NZSL311 Key Terms Wk 6

Semantics

The study of meaning in language.

Sense

A commonly understood meaning of a word or sign

Referent/reference

Words or signs are symbols that stand for / refer to actual people, places, things, events and states of affairs in the world around us. These actual things that can be pointed to in the world are a word/sign’s referents.

Extension

All the referents that a word or sign can be applied to – e.g. the extension of ‘tree’ includes pine trees, oaks, bonsai trees… ALSO used to talk about words or signs acquiring new meanings by extending to more referents (e.g. FIREWORKS > NOVEMBER).

Intension

The meaning of a word or sign in terms of what it evokes in our mind, or how we would describe it in a definition. E.g. the intension of ‘tree’ is a plant with a trunk, roots and branches.

Denotation

The ‘literal’ meaning of a word or sign. Also called ‘referential’ or ‘propositional’ meaning because it conveys factual information about referents in the real world

Connotation

Emotional and social meanings associated with a word or sign.

Lexical field

A group of words / signs that relates to a specific area of knowledge, activity, or topic

Polysemy

One word / sign form expresses multiple related meanings.

Homonym

Two words or signs with the same form but unrelated meanings.

Synonym

Two words or signs with different forms but the same or very similar (denotational) meaning

Antonym

Two words or signs with the opposite meaning.

Hypernym

A superordinate (top) category term (e.g. ‘furniture’ is a hypernym for terms like ‘chair’, ‘table’, ‘couch’).

Hyponym

A member of a related set or class of words (e.g. ‘husky’ and ‘poodle’ are hyponyms of ‘dog’).

Metonym

A part-to-whole relationship where a part of a referent is used to denote the entire referent (e.g. ‘nice to see a familiar face’).

Iconicity

When a (linguistic) symbol resembles its referent. Iconic symbols are said to have a motivated form-meaning relationship

Metaphor

In metaphor, a word / sign is used to describe a different referent. By describing something as if it were something else, metaphors suggest that there is a similarity between referents, and the word/or sign is extended to include this new referent