Meanings revisited

The other kind of oppositeness is COMPLEMENTARITY: open–closed and dead–alive are exam-ples. Here, there is no state of being neither the one nor the other. These describe an either/or situation. Nothing can be more closedor less dead. “Relative” does not come into play here.

those who know what mousemeans have some kind of mental image of mice? Probably. Do they share a similar picture? Likely yes. Exactly the same? Hardly so. What is your mental image of lecture? And your lecturer’s?

Now pose these same questions to these words: differ, mammal, and but. If you see the dif-ficulties involved, you begin to appreciate the problems facing the study of semantics. It is impossible to have any mental picture of differ. You can memorise the definition of mammal but can hardly visualise one. You can hardly have either an image or a definition of but. So, while meanings in mental dictionaries are very complex and widely differing things, diction-aries simply have to compromise, and provide standardised definitions for all.

Points to Ponder

1. One sometimes comes across estimates as to the number of words in different lan-guages. Think of a few reasons why you should be careful about such claims.

2. What are the Hungarian equivalents for the English lexicon, dictionary, vocabulary and word stock?

3. Draw Venn diagrams – remember, circles in other circles – for the relationship be-tween animals—dogs—Rottweilers. Now write a definition for all three, and draw Venn diagrams for these. What includes what, in which case?

4. List five words usually considered as synonyms in a Hungarian grammar class (hint:

kutya). Could you easily add another five? And another five? Do they really have the same meaning in all respects?

5. List five words that have several (un)related meanings (hint: kulcs; kuka). Can you eas-ily add another (and another, and yet another) five – once you get the hang of it? Try to do the same in English.

6. In Point 7. the example of /be˘r/ was mentioned. (In this book, the (r-less British pronunciation of this) word is transcribed as /be´/ ). Why is this sound shape even trickier than the other examples in the passage? (Hint: it can be associated with two spellings).

Suggested Reading

Atkinson, M. – Britain, D. et al.(1999): Linguistics: an introduction. Part 2, Ch. 12. CUP An intro to linguistics book, explains basic concepts and recent ideas as well as the applications of these. Is divided into three parts (sounds, words & sentences), has ex-ercises & suggestions for further reading.

Crystal, D. (ed.) (1997): The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. 2nd ed. Ch. III–17. CUP A wonderful volume, offers a wealth of – textual & pictorial – information on all as-pects of language & English. Everything you should, and will ever have to, know about language.

Jackson, H. (1988): Words and their meaning. Longman

An accessible introductory book devoted to lexicology and lexicography, i.e. meaning in language and dictionaries.

O’Grady, W. – Dobrovolsky, M. – Katamba, F. (1996): Contemporary linguistics. 3rd ed.

Ch 7. Longman

Another comprehensive – more traditionally organized – introduction to linguistics, looks at not only how language is structured but how it is used functionally & socially.

Suggested Reading

e may not think about it, but in most of our conversations we tend to use lan-guage in predetermined ways. In the following chapter, the knowledge un-derlying our conversation is examined. If we know what the goal of the person communicating with us is, we should be able to limit the likely interpretations. For example, unless we actually want to deceive the other person, we usually tell the truth. Not that we always keep to the rules! Breaking the rules is one of the sources of humour – and also of irritation and frustration. I recently went to a conference in another town. I had to take a taxi from the railway station but I was a little worried that I would be ripped off. I had heard a lot about taxi-drivers charging huge amounts of money for short trips. So I asked the taxi driver to give me an idea of how much it would cost to get to my destination, which he did. Then I asked if he had a meter and if he could give me a receipt. To both these ques-tions he replied, “Yes.” After we had been driving for about five minutes, I noticed that the taxi meter was not running. I asked the driver why this was so, mentioning that I had asked him specifically about the meter. His reply? “You asked me if I had a meter, not if I would use it!” I was furious, feeling that he had tricked me. What do you think? Taking his words literally, he had been honest, but I think he had intentionally deceived me. This chapter will look at how linguists can analyse situations like this and come to general

con-clusions about how conversation works.

Andrea Kenesei

Pannon University, Veszprém Institute of English and American Studies

6.1. What’s pragmatics for?

(1) Hi, Geoff! Oh, sorry, I forgot to bring you the book you asked for. Will bring it to-morrow, OK?

(2) Professor McKenzie, may I ask you for an extension of the deadline for the essay?

May I hand it in next week? I’ve been preparing for an exam in linguistics and haven’t been able to complete it. Thank you.

Examples (1) and (2) tell us something interesting about language and especially the ways we use it. We talk to people differently – we use different words and formulate our sentences in different fashions. It is clear from the above examples that we address our friend/school fel-low in a casual way, whereas the addressing of our teacher/educator is much more formal as we must keep the required distance. The relationships with friends and teachers are not the

W

Pragmatics

6. What Did You Mean