Aspects of linguistic meaning

aspects of meaning

• Informational: linguistic meaning
  • It’s hot
• Emotional: feelings associated with the word
  • Ouch!
• Social: indicates nature of social relationships
  • What’s up?
• Can be combined
  • Informational + emotional
    • Wow, that hurts!
  • Informational + social
    • It sure is hot today, isn’t it?
  • Social + emotional
    • Fuck you!
  • Informational + social + emotional
    • I love you!
• Defective speech acts: lack one or more of the 3 aspects

denotation and connotation

• Denotation
  • Informational, what a word picks out in the world
  • Literal
  • Objective
  • Clear
  • Linguistic meaning
  • Most readily to mind for non-taboo words
• Connotation
  • Other associations a word brings to mind
  • Figurative
  • Subjective
  • Murky
  • Communicative meaning
  • Most readily to mind for taboo words

response cries

• Exclamatory swears = subtype
• Convey emotional aspects of meaning
• Neutral and taboo
• Types
  • Transition display
  • Spill cry
  • Threat startle
  • Revulsion sounds
  • Audible glee