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2.1.3.2 Connotative Meaning
Connotative is the opposite of denotative of conceptual. Leech
1974:14 says “Connotative meaning is the communicative value an
expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.” It can vary from age to age, from society to society,
and from individual to individual. Connotative meaning of the term builds on the basic conceptual attributes to include the various additional non-
criterion properties that we have come to learn to expert a referent poses. We may notice that connotative meaning is not specific to language,
but is shared by other communicative systems, such as visual art and music. The overlap between linguistic and visual connotations is particularly
noticeable in advertising, where words are often the lesser partners of illustrations in the task of conferring on a product of halo of favourable
associations. A second fact which indicates that connotative meaning is peripheral compared with conceptual meaning is that connotations are
relatively unstable, that is, they vary according to culture, historical period, and the experience of the individual. Thirdly, connotative meaning is
indeterminate and open-end in a sense in which conceptual meaning is not. The meaning of a word or sentence can be codified in terms of a limited set
of symbols and that semantic representation of a sentence can be specified by means of a finite number of rules. The conceptual content is modeled on
the assumptions that linguists generally make when analyzing other aspects of linguistic structure. Without assumptions, one can scarcely attempt to
describe language as a coherent system at all. Example:father---strength, strong will, tolerance
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Strength, strong will, tolerance are the characteristics of father generally. It is more closely describes rigid definitions of “father’
2.1.3.3 Stylistic Meaning Leech 1974:16saysStylistic meaning is the meaning which an
expression conveys about the contexts or social circumstances of its use. It is the formality of the expression. We ‘decode’ the stylistic meaning of a
text through our recognition of different dimensions and levels of usage within the same language.
There is much convenience in restricting the term ‘synonymy’ to equivalence of conceptual meaning, so that we may then contrast
conceptual synonyms with respect to their varying stylistic overtones, such as poetic, general, slang, baby language, literary, biblical, very formal or
official, etc. The style dimension of ‘status’ is particularly important in distinguishing synonymous expressions.
Crystal 2008:460 says “Stylistics n. A branch of linguistics
which studies the features of situational distinctive uses varieties of language, and tries to establish principles capableof accounting for the
particular choices made by individual and socialgroups in their use of language”.
Example: Mother formal, mom colloquial, mama child’s language
2.1.3.4 Affective Meaning
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