
the physical parameters of objects, and color in particular, that served as the
starting point for the beginning of the study of linguistic meanings in the
psychological and conceptual aspects - the central problem of cognitive linguistics,
which is its essence.
The above problems forced philosophers, psychologists, linguists to
constantly think about how indefinite the boundary between linguistic meanings
and non-linguistic reality (S. Ullman, V. Quine, etc.), as well as what principles
govern the thought processes of categorization, and in particular categorization
colors. For a long time, the only correct answer to the last question about the
categorization of color was that the categories of color are absolutely conditional,
and data from different languages were cited as evidence, in which color
designations differed significantly. It was also seen as a confirmation of Sapir-
Whorf's theory of linguistic relativity that different languages categorize the world
around them in different ways.
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 The systems of certain landmarks, the so-called points of reference (or
reference points). The presence of these points in the form of Focus Cysts, which
we focus on when categorizing colors, was experimentally proved by B. Berlin and
P. Kay by analyzing 98 languages, including 20 on the basis of oral tests and the
rest on the basis of grammars and written materials. The essence of their
experiment was that using a table of 329 color chips (40 color shades of 8 degrees
of brightness, white, black and 7 varieties of gray), they asked speakers of different
languages to name words denoting a particular color. At the same time, these
names had to meet the following conditions: they had to be simple words of native
(not foreign) origin, which are not confined to a limited class of objects (for
example, fair-haired), quickly come to mind and known to all or almost all native
speakers of a given language. Words that meet these criteria were called basic
color terms.
At the second stage of the experiment, native speakers had to show those
chips that they would call the corresponding color under any conditions, as well as
the best, most typical samples of a certain color. The second task, in essence,
anticipated the discovery of what was later called the prototype. These chips (zones
of color space), which were recognized as the best examples, B. Berlin and P. Kay
called tricks. It turned out that if the boundaries of color categories can be different
for speakers of different languages and even for speakers of the same language,
then the color focuses are the same for everyone. This led to the conclusion that
when categorizing colors, a person chooses certain points of the color space for
orientation.
This discovery in the field of categorization of natural phenomena called
into question the indisputability of the main provisions of the classical approach,
from which it followed: 1) that all members of the category have the same
properties, and none of them can correspond to the idea of this category to a
greater extent than others, and 2) that the categories themselves are independent of
the structural features of those beings that carry out the categorization, i.e. they
must be free from human neurophysiology, the dynamics of his movements and
the specifics of his abilities for perception, for creating mental images, for learning
and memorizing, for organizing and storing learned facts, for effective
communication. Naturally, this required a psychological justification. First of all, it
was necessary to answer the question, what is the nature of the selection of focal
points in a color space from a psychological point of view, and whether the
selection of similar foci is typical for other spheres or is it only associated with
color. E. Roche (Heider) tried to answer these questions.
E. Roche [Heider 1971; 1972] managed to prove that focal colors belong to
the field of non-linguistic knowledge and are associated with thinking, and not
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with language, i.e. have not a linguistic, but a cognitive status, since they play an
important role in the thought processes of categorization. These processes, in
particular, include: the choice of an object (out of the whole variety of objects and
their characteristics, only some of them usually attract our attention), recognition
and classification (which are based on a comparison of an object with those stored
in memory). knowledge) and naming (while most cognitive categories are denoted
by separate words, some of them remain without names, for example: "things that
should be packed in a suitcase") [Barsalou 1987: 102].
To avoid the influence of linguistic categorization based on knowledge of
words and their meanings, E. Roche involved as subjects children of preschool age
and residents of Papua New Guinea, in whose language there were only two main
color terms, i.e. those who had minimal knowledge of the relevant words and
related categories. Analyzing how the subjects choose colors from the proposed
variety, compare them, memorize, learn their names, she concluded that focal
colors attract more attention compared to non-focus colors, i.e. have a greater
psychological emphasis, are remembered more accurately in short-term memory
and are more easily stored in long-term memory, the names of focal colors are
reproduced faster and are absorbed by children earlier. Consequently, focal colors
have a special cognitive-perceptual emphasis, which, most likely, does not depend
on the language and reflects certain psychological aspects of human perception of
the world.
Having further established that the status of color foci does not depend on
their position (central or borderline) within certain color sets, including artificially
created ones (she swapped colored chips, arranging them in a different sequence,
but each time the participants of the experiment easily distinguished focus cyst
samples among other tokens), E. Roche was able to prove that these foci serve as
the core of the corresponding color category, i.e. a focal color, such as green, will
always serve as the reference point for all shades of green. This gave grounds to
speak about the existence of natural prototypes, around which the categories of
color are formed. Similar experiments were carried out with figures of various
shapes, which made it possible to assert that all of the above applies not only to the
categorization of color space, but also to other categories of natural objects [Rosch
1973].
The existence of natural prototypes was also confirmed by the data of other
experiments with categories of natural objects and organisms [Rosch 1975]. Most
American students who participated in the experiment, in particular, as the most
typical samples of the categories "bird", "fruit", "vehicle", "furniture", "weapon"
indicated the following objects, respectively: robin (robin) and sparrow (sparrow),
orange (orange) and apple (arple), car (automobile) and pickup truck (station
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wagon), chair (chair) and sofa (sofa), gun (gun) and pistol (pistol). The least
typical birds turned out to be penguin (penguin) and bat (bat), the least typical
fruits were olives (olive), the least typical vehicle was an elevator (elevator),
furniture fan (fan) and telephone (telephone) , weapon shoes (shoes).
These data, repeatedly confirmed later by other researchers on the material
of categories of natural and artificial objects, including on the material of language
categories, formed the basis of the theory of prototypes. This theory, in turn, served
as the basis for the refutation of the main principles of the classical approach and
for the formation of the so-called prototypical point of view on the nature and
structure of categories. The assumptions and main principles of the prototypical
approach can be summarized as the following points:
• Real world objects show some similarities and differences, ie. the real
world is not chaotic, but structured in a certain way. This allows our consciousness
to group objects of the real world and other possible worlds into certain mental
structures of the category. At the same time, sensually perceived objects form
natural or natural categories, and cognitive, conceptually conditioned objects form
semantic categories. Accordingly, the ontology of the world is reflected in our
consciousness in the form of a certain categorization as a system of categories.
• The elements of these categories are not equivalent to each other: some
elements are psychologically more prominent than others. This determines the
internal structure of the categories.

