Semantics: a coursebook, second edition
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I’ll be back later and I will return after some time (2) Is the answer to the previous question obvious to a normal speaker of English? Yes / No (3) In the light of your reply to (2), if I ask ‘What did John mean when he said he’d be back later?’, would you be giving the helpful kind of answer that I probably want if you said ‘He meant that he would return after some time’? Yes / No (4) In asking ‘What did John mean when he said he’d be back later?’ is the questioner primarily asking (a) what the SENTENCE I’ll be back later means, or (b) what JOHN meant in saying it? (a) / (b) (5) A dictionary can be thought of as a list of the meanings of words, of what words mean. Could one make a list of what speakers (e.g. John, you, or I) mean? Yes / No (6) Do you understand this question? Yes / No Feedback (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) No, this would be a statement of the obvious, and therefore unhelpful. (4) asking what JOHN meant in saying it, most usually. (5) No, speakers may mean di fferent things on different occasions, even when using the same words. (6) Assuming you are a competent English speaker, yes, you do understand the literal meaning of the interrogative sentence in question (6); but at the same time you may not clearly understand what we, the authors, mean in asking you this question. We mean to point out that understanding, like meaning, can be taken in (at least) two di fferent ways. Comment The word mean, then, can be applied to people who use language, i.e. to speakers (and authors), in roughly the sense of ‘intend’. And it can be applied to words and sentences in a di fferent sense, roughly expressed as ‘be equivalent to’. The first step in working out a theory of what meaning is, is to recognize this distinction clearly and always to keep in mind whether we are talking about what speakers mean or what words (or sentences) mean. The following two de finitions encapsulate this essential distinction. Definition SPEAKER MEANING is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he uses a piece of language. SENTENCE MEANING (or WORD MEANING) is what a sentence (or word) means, i.e. what it counts as the equivalent of in the language concerned. Comment The distinction is useful in analysing the various kinds of communication between people made possible by language. Practice Read the following conversation between two people, A and B, at a bus stop one morning. (The lines are numbered for reference.) Then answer the questions (1)–(8). 1 A: ‘Nice day’ 2 B: ‘Yes, a bit warmer than yesterday, isn’t it?’ 3 A: ‘That’s right – one day fine, the next cooler’ 4 B: ‘I expect it might get cooler again tomorrow’ 5 A: ‘Maybe – you never know what to expect, do you?’ 6 B: ‘No. Have you been away on holiday?’ 7 A: ‘Yes, we went to Spain’ 8 B: ‘Did you? We’re going to France next month’ U N I T 1 About semantics 3 PA RT O N E Basic ideas in semantics 4 9 A: ‘Oh. Are you? That’ll be nice for the family. Do they speak French?’ 10 B: ‘Sheila’s quite good at it, and we’re hoping Martin will improve’ 11 A: ‘I expect he will. I do hope you have a good time’ 12 B: ‘Thank you. By the way, has the 42 bus gone by yet? It seems to be late’ 13 A: ‘No. I’ve been here since eight o’clock and I haven’t seen it’ 14 B: ‘Good. I don’t want to be late for work. What time is it now?’ 15 A: ‘Twenty- five past eight’ (1) Does speaker A tell speaker B anything he doesn’t already know in lines 1, 3, and 5? tải về 1.74 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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