Understanding Semantics

Semantics is a fascinating subject, because it is "cognition turning in upon itself". This subject has also often seemed baffling with many different approaches to it. Semantics is also an appealing subject because it is about how people make sense of each other linguistically, but it can be a frustrating area of study because it requires us to make sense of people and what they have in mind.
Semantics is also a wide subject within the general study of language. An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language acquisition and of language change. In this sense we can quote Holliday (1994: xvii) who states:
"A language...is a system for making meanings: a semantic system, with other systems for encoding the meanings it produces. The term 'semantics' does not simply refer to the meaning of words; it is the entire system of meanings of a language, expressed by grammar as well as vocabulary".
The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified, negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased.
The idea of this book on semantics initially grew out for the above considerations. Moreover, it will shed new light on a subject whose problems and obscurities have seemed inexhaustible. Therefore, it became necessary, or, in other words, crucially imperative, to produce, publish and provide students and scholars with this treatise which may give an academic insight and practical approach.

Autorentext
Ali Albashir Mohammed Al-Haj was born in Sudan/ Berber in June 1966. He graduated from Yemen University (1995) (Sanaa), and University of Khartoum (2000) and obtained a Bachelor of Arts (English), Postgraduate diploma (English), and M.A. in English from University of Khartoum (2000) in English literature and a PhD in English literature (2003), PhD in translation, Omdurman Islamic University 2014. Nowadays, Ali is working as associate professor at Jazan University/ Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The author has published 20 books and 15 Articles in national and international journals. He is a member of the Editing Board of Marco Institute Journals, International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online), scholarlink journals and he is also a supervisor of four PhD theses in English language.

Klappentext

Semantics is a fascinating subject, because it is cognition turning in upon itself". This subject has also often seemed baffling with many different approaches to it. Semantics is also an appealing subject because it is about how people make sense of each other linguistically, but it can be a frustrating area of study because it requires us to make sense of people and what they have in mind. Semantics is also a wide subject within the general study of language. An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language acquisition and of language change. In this sense we can quote Holliday (1994: xvii) who states: A language is a system for making meanings: a semantic system, with other systems for encoding the meanings it produces. The term 'semantics' does not simply refer to the meaning of words; it is the entire system of meanings of a language, expressed by grammar as well as vocabulary . The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified, negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased. The idea of this book on semantics initially grew out for the above considerations. Moreover, it will shed new light on a subject whose problems and obscurities have seemed inexhaustible. Therefore, it became necessary, or, in other words, crucially imperative, to produce, publish and provide students and scholars with this treatise which may give an academic insight and practical approach.

Leseprobe
Text sample:
Chapter Two:
Semantics and Pragmatics:
"The meaning doesn't matter. If it's only idle chatter,of a transcendental kind." - W.S. Gilbert.
2.1 Defining Pragmatics:
Pragmatics can be defined as:
(1) the study of the relation between the structure of a semiotic system (notably language) and its usage in context, and, along with semantics, (see semantics chapter one), forms part of the general theory of meaning.
Within the theory of meaning, pragmatics is especially concerned with implicit meaning, with influence and the unsaid, and the way in which language structure trades on this background of the presumed and the inferred.
(2) G. Yule (2002:3) defines pragmatics as:
... the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader). It has, consequently more to do with the analysis of what people mean by their utterances than what the words, or phrases in those utterances might mean by themselves. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.
(3) Charles Morris (1983: 1) defines pragmatics as:
...the scientific study of the properties of signaling systems, whether natural or artificial...
(4) Leech and Thomas (1985: 173) define pragmatics as:
... the study of the meaning of linguistic utterances for their uses and interpreters...
(5) Levinson (198: 24) defines pragmatics as:
... the study of ability of languages users to pair sentences in the contexts in which they would be appropriate...
(6) F. Parker (2001: 9) defines pragmatics as:
... the study of how language is used to communicate within its situational context...
(7) Longman's Dictionary of Language teaching and Applied Linguistics (1992) defines pragmatics as:
...the study of the use of language in communication, particularly the relationships between sentences and the contexts and situation in which they are used.
Pragmatics is the study of the problems and principles of the use of languages in social interaction. In this sense we can quote G. Yule (2002: 5) who writes:
When I first lived in Saudi Arabia, I tended to answer questions in Arabic about my health (the equivalent of 'How are you?') with the equivalent of my familiar routine responses of "Okay" or "Fine". However, I eventually noticed that when I asked a similar question, people generally answered with a phrase that had the literal meaning of "Praise to God". I soon learned to use the new expression, wanting to be pragmatically appropriate in that context. My first type of answer wasn't 'wrong' (my vocabulary and pronunciation weren't inaccurate), but it did convey the meaning that I was a social outsider who answered in an unexpected way. In other words, more was being communicated than was being said. Initially I did not know that: I had learned some linguistic forms in the language without learning the pragmatics of how those forms are used in a regular pattern by social insiders.
In general, pragmatics is the branch of linguistics which studies those aspects of meaning which cannot be captured by semantic theory. In brief, it deals with how speakers use language in ways which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone.
In narrow sense, pragmatics deals with how listeners arrive at the intended meaning of speakers. In its broadest sense, it deals with the general principles followed by human beings when they communicate with one another. It is therefore sometimes light-heartedly referred to as "the wastepaper-basket of semantics". (Atchison, 2002:97).
Pragmatics can be illustrated by jokes or irony which rely on the contrast between expected and subsequently revealed meaning. Consider this example from a 1999 episode of Barry Levinson's TV police drama, Homicide: Life on the Street .
(The TV audience is assumed to know police procedure for arresting suspects). An arresting officer says to a suspect (whose hands were raised, so he is not resisting arrest): You ha…