2. Prototype Theory and Vocabulary Learning

It is clearer and more flexible for prototype theory to explain meanings of
words, so be good for learners to comprehend and study meanings of words.
Prototype theory can help learners put memory activities of meanings of words
into real external world, human experience, cognition as well as language structure
and sense by means of notions of connection and development, thus prominently
improving the acquisition effectiveness and memory efficiency of meanings of
words. Prototype theory can efficaciously help learners analyze and catch on inter-
lingual relations from the point of cognition, thus contributing to enhance
memorization of meanings of words and to maintain them. A word is usually the
polysemous category made up of a few discrete senses on surface, but as a matter
of fact, there exists a common “core meaning”. Prototype theory can help learners
learn how to analyze the original meaning and the extended meaning of one word.
In this way memorizing words in isolation can be avoided. What’s more, through
making students get to know the developmental rules of meanings of words, they
would deepen the understanding of evolution mechanism, ultimately, upgrading
the capability of memory for learning meanings of words. Meanwhile, due to
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family resemblance among members of prototype category, by the class division
organizing the lexicon of the same conceptual category. Therefore, it is convenient
for students to find the associated clues when remembering words, and they are
able to remember and consolidate words according to hierarchical order. English
vocabulary memorization is very vital at the same time very complex and difficult
in the process of English acquisition. The role of prototype theory for English
vocabulary memorization lies in benefiting learners from discovering the internal
connection between words and then to strengthen the understanding and
remembering English vocabulary. Root is the basic and unchangeable part of a
word. Perhaps one word is without other parts but there must be a root. Within one
group sharing the same root, it represents the primary meaning of words. On the
basis of understanding the meaning of the root, it is not difficult to know meanings
of each deviation word in general. Though affix is not the main carriers of
meanings of words, it is the fresh troops of building lexicon. Affix can be divided
into prefix and suffix, after being familiar with meanings of roots and affixes,
students are shortly capable of remembering words, judging the general scope of
meanings of words, reasoning and predicting meanings of new words in articles is
also included. Roots and affixes play a decisive role in constructing new words.
For example, -spect as the root means look that can be connected with various
prefixes and suffixes to compose plenty of vocabulary. In “expect”, its prefix “ex-”
presents “outside” and its root “-spect” means “look”, altogether the word
represents “look outside” referring to that people open the window and look at all
directions, which means “look forward to”, like expecting a joyful life; as for the
word “prospect”, its prefix “pro” means “ahead” and the same root “-spect” means
“look”, so the collective one means “look ahead”, describing the beautiful scenery
when looking ahead, as a consequence the connotation of noun form means
“distant scenery”. Definitely its extended meaning can be “glorious future”, such
as a student who has a great prospect. Another example is spectacle, -spect means
“look” and its suffix -acle means “thing”, after combining the meaning is “the
thing that can be seen”, especially refers to “special wonders and sight”, say
Olympics opening ceremony is exactly a grand spectacle; as for the word inspect,
its prefix expresses “inside” which pluses the root “-spect” indicating “look”, so
the collective one states “check carefully inside”, like US Boarder Inspection
Station; as to the “suspect”, its prefix “sus” means “down” and also the same the
root -spect represents “look”, thus the integrated meaning of the word is “look up
and down”, referring to that people doubtfully look others up and down, like
suspect one’s loyalty; so far as “introspect”, its prefix “intro” states “into the heart”
and the root -spect indicates “look”, referring to look into the heart, namely,
reflection and introspect oneself; in so far as “retrospect”, its prefix “retro” express
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“backwards” and the root -spect means “look”, after combining, the meaning is
“look backwards”, like a retrospect of college life; with regard to “ spectator”, the
root -spect means “look” that is added with the suffix -or indicating “ person”,
referring to people who watch the competition, for instance, the spectators of a
spectacle. Teachers can utilize the method of root and affix to carry on English
vocabulary teaching and learning. Therefore, it is beneficial for students to get rid
of the boring process of lexicon memory, to understand the inherent law of lexical
construction, to effectively enlarge the quantity of vocabulary of EFL and to
accomplish learning vocabulary by analogy. Lecturing etymology stories can
inspire EFL to be interested in studying English vocabulary. The myths of old
Greek and Roman are cultural treasures around the world for possessing the most
complete and richest mythology and containing abundant words and expressions as
well as their usages. Among English vocabulary there are quite a few lexicon
directly originating from these myth stories. In this way teachers can expound
lexical stories in Greek and Roman myths and demonstrate the importance of
myths to the word derivation. For example, the Muses was the general term of nine
goddesses in charge of music, art, painting, astronomy, geography and science in
ancient Greek myths. They lived with their master Apollo at the foot of one of
south mountains and in the spring of Helicon, whose living place was named by
names of the Muses, merely, the word museum. It represents that the old Greeks
highly respected the Muse as building fanes and put the precious artwork and the
related stuff of natural science in them; the Muses also created another word
music, referring to that the Muses were able to play the music, festively singing
and dancing. Once there was a famous painting all over the world depicting the
delightful scene that the nine goddesses danced lightly and gracefully around
Apollo. Later the word invented by the Muses is amuse, meaning “to entertain or
to please somebody”. Its prefix a- expresses “now”, indicating that the Muses are
coming to the mortal world and bringing happiness by singing and dancing for the
mortals, like amuse someone by telling jokes; the word mutual means “reciprocal”,
stemming from the Muses as well. It is the adjective transform of Muse, referring
to that the nine goddesses are inseparable, support and help each other, jointly
creating splendid culture and art in the history of human being, such as mutual
support and mutual understanding. Another example is Pan. He was the god of
forest in Greek myths with the body of human and hooves of sheep. Above head
were a pair of great bugles, it was said that he was the son of Apollo. As a result of
monstrous and queer appearance, passers-by in the forest were frightened
screamingly to fled by him. Pan was satisfied with the dread of the mortals. From
then on he always liked fearing people by means of his look. He often hid behind
the tree and abruptly jumped out when passers-by went through, which made
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people feel much more thrilled. Hence Pan is the symbol of fear in our mind. It is
said that in the battle of marathon Pan shown up and blew his magic flute, which
made Persian army frightened and lost their combat effectiveness, the Greek army
realizing this historical heroic undertaking of defeating with a force inferior in
number. This sort of horror caused by Pan brings up this word panic, as it were
somebody be in panic. It is certain that although Pan looked striking, he also
owned love himself. In fairy tales, he fell in love with Syrinx goddess. However,
his ugly face freaked out Syrinx, making her keep running to a river bank and
plunge into it, ultimately shaping a reed. Pan bitterly cut this reed into a flute and
named it Syrinx. Thereafter, in English Syrinx refers to flute or pan flute Pan used.
The lexical explanatory of myths and allusions can make teaching method of
vocabulary more interesting and vivid for teachers, enrich the students’
comprehensions of cultural connotations in English vocabulary, be acquainted with
language and culture custom in European countries and learn the philosophy of
social communication.

3. Prototype Theory and Polysemy

As for polysemy, very often the traditional teaching method is to lecture every
sense of a word in certain context or just list other meanings altogether by the way
at the beginning of lecturing one word. This kind of teaching method is
unscientific and proved of little avail. In reality, instead of the relationship between
multiple senses of one word is isolated, there exists some internal combinations. If
students are able to figure out and take good advantage of these combinations, then
it must yield twice the result with half the effort for remembering multiple senses
of one word. In addition, the input of prototype theory in semantic category exactly
solves this problem. According to prototype theory, categorical members central
category prototype and are related by family resemblance. So it is enlightened that
multiple senses of a word are not casual and random but center on the meaning of
the prototype, and meanings correlates with each other through family
resemblance. Therefore, with regard to polysemy, in the practice of English
vocabulary teaching and learning and when teachers lay emphasis on introducing
sense items of prototype, they also should consciously search for family
resemblance of sens items or meaning chain to explain themselves in reason in
hope of helping students better master rich connotations of polysemy. English
vocabulary learning is not just simple memory of meanings of words. It refers to
various levels of meanings of words, so teachers should explain lexicon
specifically and multi-faceted and should be good at analyzing multiple senses of
the word, the specific contexts of using vocabulary, their collocations and so on.
Polysemy is the difficulty in pedagogy owing to the same word may possess
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greatly different connotations in various contexts. For example, for the word gear,
its original meaning is “wheel”. Due to the occluding of gear can make the
machinery operate coordinately, the meaning of gear is extended as “adjust”, like
gear the policy to the international situation; and because the gear-box of the car
achieves speed shift through monitoring rotational speed of wheels, gear still can
have the derived meaning of “tap position”, as shift the gear. In addition, the gear
is necessary accessory for all weapons, so it can be derived the meaning of
“equipment”. In movies the commander of troops usually would say “gear up!”.
The phenomenon of polysemy is the universal and representative characteristic in
English vocabulary. We should put the stress of English vocabulary teaching and
learning on correctly understanding words and multiple categorical meanings of
words in given context for EFL.
The unsatisfactory effect of English vocabulary teaching and learning in the
class frequently derives from improper teaching method (Huang, & Jing, 2013). In
the course of English vocabulary teaching and learning, we are able to apply
prototype to put the root into the most familiar word to be memorized, turning the
acquisition and memorization of lexicon into the dynamic process of logic
reasoning. Prototype benefit not only the understanding and memory of English
vocabulary, but also autonomic learning for EFL. Combined prototype with
English vocabulary teaching and learning would solve polysemy as the bottleneck
problem in lexical pedagogy to some degree, hence improving the effectiveness of
education issue.

