Theories of Meaning Theoretical Descriptions

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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents review of the related literature. First, it will discuss the theoretical descriptions, i.e. some descriptions of theories related to this study. After that, it will present the theoretical framework, i.e. the theories discussed in the descriptions used by the writer in this study.

2.1 Theoretical Descriptions

In the theoretical descriptions, the writer would like to review some theories related to his study, i.e. theories of meaning, word meaning, types of meaning, semantic domain, semantic features, contrastive meaning, and contextual meaning.

2.1.1. Theories of Meaning

Meaning is a central and fundamental concept to the whole study of language. However, as Ullmann 1964: 54 points out, it is also “one of the most ambiguous and most controversial terms in the theory of language.” Kempson 1977: 11 agrees with this statement when asserting that the problem of what we mean when we refer to the meaning of a word or a sentence “is the classical problem of semantics, the problem indeed on which semantics has traditionally foundered. ” She also mentions three main ways in which linguists and philosophers have attempted to construct explanations of meaning in natural language 1977: 11, i.e. by defining the nature of word meaning, defining the nature of sentence meaning, and explaining the process of communication. For over decades, linguists have spent a large amount of time finding out the „meanings of meaning‟ as a preliminary to the study of their subject. Ogden and 13 Richards 1923 has found twenty-two definitions of meaning. Some of the definitions of meaning are: an intrinsic property; the other words annexed to a word in the dictionary; the connotation of a word; an essence; that to which is actually related to a sign by a chosen relation; that to which the user of a symbol actually refers, etc. They show how confusion and misunderstanding arise because of lack of agreement on such a basic term 1946: 186-187. Bloomfield 1933 has had a slightly different emphasis on meaning. It was not the scientific study of mental phenomena, i.e. thought and symbolization, but the scientific definition of everything to which language may refer. 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. We can define the names of minerals, for example, in terms of chemistry and mineralogy, as when we say that the ordinary meaning of the English word salt is ‘sodium chloride’ NaCl, and we can define the names of plants or animals by means of the technical terms of botany or zoology, but we have no precise way of defining words like love or hate, which concern situations that have not been accurately classified – and these latter are in the great majority. Language, p. 139 Finally, Bloomfield has come to a conclusion that the definition of meaning progresses by a continuing process of revision and clarification, leading to greater clarity and depth of understanding.

2.1.2. Word Meaning