extended to create a new sense for it. For instance, instead of saying “my father died” someone may said “my father passed away”
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.
Thus taboo words including swear words such as “fuck” and “hell” have euphemistic term : “ freak” and “heck”.
Taboo word comprise three kinds, they are: 1.
Taboo of fear For example: name of the dead are taboo in some societies, taboos on the name
of God, Names of dangerous animals, etc. 2.
Taboo of delicacy For examples military –pacify means “be killing”, neutralize means “kill
selected targets”. 3.
Taboo of propriety This typical taboo goes to sexual acts, bodily effluvia, body-parts function and
curse. For instance: shit, sperm, urine, etc.
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B. Semantics
1. Definition of semantics
Semantic is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentence.
18
Lehrer in his book “Semantic Field and Lexical Structure” cited that semantic, the study of
16
Keith Allan. Natural Semantics New York: Blackwell Publisher, 2001. p.134
17
Keith Allan Kate Burridge, Euphemism and Dysphemism language Used as Sheild and Weapon. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. p.140
18
Yule, George. The Study of Language. Thrid Edition. Cambridge University Press. 2006. p.100
meaning is a vast field touching on most of the structure and function of language as well as problem in psychology, philosophy, and anthropology
19
. R. Bauerle cited in his book which titled “Semantic from Different Points of
View” that the word “semantic” refers to a quite peculiar theory of meaning. This theory assumes that language consists of special structured objects, which become
meaningful by their being related to certain other objects to speak “in the world”. Among these other objects we have to imagine such abstract objects as function,
especially truth function. We can conclude that semantics is commonly is considered to be the study of
meaning and related nations in language or the study of linguistics reference and truth conditions in language.
2. Definition of meaning
The word ‘meaning’ is quite ambiguous.
20
It is commonly used to show equivalence between expression within a language, such as mother means ‘female
parents’, or between language, such as mere means mother in French. Besides that, Arrnoff and Janie Ross in ‘The Handbook of Linguistics” cited that
when people talk, they generally talk about things, events, and situations in the world. They are able to do this because they represent connections between the expression of
their language and extra-linguistic phenomena in a fully systematic way. The meaning of a sentence is to a large extend, dependent on the ways in which the words and
19
Lehrer, Adrianne. Semantic Field and lexical Srtucture. Amsterdam: north Holland Publishing. 1974. p.1
20
Lehrer, Adrianne. Semantic Field and lexical Srtucture. Amsterdam: north Holland Publishing. 1974. p.1
phrases from which it is constructed can be related to situation in the world. Speakers of a language can speak effectively with each other, because they have internalized the
same rules for pairing the lexical items, and they used the same procedures for computing the meaning of a syntactically complex phrase from the meanings of its
parts. Ruth M. Kempson cited there are 3 main ways in which linguists and
philosophers have attempted to construct explanation of meaning in natural language: a by defining nature of word meaning b by defining the nature of sentence meaning
c by explaining the process of communication. In the first way, word meaning is taken as the construct in terms of which sentence meaning and communication can be
explained: in the second, it is sentence meaning which is taken a basic, with words characterized in terms of the systematic contribution they make to sentence meaning;
and the third, both sentence and word meaning are explained in terms of the way in which sentences and words are used in the act of communication.
According to Saeed meaning must be something that exits in the mind rather than the word so that it must be more abstract than picture of features.
21
When people say something to another person, they have to make the same what the object which
intended, the object not must be concrete, but the object is abstract. For example when Indonesian people talk about mystic around in Merapi Mountain, all of the meaning of
the mystic will not be understood by the foreign listener because the concept about Mystic is not same, otherwise the Eskimos people know more than 9 name of snow or
ice that each term have different meaning.
21
Howard Jackson. Words and Their Meaning. New York: Longman, 1975. p.12
Even Leech in Semantics supported this statement by dividing meaning into: a. Meaning as reference
It is said that the meaning of linguistics sign is what that sign refer to, what it stand for in the real word.
b. Meaning as mental concept It is considered that the meaning of linguistics sign is the mental concept it
stand for, that the meaning of a word is the idea it conveys or arouses in the mind of the speaker or hearer.
c. Meaning as usage It is the meaning of a word as the ability to use that word in ways other people
will understand, and to understand it when uttered by other people.
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3. Types of Meaning