Glossary:

Questions:

Lecture 13: FRAME SEMANTICS

1. Introduction of frame semantics

2. History of frame semantics
3. Some Basic Theoretical Principles
4. The concept Prototype
5. Applications

Introduction of frame semantics

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The term frame semantics refers to a wide variety of approaches to the systematic
description of natural language meanings. The one common feature of all these
approaches – which, however, does not sufficiently distinguish frame semantics
from other frameworks of semantic description – is the following slogan due to
Charles Fillmore (1977a):

Meanings are relativized to scenes.

According to this slogan meanings have internal structure which is determined

relative to a background frame or a scene. The easiest way to understand this thesis
is by way of example. The following one is from Fillmore (1977c): Suppose that
two identical twins Mark and Mike are both in a hospital sitting on the edge of
their beds in exactly the same position. When a nurse walks by Mark’s room, she
says: I see that Mark is able to sit up now, and when she walks by Mike’s room she
remarks: I see that Mike is able to sit down now. Drawing on what we know about
hospitals – our hospital background scenes or frames – we will interpret the two
remarks of the nurse rather differently, thereby relativizing the meanings of her
remarks to the relevant scenes. Another often cited example of Fillmore (1977c)
clearly demonstrating the above thesis is the difference in meaning between the
following two sentences:

(1) I spent three hours on land this afternoon.

(2) I spent three hours on the ground this afternoon.

The background scene for the first sentence is a sea voyage while the second
sentence refers to an interruption of an air travel. This illustrates Fillmore’s use of
the term frame as an idealization of a coherent individuatable perception, memory,
experience, action, or object Fillmore (1977c). In order to understand frame
semantics, it is helpful to begin with a brief history. From here we will turn to an
overview of the most important theoretical concepts. After this the relationship of
frame semantics to one specific version of Construction Grammar will be
introduced and some examples will be analysed. The paper will end with a short
summary of applications of frame semantics and a note on formalisation. Usually
frame semantics is taken to be a very informal approach to meaning, but
nevertheless some approaches relating frame semantics to Formal Semantics exist.

History of frame semantics

There are at least two historical roots of frame semantics; the first is linguistic
Syntax and Semantics, especially Fillmore’s case grammar, the second is Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and the notion of frame introduced by M. Minsky (1975) in this
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field of study. 2 A case frame in case grammar was taken to characterize a small
abstract scene which identifies (at least) the participants of the scene and thus the
arguments of predicates and sentences describing the scene. In order to understand
a sentence the language user is supposed to have mental access to such
schematized scenes. The other historical root of frame semantics is more difficult
to describe. It relates to the notion of frame-based systems of knowledge
representations in AI. This is a highly structured approach to knowledge
representation which collects together information about particular objects and
events and arranges them into a taxonomic hierarchy familiar from biological
taxonomies. However, the specific formalism suggested in the above mentioned
paper by Minsky was not considered successful in AI .

Some Basic Theoretical Principles

The central theoretical concepts characterizing frame semantics are due to C.

Fillmore and did not change much since his first writings on this approach. In
order to explain the most important notions of frame semantics let us briefly
consider a typical example of a frame, the commercial transaction frame which
demonstrates the origin of frame semantics from Fillmore’s case frames as well. In
this case the concept frame is applied to verbs like buy with the intention to
represent the relationsips between syntax and semantics.

The
verb buy according to the above table requires obligatorily a buyer, goods and
optionally a seller and a price. Verbs with related meanings such as sell are
expected to have the same meaning slots but in a syntactically different order. This
clearly shows the relation to Fillmore’s case frames. Combining these frames
results in the commercial transaction frame about which the following table
provides partial information:

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 Of
course the PLACE-feature just marks the beginning of an open ended list, since
every event in the above table can be further specified – for instance with respect
to time. Moreover the collection of frames forms an ordered structure. For instance
the commercial transaction frame itself is part of the more general transaction
frame prototypically expressed by the ditransitive verb give. This indicates that the
system of dependencies between frames forms an intricate hierarchical structure.

The concept Prototype

The concept Prototype is one of the most important concepts of frame semantics.
Frames should be understood as prototypical descriptions of scenes. A prototype
has the advantage that it does not have to cover all possible aspects of the meaning
of a phrase; in other words a prototype does not have to provide necessary and
sufficient conditions for the correct use of a phrase. Fillmore (1977b) illustrates the
use of prototypes within frame semantics by an analysis of the concept widow. The
word widow is specified with respect to a background scene in which people marry
as adults, they marry one person, their lives are affected by their partner’s death
and perhaps other properties. The advantage of a theory of meaning based on the
prototype concept compared to a theory which insists on stating necessary and
sufficient conditions for the meaning of a phrase is that it does not have to care
about certain boundary conditions; that is it does not have to provide answers for
questions like Would you call a woman a widow who has lost two of her three
husbands but who had one living one left? Fillmore (1977b). In a case like this
whether the noun widow applies or not is unclear since certain properties of the
background frame for this concept are missing.

However, the concept prototype is not unproblematic either. Note that Fillmore
does not use this concept with respect to words but with respect to frames or
scenes. Some words like bird certainly have prototypes but others may not have a
corresponding prototype. What is a prototypical vegetable for instance or a
prototype corresponding to the adjective small? Moreover, applications of

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prototype theory often involve two different measures for category membership. A
penguin, for example, is certainly not a prototypical bird, but nobody hesitates to
judge it as a bird. The other measure of category membership is typically used in
the analysis of vague predicates, for instance colour adjectives. It may sometimes
be hard or even impossible to assign a given object to the category of pink or red
entities.

Another central notion within frame semantics is the concept profiling. Langacker
(1987) uses the example of hypotenuse for explaining this concept. One can easily
draw a mental picture of the concept hypotenuse. The interesting question
concerning this mental picture is this: Can you imagine what a hypotenuse is
without imagining the whole right triangle? The answer is clearly: no. The triangle
and the plane it is included in is a frame, and the term hypotenuse and right
triangle are interpreted with respect to this frame but they profile different parts of
the frame.

The following example taken from Goldberg (1995) illustrates lexical profiling of
participants. Consider the following differences between the closely related verbs
rob and steal.

(3) a. Jesse robbed the rich (of all their money).

b. *Jesse robbed a million dollars (from the rich).

(4) a. Jesse stole money (from the rich).

4 b. *Jesse stole the rich (of money).

