The notion of meaning in stylistics as oppose to the notion of meaning in lexicology

Conclusion


As a result of the work, the following conclusion is to be drawn. The most essential feature of a word is that it expresses the concept of a thing, process, phenomenon, naming (denoting) them. Concept is a logical category, its linguistic counterpart is meaning. First of all, meaning is the unity of generalization, communication and thinking. Stylistics is a domain where meaning assumes paramount importance, as the term "meaning" is applied not only to words, word-combinations, sentences but also to the manner of expression into which the meaning is cast. Secongly, grammatical meaning refers our mind to relations between words or to some forms of words or constructions bearing upon their structural functions in the language-as-a-system. Grammatical meaning can thus be adequate ...

Contents


Contents 1
Introduction 2
1 The Notion of Meaning in Stylistics 3
2 The Notion of Meaning in Lexicology 5
3 The Notion of Meaning in Stylistics as Complementing to the Notion of Meaning in Lexicology 7
Conclusion 9

Introduction


Every type of speech uses its own lingual sub-systems every of which consists of linguistic units common to all the sub-systems and specific linguistic units, to be found only in the given dub-system. Consequently, specific spheres differentiating the sub-systems and types of speech may be called their styles, or, style may be defined as the specific sphere of the given sub-system. As style is a complex of lexical, grammatical and other peculiarities by which a certain type of speech is characterized, we can also speak about connotation of a linguistic unit. What is more, in the nowadays scientific discourse two branches of linguistics seem to be especially well-established, namely stylistics and lexicology.
Considering their interrelations, the goal of the term paper is to analyse the notion of meaning in stylistics as complementing to the notion of meaning in lexicology. To attain the goal, we set the following objectives:
1) to discuss the notion of meaning in stylistics,
2) to examine the notion of meaning in lexicology
3) to look into the notion of meaning in stylistics as complementing to the notion of meaning in lexicology
Theretofore, the object is considered as stylistics and the subject is the notion of meaning in stylistics as complementing to the notion of meaning in lexicology.

The number, importance and the overlapping character of connotative meanings incorporated into the semantic structure of a word, are brought forth by the context that is a concrete speech act that identifies and actualizes each one. In the semantic actualization of a word the context plays a dual role: on one hand, it cuts off all meanings irrelevant for the given communicative situation. On the other, it foregrounds one of the meaningful options of a word, focusing the communicators' attention on one of the denotative or connotative components of its semantic structure.
2 The Notion of Meaning in Lexicology
English lexicology is not only a purely theoretical discipline aimed to upgrade students’ knowledge of its past, its present and its perspectives for the future, but is also an in-depth practical course with multiple objectives, namely:
• to inspire students’ curiosity about the past of words;
• to help them differentiate between subtle shades of meaning;
• to facilitate the recognition of different word-building patterns;
• to further the recognition of novel formations, actively used in the modern media-discourse;
• to broaden their repertoire of synonymic ways of referring to reality;
• to make students’ English more authentic and idiomatic;
• to ultimately make students’ interaction with foreigners smoother and more gratifying, so that it should become a mutually beneficial experience.
The problem of word-building is associated with prevailing morphological word-structures and with processes of making new words. Semantics is the study of meaning. Modern approaches to this problem are characterised by two different levels of study: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.
On the syntagmatic level, the semantic structure of the word is analysed in its linear relationships with neighbouring words in connected speech. In other words, the semantic characteristics of the word are observed, described and studied on the basis of its typical contexts.
On the paradigmatic level, the word is studied in its relationships with other words in the vocabulary system. Consequently, the main problems of paradigmatic studies are synonymy, antonymy, functional styles. What is also important to state is, Phraseology is the branch of lexicology specialising in word-groups which are characterised by stability of structure and transferred meaning.
The systems of meanings of polysemantic words develop progressively. The older a word is, the better developed is its semantic structure. The standard pattern of a word's semantic development is from monosemy to a simple semantic structure surrounding only two or three meanings, with an additional movement to an increasingly more complex semantic structure. There are two aspects to this problem, which can be commonly described in the following way:
1. Why should new meanings emerge at all? What circumstances cause and motivate their development?
2. How does it occur? What is the nature of the very process of development of new meanings?
Diverse kinds of changes in a nation's community life, in its traditions, information, knowledge, arts lead to gaps appearing in the vocabulary which supplicate to be filled. Newly shaped objects, original concepts and phenomena have to be named. We already know of two ways for providing new names for newly created concepts: making new words (word-building) and borrowing foreign ones. One more way of filling such vocabulary gaps is by applying some older word to a new object or notion.
The second problem we must respond in this chapter is how new meanings build up. To uncover the answer to this question we must examine the internal apparatus of this process, or at least its indispensable features. Let us examine the examples from within, so to speak.
The process of development of a new meaning is traditionally termed transference. Some scholars erroneously use the term "transference of meaning" which is a serious inaccuracy. It is extremely significant to note that in whichever case of semantic change it is not the meaning but the word that is being transferred from one referent onto another (for example, from a horse-drawn vehicle onto a railway car). The result of such transference is the manifestation of a new meaning.
Two types of transference are distinguishable depending on the two types of logical relations underlying the semantic procedure. It is also significant to point out that there subsist broadening (generalisation) of meaning and narrowing (specialisation) of meaning. Occasionally, the process of transference may result in a substantial change in range of meaning. For example, the verb to arrive (French borrowing) began its existence in English in the narrow meaning "to come to shore, to land". In Modern English it has deeply widened its combinability and developed the general meaning "to come" (for example, to arrive in a village, theatre, city, town, country, hostel, at a hotel, college, place). The meaning developed through transference based on contiguity (the concept of coming somewhere is the same), but the range of the second meaning is much broader.
It is fascinating to outline the history of the word girl as an instance of the changes in the range of meaning in the course of the semantic development of a word. In Middle English it had the meaning of "a small child of either sex". Then the word underwent the route of transference based on contiguity and developed the meaning of "a small child of the female sex", thus that the range of meaning was rather narrowed. In its further semantic development the word progressively broadened its range of meaning. At first it came to denote not only a female child but, in addition, a young single woman, afterwards, any young woman, and in modern informal English it is almost synonymous to the noun woman (for example, The old girl must be at least seventy), thus that its range of meaning is quite broad.