CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Theory of Semantics

GIS Business, 2019

This article highlights briefly the issues related to the notions like meaning and semantics and at the same time looks through the branches of semantics providing linguistic scholars views in this field

The aim of the subject of study is to give a brief introduction to semantics and pragmatics. Semantics is the study of meaning. More precisely it is the study of the relation between linguistic expressions and their meanings. Pragmatics is the study of context. More precisely it is the study of the way context can influence our understanding of linguistic utterances. The term semantics simply means the study of meanings. The study explores how meaning in language is produced or created. Semantics not only concentrates on how words express meaning but also on how words, phrases and sentences come together to make meaning in language. To start with, you will be motivated to focus on the nature and scope of semantics. Hence, here in this unit, you will be introduced to the concept and definition semantics, brief history of semantics, semantics and other disciplines, major concern of semantics, and the different approaches to the study of semantics. The symbols employed in language must be patterned in a systematic way. You have been already informed that language is organized at four principal levels – sounds (i.e. Phonetics/phonology), words (i.e. Morphology), sentences (i.e. syntax) and meaning (i.e. semantics). Phonology and syntax are concerned with the expressive power of language while semantics studies the meaning of what has been expressed. Knowledge of grammar is an aspect of the innate cognitive ability of human beings. The power of interpretation complements that innate ability. Interpretation is an aspect of semantics. Therefore, language acquisition or learning includes not only the knowledge of the organization of sounds and structures, but also how to associate meaning to the structures. Semantics can, therefore, be characterized as the scientific study of meaning in language. Semantics has been the subject of discourse for many years for philosophers and other scholars but later was introduced formally in literature in the late 1800’s. Hence, we have philosophical semantics and linguistic semantics among other varieties of semantics. Earlier scholars in philosophical semantics were interested in pointing out the relationship between linguistic expressions and identified phenomena in the external world. In the contemporary world, especially in the United States philosophical semantics has led to the development of semiotics. In some other parts of the world, and especially, France, the term semiology has been favoured. The reliance on logical calculations in issues of meaning has led to the development of logical semantics. However, for your purpose in this course, emphasis is on linguistic semantics, with our interest on the properties of natural languages. You shall see how this study relates to other disciplines. We shall also examine the real issues in linguistic semantics. Semantics has been identified as a component of linguistics. In its widest sense, linguistics is the scientific study of language. As a field of study, semantics is related to other disciplines. In semantics, we study the meaning of words and also how the meanings of words in a sentence are put together to form sentential meaning. Linguistic semantics studies meaning in a systematic and objective way. Since meaning as a concept is not static, a great deal of the idea of meaning still depends on the context and participants in the act of communication (discourse). There is a strong connection between meaning and pragmatics. The exchange or relay of information, message, attitude, feelings or values from one person to another contributes to the interpretation of meaning. This is done mainly by the use of language. It is often expressed that language is a system which uses a set of symbols agreed upon by a group to communicate their ideas or message or information. These symbols can be spoken or written, expressed as gestures or drawings. Depending upon the focus of study, semantics can be compartmentalized as lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, logical semantics and semantics in relation to pragmatics.

Technoarete Transactions on Language and Linguistics

This overall report is revolving around developing an idea about semantics and psycholinguistics. Semantics and psycholinguistics are closely related that explain the way word can be interpreted by different individuals. Secondary data collection method has been chosen as the appropriate data collection method which will be sourced form already published articles and journals. Thematic analysis has been chosen for this study that has helped to duly meet the objectives and reach conclusion about particular topic. Keyword : Language processing, Psycholinguistic, Semantics

Fartas, 2023

This booklet provides an introduction to the field of semantics and aims to give university students a brief summary of the main concepts and theories. Semantics is the study of meaning in language and encompasses a wide range of topics, from word meanings and sentence structures to the interpretation of texts and discourse. The purpose of this book is to help students understand the fundamental ideas of semantics and prepare them for exams and other assessments. The book is structured in a way that allows students to work through the material systematically. The booklet starts with an overview of semantics followed by an important theory in semantics namely compositionality theory , it covers also some related topics of the field including types of meaning, figures of speech and finally lexical relations. While this book is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to semantics, it is designed to give students a solid foundation in the subject and help them develop critical thinking skills. Whether you are new to the field or looking to refresh your knowledge, this book is a valuable resource for anyone studying semantics. However, it is primarily made for students of Ibn Zoh university ,AitMelloul , who could not attend to the sessions of the module, hoping this booklet would put them in the picture and making things clear for them.