These distributional facts can be explained by a semantic difference in profiling. In

the case of rob the victim and the agent (the thief) are profiled, in the case of steal
the agent and the valuables are profiled. Representing profiled participants in
boldface, Goldberg proposes the following argument structure for rob versus steal:

However, Goldberg’s main concern is with constructions for which she uses frame
semantics in order to provide highly structured rich meanings for them.
Construction Grammar: A Closely Related Framework

What are constructions ? Here is A. Goldberg’s definition.

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A construction is defined to be a pairing of form with meaning/use such that some
aspects of the form or some aspect of the meaning/use is not strictly predictable
from the component parts or from other constructions already established to exist
in the language Goldberg (1995).

There is no doubt that constructions exist. Morphemes for instance satisfy

Goldberg’s definition. But do constructions different from morphemes exist? This
is of course what defendants of construction grammar try to show. Here we will
take the existence of constructions other than morphemes simply for granted.
Consider the following examples:

(5) Margaret baked Peter some cookies.

(6) Martin sneezed the napkin off the nightstand.

The peculiarity of example (5) is due to the fact that the verb bake, which normally
has two arguments, is used with three arguments here. Particular as this sentence is
we nevertheless can make sense of it. Margaret baked some cookies with the
intention to give them to Peter. Note that this interpretation helps us to make sense
of the recipient role which is not provided by the verb bake; i.e. we think of this
sentence as an instance of the ditransitive construction of which a more standard
example is:

(7) John gave Mary a present.

The crucial claim of construction grammar is that this is not due to different basic
meanings of the verb bake but due to the integration of this verb plus its meaning
into the ditransitive construction which has a meaning of its own. Therefore
construction grammar distinguishes the semantics of argument structure
constructions from the semantics of the verbs which instantiate them. An
advantage of this approach is that it accounts for novel uses of verbs in specific
constructions. In (6) the intransitive verbs sneeze has to be integrated into the
caused motion construction and therefore is forced to be interpreted as some kind
of action.

Both verbs and constructions are associated with frame semantic meanings.
However, in contrast to the rich frame semantic representations of verbs the basic
construction are associated with a more abstract semantics. These basic
constructions 5 and their frames are supposed to be independent of a particular
language. They are cross cultural structures which are deeply entrenched in human
experience. This is the content of Goldberg’s Scene Encoding Hypothesis. Scene
Encoding Hypothesis: Constructions which correspond to basic sentence types
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encode as their central senses event types that are basic to human experience
Goldberg (1995).

Applications

Frame semantics has a wide range of applications reaching reaching from subfields
of linguistic theorizing such as Morphology to Typolology, Discourse Analysis,
and Language Acquisition. However, the central and most successful application
seems to be (computational) lexicography. In a frame based lexicon the frame
accounts for related senses of a single word and its semantic relations to other
words. A frame based lexicon therefore offers more comprehensive information
than the traditional lexicon. An example is Petruck (1986) which studies the
vocabulary of the body frame in Modern Hebrew. An example of computational
lexicography is the FrameNet-System (see Boas (2002)). Formalization Although
frame semantics does not lend itself easily to formalisation there is an early
approach by Gawron (1983) in which basic insights of frame semantics were
formalised by LISP-like notations in combination with situation semantics. A more
recent approach is van Lambalgen/Hamm (2005) in which scenarios – a concept
closely related to the frame concept – are formalised as certain kinds of logic
programs. An explicit formalisation of the combination of frame semantics and
construction grammar based on this work can be found in Andrade-Lotero (2006).
- Fritz Hamm

Questions

1. What are “the framing words” in a text?

2. Are there non-framing words?
3. What do frame semantics and prototype theory have in common?
4. How do words get their meanings?

LECTURE 14. FRAME SEMANTIC.

Level: B2

Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Aіms:

To introduce the subject of semantics and semantic meaning of the word.

 To raise students’ awareness on linguistics and linguistic studies.

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Objectives: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

 Understand the key principles of the semantic structure of the word.

 Recognize the relationship between language, meaning, and the world from
a cognitive perspective.
 Analyze the semantic structure of the word.
Mode
Part / Objective of
Procedure Time Materials
Activity s intera
ction

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from Power Point Presentation. provide er- min d,OHP.
Part 1
an Stude
1.What is the meaning of a
overview nts.
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2 . What are synonyms? Cognitive
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3. Say why synonyms are one of and
the language’s most important semantic
expressive means. Illustrate your meaning
answer with examples.

4. Synonyms are sometimes

described as words with “dual”
characteristics. What is meant by
this?

Part 2 Explanation of the new topic To Teach 30 PPT

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min
students make notes in their Referentia Stude
lecture copybooks and discussing l Theory nts
main points with teacher and and
other students. explain its
main
ideas in
the
context of
Cognitive
Semantics

101
 .

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another words’ positive anf .
negative synonyms

Part 4 Students find Words With To put SS Group 10

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Activity min
e into
2
practice

Part 5 Teacher presents the thematic To Group 20 Video,OH

video. Students watch the video summariz work min P
Video
and answer to the questions. e the main projector.
watchin
points of
g. Explain meaning in cognitive
the lesson
semantics? Give examples from
and
real life conversation by role
encourage
playing
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real life conversation of
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understan
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Consoli Teacher consolidates the topic To The 10mi Discussio

dation. and asks questions from ss. consolidat whole n n.
e topic. class.

What is Frame Semantics?

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• Structured representation of concept

– Causal, temporal, intentional relationships

– Attributes and values

– Default values

• Also referred to as:

script, scenario, scene, cultural model, cognitive model, idealized

cognitive model, domain, schema, experiential gestalt

• Frame semantics

– Word meanings are defined relative to frames

– Contrasts with truth conditional semantics in which meaning is defined by

necessary and sufficient conditions

 Semantic frame comes from frame semantics ( a theory that relates

linguistic semantics to encyclopedic knowledge developed by Charles
J. Fillmore)

 A semantic frame is defined as a coherent structure of concepts that are

related such that without knowledge of all of them, one does not have
complete knowledge of one of the either.

 Idea is that one cannot understand the meaning of a single word

without access to all the essential knowledge that relates to that word.

Observe the connection presented in this commercial transaction frame:

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frame-evoking elements

• elements that you cannot understand without reference to a frame

- penalty shot >> soccer

- divorce >> marriage

- thumb >> hand

- hypotenuse >> right-angled triangle

• Are there elements that do NOT depend on frames or do NOT evoke

frames?

non-frame-evoking elements

• items with very general grammatical meanings

- that: I know that.

- to: I'd like to see that movie.

• items that resonate with a frame that is already active

- We went to the chicken house to collect the eggs.

- We'll have a BBQ and make a few burgers.

semantic vs. encyclopedic information

• dictionaries:

- the most economic description that allows you to - understand a concept

• encyclopedias:

- a rich array of information, not limited to what is strictly necessary

• Frame semantics assumes that human knowledge of word meaning is

encyclopedic, rather than dictionary-like.

KNUCKLE

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How to define by features?

• Knuckle part of finger

• Finger part of hand

• Hand part of arm

• Finger-hand-arm part of body

• Understanding relationship between knuckle and other body parts is crucial

for understanding the meaning of this concept.

FRIDAY

Essential feature: fifth day of the week?

– Week only has meaning in terms of its constituent

days

– Day only has meaning in terms of earth’s movement around sun

• Defined against background of frames for Day and Week

• Note that Week is a culturally constructed concept

– Nature only has alternation of light and dark.

