3. What is semantics?
“In general, the study of the relationship between
words and meanings....The field of semantics has
three basic concerns: the relations of words to the
objects denoted by them, the relations of words to
the interpreters of them, and, in symbolic logic,
the formal relations of signs to one another
(syntax)." (The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
Columbia University Press: New York. 2009)

4. What is pragmatics?
Pragmatics is concerned with
the study of
meaning as communicated by a speaker and
interpreted by a listener. It has more to do with
what people mean than what the words or
phrases say. (Yule, 1996)

5. What do these words mean?
Itchy
feet

6. What does this sentence mean?
“He has itchy feet”
Semantics
Pragmatics

7. Semantics Vs. Pragmatics
While semantics is the study of meaning in a
language, pragmatics is the study of language from
the point of view of language users. Semantic
meaning focuses on the meaning of words, phrases,
clauses, and speech acts and pragmatic meaning
on how speakers and addressees perceive language
use. Semantics is concerned with meaning regardless
of context while pragmatics is concerned with
communication within a specific context.
Distinguishing Pragmatics from Semantics: http://www.criticism.com/linguistics/semantics-vspragmatics.php

8. Semantic or pragmatic meaning?
 Joe
hasn’t met my parents
 She
hasn’t taken a shower.
 He
was so tired he could sleep for days.

9. http://bitstrips.com/r/CM8

10. “Colourless green ideas
sleep furiously”
This sentence was presented by Chompsky as an
example of a series of words strung together
randomly. Explain it based on your understanding
about syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

11. Meaning
What do you do when you don’t know the
meaning of a word?
How do you help your students when they
don’t know the meaning of a word?

12. The Conversation between
Humpty Dumpty and Alice
(Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Caroll)

13. 1
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
2
'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!‘

14. "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't
—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for
you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice
objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful
tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor
less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words
mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master
that's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute
Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them
—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do
anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole
lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

15. What is meaning?
How do we attribute meaning to
words or sentences?

16. The meaning of “meaning”
 Michelle
means trouble
 The principal means what he says about
discipline
 Romeo and Juliet were meant for each other
 This weather will mean long traffic jams
 Money means nothing for me
 Those dark clouds mean rain
 She didn’t mean to hurt you
 What is the meaning of life?

17. The meaning of “meaning”
 Point,
purpose
 To foretell, indicates
 Denote, connote, signify, represent
 To produce, cause
 Intend
 To have the importance of
 To say or to do in all seriousness
 To destine or design for a certain person
or purpose.

18. How do we attribute meaning to
words?
 Dictionary
definitions
 Mental images
 Meaning and reference
 Meaning and true
 Meaning and language use

19. Conclusions
Although there is a lot to be
said about meaning, a few
things should be clear:

20. 1.
Meaning (like any other aspect
of language) is provided by a
community of native speakers,
not by some special authority
like a dictionary or grammar
book.

21. 2.
The meaning of an expression is
not just a definition composed
of more words in the same
language, since the meaning
system of any language would
form a vicious circle.

22. 3.
The meaning of an expression is not just
a mental image, since mental images
seem to vary from person to person
more than meaning does, since
mental images tend to be only of
typical or ideal examples of the things
they symbolize, and since not all words
have corresponding mental images.

23. 4.
The meaning of a word involves more
than just the actual thing the word
refers to, since not all expressions
have real-world referents, and
substituting expressions with identical
referents for each other in a
sentence can change the meaning
of the sentence as a whole.

24. 5.
Knowing the meaning of a
sentence involves knowing the
conditions under which it would
be true, so explaining the
meaning of a sentence can be
done in part by explaining its
truth conditions.

25. 6.
Knowing the meaning of an
utterance also involves knowing
how to use it, so conditions on
language use also form an
important aspect of meaning.

26. Meaning is a complex
phenomenon involving
relationships between a
language and the minds of its
speakers, between a language
and the world, and between a
language and the practical
uses to which it is put.

27. Homework
 File
72: What types of meaning relationships are
presented in the text? Explain them in your own
words and give an example for each(not an
example from the reading).
 File
73: Based on the theory of semantic
composition, explain the meaning in the following
sentences:
- He was eating a hamburger.
- He was eating a chair.
- He was painting a chair.