Semantics and Pragmatics, 2020

Meaning-making is at the center of all human communicative events. Communication is an exchange of meanings encoded in written or spoken words, non-verbal cues, signs, symbols, and so on. Creating, exchanging, and interpreting meaning is ingrained in human nature since prehistoric times. Language is the most sophisticated medium of communication. It is through language that we set meanings or in other words — refer, define, and signify the things in nature and the ideas in our mind. (Griffiths, 2017) The term ‘meaning of meaning’ was first coined by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in 1923. According to him meaning is related to multiple phenomena. It has various facets and these features are related to the external world (extra-linguistic factors) and the linguistic properties (phonetics, morphology, syntax, and semantics) The concept of meaning is vast and has many moving parts. Questing for the answer — ‘what is the meaning of meaning’ makes us take a multi-disciplinary approach; from linguistics, philosophy, neurology, to semiotics. In this essay, I will reflect on the meaning of ‘meaning’ from a multidisciplinary approach, discuss the challenges of doing meaning, and the role of context in understanding the meaning of words and sentences.

Explanation: This document is an attempt to make an arcane and not very well understood area of inquiry intelligible to someone who knows no logic or linguistics. It was originally written for an encyclopedia that wanted something accessible even to a pre-high-school audience. But it doesn't appear in any encyclopedia, because I wasn't willing to write something to the editors' specifications, and they weren't willing to change their specifications. This episode is yet another example of how bad a job semanticists have done of making even well-informed laymen aware of what the issues are in the field. Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions. The language can be a natural language, such as English or Navajo, or an artificial language, like a computer programming language. Meaning in natural languages is mainly studied by linguists. In fact, semantics is one of the main branches of contemporary linguistics. Theoretical computer scientists and logicians think about artificial languages. In some areas of computer science, these divisions are crossed. In machine translation, for instance, computer scientists may want to relate natural language texts to abstract representations of their meanings; to do this, they have to design artificial languages for representing meanings. There are strong connections to philosophy. Earlier in this century, much work in semantics was done by philosophers, and some important work is still done by philosophers. Anyone who speaks a language has a truly amazing capacity to reason about the meanings of texts. Take, for instance, the sentence (S) I can't untie that knot with one hand. Even though you have probably never seen this sentence, you can easily see things like the following:

This practical coursebook introduces all the basics of semantics in a simple, step-bystep fashion. Each unit includes short sections of explanation with examples, followed by stimulating practice exercises to complete the book. Feedback and comment sections follow each exercise to enable students to monitor their progress. No previous background in semantics is assumed, as students begin by discovering the value and fascination of the subject and then move through all key topics in the field, including sense and reference, simple logic, word meaning, and interpersonal meaning. New study guides and exercises have been added to the end of each unit (with online answer key) to help reinforce and test learning. A completely new unit on non-literal language and metaphor, plus updates throughout the text, significantly expand the scope of the original edition to bring it up-to-date with the modern teaching of semantics for introductory courses in linguistics as well as intermediate students.

This practical coursebook introduces all the basics of semantics in a simple, step-bystep fashion. Each unit includes short sections of explanation with examples, followed by stimulating practice exercises to complete the book. Feedback and comment sections follow each exercise to enable students to monitor their progress. No previous background in semantics is assumed, as students begin by discovering the value and fascination of the subject and then move through all key topics in the field, including sense and reference, simple logic, word meaning, and interpersonal meaning. New study guides and exercises have been added to the end of each unit (with online answer key) to help reinforce and test learning. A completely new unit on non-literal language and metaphor, plus updates throughout the text, significantly expand the scope of the original edition to bring it up-to-date with the modern teaching of semantics for introductory courses in linguistics as well as intermediate students.

This practical coursebook introduces all the basics of semantics in a simple, step-bystep fashion. Each unit includes short sections of explanation with examples, followed by stimulating practice exercises to complete the book. Feedback and comment sections follow each exercise to enable students to monitor their progress. No previous background in semantics is assumed, as students begin by discovering the value and fascination of the subject and then move through all key topics in the field, including sense and reference, simple logic, word meaning, and interpersonal meaning. New study guides and exercises have been added to the end of each unit (with online answer key) to help reinforce and test learning. A completely new unit on non-literal language and metaphor, plus updates throughout the text, significantly expand the scope of the original edition to bring it up-to-date with the modern teaching of semantics for introductory courses in linguistics as well as intermediate students.

"In its totalizing ambition, there are many reasons to think that the project of reductively characterizing semantic structure may be undesirable in itself. As Stanley Rosen notes, “every hermeneutical program is at the same time itself a political manifesto or the corollary of a political manifesto” (2003: 141). This applies a fortiori to the programme of linguistic semantics, the goal of which is not, as in (applied) hermeneutics, to interpret texts, but to give an account of the very constituents of meaning that any textual interpretation presupposes. Since semantic analyses of language – or, to give them an older name, attempts to identify the “language of thought” – are closely related to claims about the conceptual abilities of speakers and the cultural resources of communities, we semanticists surely should be – and often are – cautious in arguing for the theoretical uniqueness for our current models of meaning. Claiming that, from the point of view of the linguistic system, such and such an expression has such and such core or central semantic properties risks reductively diminishing our picture of the complexity of languages, and hence of the linguistic practices and conceptual and cultural richness of their speakers."