Word meanings denote parts of frames

• The meaning of Friday is a part of the frame week, which is a part of the
frame Roman Calendar system.

In the Roman Calendar system, the passage of time is divided into seven-day
intervals, the fifth day of these intervals is called Friday.

• The meaning of vacation is a part of the frame work life.

- In work life, people carry out activities for which they are paid. They have
the right to interrupt these activities for some time of the year and often use
this time for travel to another place, commonly with friends and family.

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 LECTURE 14. THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE TO WORLD
COGNITION.

Level: B2

Time: 80 min

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Aіms:

 To introduce the effects of culture in world cognition.

 To raise students’ awareness on linguistics and linguistic studies.

The term "culture" refers to the collection of social behaviors, norms, beliefs,
values, customs, arts, and institutions of a particular group of people. It
encompasses everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and
arts to the ways in which individuals interact with each other and their
environment.

1. Culture is the lifeblood of a vibrant society

Humans are similar but behave differently, and one main reason is the culture in
which they are born and raised.

Culture is the lifeblood of a vibrant society, expressed in the many ways we tell
our stories, celebrate, remember the past, entertain ourselves, and imagine the
future. Our creative expression helps define who we are, and helps us see the world
through the eyes of others.

It can shape our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions. For example, the way we
talk about ourselves and others can affect our self-esteem and our relationships
with others. The way we talk about the world around us can influence our
perceptions of reality.

Culture is a strong part of people's lives. It influences their views, their values,
their humor, their hopes, their loyalties, and their worries and fears. So when you
are working with people and building relationships with them, it helps to have
some perspective and understanding of their cultures.

2. Cultural variations in perception.

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Perception—the process of interpreting sensory information—is significantly
influenced by cultural factors. Different cultures shape how individuals perceive
and interpret the world around them, leading to variations in attention, cognition,
and emotion.

a) Visual perception: Cultural backgrounds influence how we perceive visual

information, particularly regarding depth, distance, and color. For example,
studies show that individuals from cultures with more complex visual
environments are better at judging depth and distance. This suggests that our
visual perception adapts to the specific demands of our environment.

Visual perception of culture refers to how cultural contexts influence the

way we interpret and understand visual stimuli.

1. Cultural Symbols and Icons

2. Aesthetics and Art Styles

3. Context and Environment

4. Cognitive Schemas

5. Media and Representation

6. Cross-Cultural Differences

7. Emotional Responses

8. Cultural Practices

b) auditory perception: Our auditory perception, including our ability to

distinguish between sounds and our sensitivity to different frequencies, also
varies across cultures.

For instance, individuals from cultures with tonal languages, like Mandarin
Chinese, have been shown to be more sensitive to subtle pitch changes in
spoken language.

Different cultures have distinct musical scales, rhythms, and styles that
influence how music is perceived. For example, Western music often relies

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on harmony and melody, while some African and Asian cultures emphasize
rhythm and improvisation.

b) Color perception: Color perception varies significantly across cultures,

with different meanings and associations attributed to specific colors.
Here are some key points regarding color perception in different
cultures:

Example: Some languages have multiple words for colors that English simply
categorizes under one term (e.g., "blue" and "green"). For instance, the
Russian language distinguishes between light blue ("голубой") and dark
blue ("синий").

Studies suggest that speakers of these languages may perceive and

differentiate shades of blue more distinctly than English speakers.

c) Spatial reasoning: Understanding spatial reasoning through the lens of

cultural variation offers insights into cognitive processes and educational
practices. It highlights the importance of considering cultural context when
evaluating spatial abilities and promotes a more inclusive approach to
learning and assessment.

Spatial reasoning is a complex cognitive skill influenced by cultural factors,

including language, environment, education, and societal practices.
Recognizing these variations can enhance our understanding of human
cognition and foster better intercultural interactions.

3.Cultures influence on cognition

Cultures significantly influence cognition in various ways, shaping how

individuals think, perceive, and interpret their experiences.

The influence of culture on world cognition is a multifaceted topic that

encompasses how cultural contexts shape our understanding, perceptions, and
interpretations of the world around us.

Here are some key aspects of how culture impacts cognitive processes:

a) Cognitive Styles

b)Language and Thought

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c) Social Norms and Values

d) Perception and Attention

e) Emotional Expression and Understanding

f) Memory and Learning

LECTURE 16. THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR.

Plan of the lecture:
1. Definition of metaphor
2. The history of Metaphorology
3. Types of conceptual metaphor
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) sustains that non-literal
language is a key element in human understanding and expression.
CMT’s fundamental premise is that metaphor is not an adornment or
a merely entertaining device of human expression and
communication, but reflects how an abstract and conceptual domain
(e.g. love, life, war) is cognitively structured. Conventional
expressions such as “time is money” or “life is a journey”, among
many others, exemplify the correspondence between a source
conceptual domain (e.g. time) and a target conceptual domain (e.g.
money). These mappings reflect how conceptual metaphors are
deeply rooted in linguistic expressions and allow for human
experience to be coherently organized. At the heart of its innovative
proposal, CMT argues that this mental structuring is actively
informed by human physicality, moving the study of language beyond
the traditional boundaries of conventional linguistics. This entry
provides an introduction to conceptual metaphor theory history,
seminal ideas and criticism, contextualizing its intellectual path.
Seminal contributions for CMT come in the 1980s from the study
of metaphor in everyday meaning making by George Lakoff and
Mark Johnson. Previously, metaphor was mostly regarded as
language, not as thought structuring. Cognitive linguistic is thus
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founded upon the systematic identification of metaphors working as
mental schemas, maintaining that those are fundamentally conceptual
relationships. These conceptual metaphors can be classified according
to conventionality and cognitive function. The first allows for the
identification of a socially stabilized correspondence between
domains or for an unusual source-target linking, as is often the case in
poetic language. Since metaphors build an associative imagery
between two different domains, those associations can be more or less
original. As such, CMT paves a research path towards the study of
conceptual metaphors as being culturally grounded, since the mental
forms that constitute verbal and non-verbal conceptual metaphors are
not universally fixed.
On the other hand, metaphors also have a cognitive function at
distinct levels: (1) they concede a more concrete existence to abstract
realities and experiences (e.g. “I don’t’ see the point”, knowing as
seeing), (2) they elaborate a connection structure between the source
and the target domain and (3) they physically and spatially orient our
cognition (e.g. “She is under my control”).
CMT sustains that human physical interaction with the surrounding
environments informs conceptual metaphors. In this sense, though is
anchored in the human ability to perceive position, dimension, motion
and orientation, providing concrete mental forms to often intangible
situations and experiences. In this sense, the theory establishes an
implication of how the mind functions in articulating the source-
target linking of conceptual metaphors. Even though it was only in
the late 1980s that the concept of an embodied mind began to have an
operative effect on empirical research, its philosophical genesis is
already found in the phenomenology of philosophers Edmund
Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Martin Heidegger.
The proposition of an embodied cognition challenges the Cartesian
premise of a disembodied mind, i.e. the rigid separation between
body and mind, reason and emotion. On the opposite direction, CMT

