1. MEANING AS USE: A FUNCTIONAL
VIEW OF SEMANTICS AND
PRAGMATICS
By Gabriela Quezada Cabezas

2. Linguistic meaning
An illustrative discussion on
It provides insight into the
the types of meaning will
broader view of semantics
help concretize the notion of
which incorporate
linguistic meaning for
pragmatics
language students in general.
The notion of linguistic meaning is diverse and hence its definition
rather problematic.

3. Meaning as Use
 It refers to speaker meaning and particularly the intention of the
speaker or the desired communicative effect of the utterance.
 Meaning is considered a pragmatic phenomenon with a diversity
of uses which are governed by tacit rules.
 Analysis in meaning as use is not directly concerned with the
word or the sentence per se. Rather, it relies on the utterance
whereby an utterance is defined in terms of the speech act.

4. Speech act
Locutionary act Illocutionary force Perlocutionary event
It envolves the choice The utterance has a It purposes some
and articulation of message and hence a reaction or
linguistic forms. purpose. consequence.

5. Functional Grammar
 It is the orientation to the study of linguistics, in which each
element of language is explained by reference to its function in
the total linguistic system.
 It views language s an elaborate system of meanings with other
grammatical categories functioning as realizations of semantic
constituents.
 According to it each language is organized around 2 main
components of meaning.

6. Main components of meaning
Ideatonal metafunction Interpersonal metafunction
Through it we acquire knowledge Through it we use language to
and understanding of the world establish, regulate and maintain
around us. relationships with other people
Functional Grammar attemps to account for the structures of discourse in
the various contextual and communicative settings.

7. Types of Meaning
Two broad types are delineated
Conceptual Associative
• Connotative meaning
 It refers to the logical sense of the • Social meaning
utterance and is recognizable as a • Affective meaning
basic component of grammatical • Collocative meaning
competence,
 At the lexical level it is represented
as a set of distinctive features.
 The conceptual structure of a
clause or simple sentence would
 It describes a composite of six modes of
be represented as a set of meaning
language usage, which draw on certain
postulates.
mental connections.

8. Types of Associative Meaning
• It describes the communicative
value an expression contains by
virtue of what it refers to, over and
avobe its purely conceptual
content. Connotative
• It is generally unstable. It varies
considerably according to such meaning
factors as culture, historical period,
social class and the general reall-
life experience of a speaker or
group of speakers
• It refers to the use of language to
establish and regulate social
relations and to maintain social
roles.
• It is worth noting that the essential Social Meaning
function of social meaning lies in
the emotive purpose of the
utterance.

9. Types of Associative Meaning
• It is only indirectly related to the
conceptual representation. It is
more directly a reflection of the
speaker’s personal attitude or
feelings towards the listener or
the target of the utterance.
• Such feelings or attitudes are Affective Meaning
usually negative or insincere in
nature. They are normally
expressed through such forms
of language use as insults,
flattery, hyperbole or sarcasm.
• It refers to the sense a lexeme
may acquire on account of the
meanings of lexemes that tend to
co-occur in similar environments
and covers all utterances which
are encoded and decoded as Collocative Meaning
unitary wholes of expressions.
• Collocation is observable in many
forms, particularly in the usage of
proverbs, figures of speech and
riddles.