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– and modern embodied cognitive sciences – signals the significant
role of the body and sensorimotor imagery schemas in cognition.
With conceptual metaphors giving meaning to form and be
conceptualized in terms of time and space, CMT translated into the
study of moving metaphors and how these work as schemas in
audiovisual and cinematic communication, i.e. how a set of linked
mental representations of the world translate into images and a space-
time appropriation that is more complex than simple continuity. As a
response to the psychoanalytic-semiotic theoretical paradigm, seminal
CMT research established the theoretical foundations for cognitive
film theory, a driving force in the larger sphere of cognitive media
studies.
The inquiry on how human experience and interpret audiovisual
and narrative structures in cinema and other audiovisual media put the
embodied mind paradigm into operation and can be tracked back to
the earlier concept of enactive cognition advanced by Francisco J.
Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch. Here the seminal idea is
that experiences are constructed through the interaction of mind-
body-world, stating the creative mind as an articulation between
cognition, society and culture, an idea that was further expanded
towards artificial intelligence and robotics.
CMT has faced criticism regarding the lack of detail in its research
methods and explicit criteria and how can analyses be conducted and
replicated in a systematic way. Skepticism also exists about the
explanatory value of the theory, particularly regarding the scientific
criteria towards its falsification: a fundamental objection towards
CMT comes from the admission that a metaphorical expression can
be linked to several conceptual metaphors and not only to a sole
understanding.
Also, the embodiment argument, proposing that conceptual
metaphors have a sensorimotor basis attached to human biology, has

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 been criticized for implying at the same time, on one hand, its
universality and, on the other, a linguistic and cultural variability.
In recent years, CMT premises and arguments were expanded by
the Neural Theory of Thought and Language (NTTL). Anchored in
the neurosciences, NTTL develops the study of the human mind at
work and the brain physical functioning, particularly establishing a
route of inquiry towards the relationships between conceptual
metaphors and neural circuits.
QUESTIONS FOR SEMINAR:
1. What is metaphor?
2. What are five characteristics of metaphor?
3. Who wrote the book of “Metaphors we live by”?
4. What is conceptual metaphor?
5. How many domains are there in the conceptual metaphor?
6. How many types of conceptual metaphor are there?
7. What is structural metaphor?
8. What is ontological metaphor?
9. Can you give examples in ontological metaphor?
10. What is orientational metaphor?
11. Can you give examples in orientational metaphor?

LECTURE 17. Metonymy in Cognitive Semantics.

Lesson Plan

Topic: Metonymy in Cognitive Semantics

Level: Advanced
Duration: 80 minutes

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Lesson Objectives:

1. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

112
2. Understand the concept of metonymy within the framework of Cognitive
Semantics.
3. Identify and analyze examples of metonymy in language use.
4. Apply their understanding to real-world contexts and create their own
examples.
5. Discuss the importance of metonymy in communication and meaning-making.
Part / Mode of
Procedure Objectives Time Materials
Activity interaction

Ask students to identify

what the sentences Activate
mean and discuss what prior (10
Warm-
part of the sentence is knowledge Pair-Share minu
Up
being used to represent and engage tes)
the whole or another students.
concept.

Explain the
Define metonymy: A
concept of
cognitive process where (20
Presenta metonymy
one entity is used to Whole group minu PPT
tion and its role
refer to another closely tes)
in Cognitive
related entity.
Semantics.

· Provide a worksheet
with sentences and a
Enable
list of metonymic
students to
relationships (e.g., Part (15
Activity identify and
for Whole, Place for Individual minu worksheet
1 analyze
Institution). Students tes)
metonymic
match the sentences to
expressions.
the correct type of
metonymy.

Activity · Divide the class into Enable Individual (15 worksheet

2 small groups. Assign students to minu
each group a domain identify and tes)
(e.g., politics, sports, analyze
business). They identify metonymic
and analyze metonymic expressions.
expressions commonly
113
 used in their assigned
domain (e.g., "The
crown" for monarchy in
politics).

· ·

Foster
Students write a short creativity
(10
Producti paragraph or dialogue and
Pair work minu
on using at least five application
tes)
examples of metonymy. of the
concept.

Students answer 3-5 Consolidate

(10
multiple-choice or learning and Work
Wrap-up Individual minu
short-answer questions encourage sheet
tes)
to review key points. reflection.

What is Metonymy?

Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted

for another with which it is closely associated. Unlike metaphor, which
involves a comparison between two different concepts, metonymy relies on a
direct relationship between the two entities. This relationship can be based on
various associations, such as:

• Part for Whole: Using a part of something to refer to the whole (e.g.,
"wheels" to mean "car").

• Whole for Part: Referring to a part by using the name of the whole (e.g.,
"the United States won gold" to mean the U.S. team).

• Cause for Effect: Using a cause to refer to its effect (e.g., "the crown" to
mean royal authority).

• Symbol for Concept: Using a symbol to represent a broader concept (e.g.,

"Hollywood" to refer to the film industry).

▎Metonymy in Cognitive Semantics

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In cognitive semantics, metonymy is viewed as a crucial cognitive process
that shapes how we conceptualize our experiences and communicate about
them. It reflects our mental organization of knowledge and the way we make
connections between different concepts.

▎1. Cognitive Mechanism

Metonymy operates as a cognitive mechanism that allows us to simplify

complex ideas by leveraging familiar associations. When we use metonymy,
we draw on our knowledge of relationships between concepts to convey
meaning efficiently. For example, saying "the White House issued a
statement" uses "the White House" as a metonym for the U.S. government or
administration, relying on our understanding of the association between the
building and its occupants.

▎2. Conceptual Framework

Metonymy helps establish a conceptual framework within which we interpret

language. By invoking specific associations, speakers can guide listeners
toward particular meanings or perspectives. For instance, referring to "the
pen" as a symbol of writing or communication emphasizes the act of writing
itself rather than focusing on the physical object.

▎3. Contextual Relevance

The effectiveness of metonymy often depends on context. The associations

that make metonymic expressions meaningful are shaped by cultural and
situational contexts. For example, in a discussion about sports, saying "he's
got the golden boot" relies on shared knowledge about soccer awards and
recognizes the significance of scoring goals.

▎Examples of Metonymy

To illustrate how metonymy functions in language, here are some common

examples:

▎1. Part for Whole

• "All hands on deck": Here, "hands" refers to sailors or crew members.

115
• "The suits on Wall Street are making decisions": "Suits" refers to business
people or executives.

▎2. Whole for Part

• "The United Nations has decided": This phrase uses "United Nations" to
refer specifically to its member countries or representatives.

• "America is known for its fast food": "America" here represents American
culture or society rather than the entire country.

▎3. Cause for Effect

• "The bottle took his life": In this case, "the bottle" refers to alcohol
consumption leading to death.

• "The sword has slain many": Here, "sword" symbolizes warfare or violence.

▎4. Symbol for Concept

• "The Oval Office was busy today": "The Oval Office" represents the
President and their staff rather than the physical office itself.

• "He’s a man of the cloth": "Cloth" refers to religious leaders or clergy.

▎Implications of Metonymy

Understanding metonymy has several implications for cognitive semantics

and our grasp of language:

▎1. Language and Thought

Metonymy illustrates how language reflects our thought processes. The way
we use metonymic expressions reveals the underlying cognitive structures
that shape our understanding of the world. It shows that our
conceptualizations are often based on relationships and associations rather
than isolated definitions.

▎2. Cultural Context

Metonymy highlights the importance of cultural context in communication.

Different cultures may have distinct metonymic associations based on shared
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experiences and societal norms. Recognizing these differences is essential for
effective cross-cultural communication.

▎3. Creativity in Language Use

Metonymy allows for creative expression in language. Writers and speakers

can play with associations to create vivid imagery or convey complex ideas
succinctly. This creativity enriches language and makes it more engaging.

Glossary: Metonymy in Cognitive Semantics

Metonymy
A cognitive process where one entity is used to refer to another closely related
entity.

Cognitive Semantics
A branch of linguistics that studies how language and thought interact, focusing on
the meaning conveyed through mental processes.

Part for Whole

A type of metonymy where a part of something represents the whole (e.g., "All
hands on deck" – hands represent people).

Whole for Part

A type of metonymy where the whole is used to represent a part (e.g., "The United
States won gold" – representing athletes from the country).

Place for Institution

A type of metonymy where a location represents an organization or institution
(e.g., "Wall Street" – representing the financial industry).

Symbol for Institution

A type of metonymy where a symbol represents an organization or concept (e.g.,
"The crown" – representing monarchy).

Object for User

A type of metonymy where an object stands for the person using it (e.g., "The
piano played beautifully" – representing the pianist).

Container for Content

A type of metonymy where the container represents its contents (e.g., "He drank
the whole bottle" – representing the liquid inside).

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Referential Relationship
The link between two entities where one is used to refer to the other in metonymy.

Figurative Language
A broader category of language that includes metaphor, simile, and metonymy,
often used for non-literal expressions.

Metaphor vs. Metonymy

Metaphor involves a comparison between unrelated entities, while metonymy
involves a relationship between related entities (e.g., "Time is money" vs. "The
White House issued a statement").

Domain
The specific field or area of knowledge where metonymy occurs, such as politics,
sports, or business.

LECTURE 18. NARRATIVE AND COGNITIVE SEMANTICS.

Lesson Plan

Topic: narrative and cognitive semantics

Level: B2
Duration: 80 minutes

Materials: OHP projector, Power Point Presentation, whiteboard.

Lesson Objectives:

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

1.Understand the concept of narration and cognitive semantics
2.Apply their understanding to real-world contexts and create their own
examples.

Part / Mode of
Procedure Objectives Time Materials
Activity interaction

Warm- Ask students to identify Activate Pair-Share (10

Up what the sentences prior minu
mean and discuss what knowledge tes)
part of the sentence is and engage
being used to represent
118
 the whole or another
students.
concept.

Explain the
Define metonymy: A
concept of
cognitive process where (20
Presenta metonymy
one entity is used to Whole group minu PPT
tion and its role
refer to another closely tes)
in Cognitive
related entity.
Semantics.

· Provide a worksheet
with sentences and a
Enable
list of metonymic
students to
relationships (e.g., Part (15
Activity identify and
for Whole, Place for Individual minu worksheet
1 analyze
Institution). Students tes)
metonymic
match the sentences to
expressions.
the correct type of
metonymy.

· Divide the class into

small groups. Assign
each group a domain
(e.g., politics, sports, Enable
business). They identify students to
(15
Activity and analyze metonymic identify and
expressions commonly Individual minu worksheet
2 analyze
used in their assigned tes)
metonymic
domain (e.g., "The expressions.
crown" for monarchy in
politics).

· ·

Foster
Students write a short creativity
(10
Producti paragraph or dialogue and
Pair work minu
on using at least five application
tes)
examples of metonymy. of the
concept.

119
 Students answer 3-5 Consolidate
(10
multiple-choice or learning and Work
Wrap-up Individual minu
short-answer questions encourage sheet
tes)
to review key points. reflection.

Narrative and Cognitive Semantics is an interdisciplinary field that merges

insights from linguistics, cognitive science, and narrative theory to explore how
human beings understand and construct meaning, especially in the context of
stories and narratives. It examines how our mental processes shape the way we
interpret and produce narratives, and how narrative structures, in turn, inform our
cognition and understanding of the world.

Here's a breakdown of some key concepts in both narrative and cognitive

semantics, and how they intersect:

1. Narrative Semantics
Narrative semantics focuses on the meaning-making processes within storytelling.
It deals with how meaning is constructed in and through narrative structures,
including:
Narrative structures: Stories are often organized in specific ways that shape
how we understand events and characters. Common structures include the
introduction of a problem, a rising action, a climax, and a resolution. How
events are ordered (e.g., linear or nonlinear) can also affect meaning.
Narrative time: Time is a central component of narratives, where events are
represented chronologically or out of order. Cognitive semantics often explores
how people mentally structure time and events within a narrative, and how the
perception of time affects the way we interpret a story.
Causality and agency: Narratives often center on characters who are the agents
of action and events that unfold as a result of their choices, intentions, or
external forces. In narrative semantics, the focus is on how the relationships
between actions, actors, and consequences create meaning.
Point of view (POV): The perspective from which a story is told can greatly
affect the interpretation of events. A first-person narrative gives insight into the
narrator’s internal world, while a third-person perspective can provide a broader
view of events and multiple characters.

2. Cognitive Semantics
Cognitive semantics is an approach to meaning that emphasizes how human
cognition shapes language. It posits that meaning is grounded in our perception
of the world, mental representations, and conceptual structures. Key ideas
include:
Embodied cognition: Cognitive semantics often emphasizes that meaning is
rooted in bodily experience. The way we experience the physical world,
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 including our senses, motor actions, and emotions, shapes how we
conceptualize abstract ideas and interpret language.
Conceptual metaphors: One of the core concepts in cognitive semantics is the
idea of conceptual metaphors. These are frameworks in which we understand
one domain of experience in terms of another. For instance, the metaphor
"TIME IS MONEY" (e.g., "spending time," "saving time," "wasting time")
structures how we conceptualize time.
Frames and schemas: A frame refers to a mental structure that shapes how we
interpret a situation or event. For instance, the “war frame” in a narrative
might structure the way we understand interpersonal conflict. Schemas are
generalizations or knowledge structures that help us categorize experiences,
often used to interpret stories and events in a standardized way.
Mental spaces: In cognitive semantics, mental spaces are temporary structures
that we create in our minds to understand various aspects of experience. When
reading a narrative, we often build and navigate mental spaces (e.g., imagining
characters' thoughts or potential outcomes in a story).

3. Intersection of Narrative and Cognitive Semantics

The interaction between narrative theory and cognitive semantics creates a

richer understanding of how stories are both structured and understood. Here
are some ways in which the two fields intersect:

Narrative as a cognitive model: Narratives can be seen as models of how we

structure experience. Cognitive science posits that storytelling is a fundamental
human activity that allows us to make sense of the world. Stories often mirror
cognitive processes such as categorization, inference, and perspective-taking.

Conceptualization of story events: Cognitive semantics explores how we

mentally represent events in stories. For example, characters' actions in
narratives can be analyzed in terms of mental spaces or causal chains, where
one action leads to another, or where characters are faced with dilemmas that
force them to make decisions.

Metaphor in narrative: Metaphor plays a central role in both narrative and

cognitive semantics. In stories, metaphors are often used to evoke complex
emotions and abstract ideas, such as "journey" as a metaphor for life.
Cognitive semantics examines how such metaphors help shape the way we
understand the plot and characters.

Frame theory in storytelling: Narratives often work through frame shifts,

where a new frame is introduced (e.g., from an ordinary setting to a fantastical
one). Cognitive semantics helps explain how these frame shifts influence the
interpretation of the narrative. For instance, a story might begin with a "family

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 dinner" frame but later shift to a "dangerous mission" frame, altering the
narrative's meaning and tone.

Time and space in stories: Cognitive semantics often examines the way in
which people conceptualize time and space, both of which are central to
storytelling. For instance, space-time metaphors like "a turning point" or
"moving forward" are used in narratives to represent change or progression, and
cognitive science explains how such metaphors reflect mental representations.

4. Applications of Narrative and Cognitive Semantics

This combined approach has practical applications in various fields, such as:

Literary analysis: By applying cognitive semantics to narrative structures,

literary scholars can better understand how authors convey complex meanings
through character development, plot structure, and metaphor. Cognitive
approaches reveal how stories prompt readers to create mental representations
and interpret them emotionally.

Psychology: Understanding how individuals construct narratives of their lives

(known as life stories) is a central interest in both cognitive psychology and
narrative therapy. Cognitive semantics can offer insights into how people
mentally organize their experiences into coherent stories and how these mental
frameworks influence their sense of self.

Cultural studies: Narratives are key to shaping cultural identity. Cognitive

semantics helps explain how cultural metaphors and frames shape collective
memories and national narratives. For instance, the framing of historical events
can impact how societies remember them.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP): In AI,

understanding narrative and semantics is crucial for developing systems that
can interpret, generate, or engage with stories in a human-like way. Cognitive
semantics can inform the creation of algorithms that understand narrative
structure, causality, and metaphor.

The study of narrative and cognitive semantics provides valuable insights into
how we interpret, construct, and process stories. It highlights the deep
interconnection between language, thought, and the way human beings understand
the world. By examining the cognitive underpinnings of narrative structures,
researchers can explore how stories influence perception, memory, and even
identity. As a dynamic field, it continues to evolve, integrating findings from
cognitive science, linguistics, and narrative theory to offer a more comprehensive
understanding of human meaning-making.

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Questions:

1. What is the primary focus of narrative semantics, and how does it contribute to our
understanding of storytelling?
2. How does cognitive semantics explain the relationship between language and human
cognition?
3. What role do conceptual metaphors play in cognitive semantics and how do they shape
our understanding of abstract concepts in narratives?
4. Explain the concept of ‘mental spaces’ in cognitive semantics. How are they applied in
understanding narratives?
5. What is the significance of time and space in narratives, and how do cognitive semantics
help us understand these elements?

6. How do narrative structures, such as causality and agency, contribute to the meaning of a
story?
7. What is the role of point of view (POV) in a narrative, and how does it influence the
interpretation of events and characters?
8. How does the concept of ‘frames’ help us understand the way stories are interpreted and
experienced by readers or audiences?
9. In what ways do frame shifts affect the interpretation of a narrative, according to
cognitive semantics?

10. How does cognitive semantics inform our understanding of metaphor in storytelling?
11. What are some examples of conceptual metaphors in narratives, and how do they shape
the meaning of a story?
12. How do narratives serve as cognitive models for how we structure and understand
experience, according to cognitive science?
13. In what way can the intersection of narrative and cognitive semantics enhance literary
analysis?

14. How can the combined approach of narrative and cognitive semantics be applied in
literary studies?
15. What role does cognitive semantics play in understanding life stories or personal
narratives in psychology?
16. How can the study of narrative and cognitive semantics contribute to cultural studies,
particularly in shaping collective memories and national narratives?
17. How do concepts from narrative and cognitive semantics inform the development of AI
and natural language processing systems?

18. What might be the implications of understanding narratives as mental structures or

cognitive models in fields like therapy or education?
19. How can the concept of embodied cognition in cognitive semantics be applied to
understanding the role of physical experience in storytelling?
20. What are the potential challenges or limitations in applying cognitive semantics to the
analysis of narratives across different cultures and languages?

Glossary

1. Narrative Semantics
The study of how meaning is constructed through the structure of narratives (stories),

123
 including the roles of plot, character actions, causality, and point of view in shaping our
understanding of events.
2. Cognitive Semantics
A branch of linguistics that posits that meaning is shaped by human cognitive processes.
It emphasizes that our understanding of language is grounded in our perception of the
world and our bodily experiences.
3. Embodied Cognition
A theory in cognitive science suggesting that cognition (thought and understanding) is
deeply rooted in the body’s interactions with the world. Our physical experiences,
including sensory and motor functions, shape the way we conceptualize abstract ideas.
4. Conceptual Metaphors
The idea that we understand one domain of experience (such as time or emotions) in
terms of another, more concrete domain. For example, the metaphor "TIME IS
MONEY" structures how we think about time as something valuable that can be "spent,"
"saved," or "wasted."
5. Frames
Mental structures or knowledge frameworks that help us interpret situations. For
example, the “family dinner” frame may include expectations about behavior, dialogue,
and roles within the context of a family meal.
6. Schemas
Cognitive structures that help organize and interpret knowledge. Schemas allow us to
categorize experiences and make sense of events in a standardized way, such as
understanding the typical elements of a “hero’s journey” narrative.
7. Mental Spaces
Temporary, dynamic mental structures used to model specific situations, often created
when we are processing language or understanding narratives. These spaces allow us to
think about hypothetical or imagined scenarios (e.g., possible outcomes of a story or
character actions).
8. Narrative Time
The conceptualization of time within a narrative. It refers to how events are ordered and
represented, whether they are presented in a linear sequence or through flashbacks, non-
linear arrangements, or other temporal techniques.
9. Causality
The relationship between events where one event (the cause) leads to another event (the
effect). In narrative semantics, causality is often explored through the choices and actions
of characters, which drive the plot forward.
10. Agency
The ability of characters in a narrative to act with intention, making choices that affect
the progression of events. Agency is central to the development of characters and their
impact on the story's outcome.
11. Point of View (POV)
The perspective from which a narrative is told. This can be first-person (narrator is a
character within the story), third-person (an external narrator), or omniscient (an all-
knowing narrator who knows the thoughts and actions of all characters).
12. Frame Shift
A change in the conceptual frame that alters the way we interpret a narrative. For
instance, a story that starts within a normal, everyday setting might shift to a fantastical
or surreal frame, dramatically changing the interpretation of events.
13. Narrative Structure
The organizational framework of a narrative, typically including elements like
exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. This structure dictates how the plot
unfolds and how meaning is revealed.
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14. Metaphor
A linguistic or cognitive tool where one idea or concept is understood in terms of
another. For instance, metaphors like “the journey of life” structure how we understand
personal development or experiences.
15. Cultural Narratives
Stories or frameworks that a culture uses to interpret history, identity, and collective
memory. These can include national myths, folklore, or shared historical events that
shape the identity of a group or society.
16. Conceptualization
The mental process of forming ideas, concepts, or frameworks. In cognitive semantics,
conceptualization refers to how people mentally map and organize their experiences,
particularly in relation to metaphor, narrative, and language.
17. Life Story
A narrative that individuals construct about their own lives, often in a therapeutic or
psychological context. Life stories help individuals make sense of their experiences and
personal identity over time.
18. Natural Language Processing (NLP)
A field of computer science and artificial intelligence that focuses on the interaction
between computers and human language. NLP applies insights from cognitive semantics
and narrative theory to enable machines to understand, interpret, and generate human
language.
19. Cognitive Models
Mental representations or frameworks that shape how individuals perceive and
understand the world. In narratives, cognitive models help readers or listeners make sense
of characters, events, and emotional content.
20. Temporal Metaphors
Metaphors used to represent time, such as “moving forward in life” or “time flies.”
These metaphors structure how we think about and relate to the passage of time, both in
everyday life and in storytelling.

125