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A SOCIOLINGUSITIC ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF LEXICAL FIELD ANALYSIS IN THE STUDY OF LINGUISTIC MEANING

The focus of semantics is the study of meaning and meaning related terms. This paper is an appraisal of the indispensable role of lexical field analysis in the study of meaning. The study adopts a descriptive analysis of semantic meaning, stating that it is impossible, if not, almost unrealistic to carry out a semantic analysis without lexical field analysis; thus ascertaining the indispensability of this branch of semantics.

INTRODUCTION

Linguistics has been defined by Omachonu as “the scientific study of language” (7). The discipline called linguistics has various branches such as: Sociolinguistics, Anthropological linguistics, Phonetics and Phonology, Discourse Analysis, Applied linguistics, Pragmatics, Forensic linguistics, Stylistics, Semantics, etc. and linguistics as a discipline has tried to spread its tentacles to the various fields of human endeavour in order to examine the role of language in human activities with the aim of analyzing human interactions and communications. This study concerns itself with the above latter field which is the branch of linguistics that examines meaning in communication.

According to Ogbulogo (1), semantics as a term was first formally used by Breal in 1897. Hence, it can be deduced that Breal was the first to bring to the fore in a formally acceptable way, the nature of meaning in language. Though the quest for the understanding of meaning has always been of interest to scholars, semantics was not mentioned as a term and did not come up in literature until 1897 when it was first used by Breal. This first attempt to study meanings by philosophers brought about the area of semantics called philosophical semantics, which according to Ogbulogo (1) examines “the relationship between linguistic expressions and the phenomena they refer to in the external world.” Philosophical semantics focuses on examining the conditions under which such linguistic expressions and the phenomena they refer to are true or false. This can be traced to as far back as Plato and Aristotle’s works.

However, contemporary philosophical semantics can be traced to the works of authors like Rudolf Carnap (1891 – 1970), Alfred Tarski (1902) and Charles Peirce (1839 – 1914). According to Peirce, philosophical semantics developed as Semiotics in America while with the influence of Saussure in France, the term “semiology” was used. However, the idea of truth-based semantics was Tarski’s major contribution (Ogbulogo, 2). Ogbulogo goes ahead to observe that linguistic semantics emphasizes the properties of natural languages while pure or logical semantics is the study of the meaning of expressions using logical systems or calculi. Examining semantics in this dimension makes it more mathematically related than linguistic in nature. Alfred Korzybski was the first person to attempt studying semantics as a distinct discipline, separate from the discipline of philosophy. Incidentally, Korzybski was a non-linguist who was passionate about introducing a generally acceptable science of communication. Prior to the work of Korzybski, semantics has been looked at from a nonscientific perspective but Korzybski’s work was the first formal attempt at bringing in a scientific model to the study of semantics. Korzybski started by describing all entities and realities by assigning labels to them. He went further to group the names into three. He had names for common objects such as chair, stone, cow and so on. He also had labels for groups and collections like nations, animals, people and so on. Korzybski’s third group of labels does not have identifiable referents in the outside world. These labels are highly abstract and do not readily lend themselves to the assignment of concrete reality. These labels are only assignable to concrete realities by imagination. Such labels include but are not limited to freedom, love, and democracy among others. They feature in aesthetics, philosophy and politics. However, this is not the same with common objects since there seems to be a direct correspondence between items and linguistic expressions. It is interesting to also know that a serious difficulty tends to be posed by labels for groups as a result of the wide range of items within the group. The main challenge with abstract labels stems from the fact that meaning does not have an objective reference in reality because different people will react to different words differently. For instance, the word “love” would be viewed differently by different people as a result of their circumstance or present reality. One person who probably is in a loving relationship will view it positively while another in an unfulfilled relationship will view it negatively. Hence, their reactions will be different and will therefore evoke different emotions from them.

Two other scholars, Ogden and Richards came very close to the analysis of meaning by combining philosophical processes and linguistic methodologies. Although as Abohol (3) noted, they avoided the use of the word, semantics. They introduced the concept “referent” to describe the physical object or situation which the word identifies in the real world and pointed out that the representation or situation should be seen as a referent while the actual pronunciation or orthographic representation will constitute the symbol. For example, the figure or silhouette of an adult female human being will be the referent while the word used to describe the referent will constitute the symbol. The symbol is similar to Korzybski’s concept of label (Ogbulogo, 3).

Omachonu (13), states that “Semantics is the area of linguistics that deals with the study of meaning; it examines the ways in which words and sentences of various grammatical constructions are used and understood by speakers of a given language. Semantics therefore, is the science of meaning.” From the above, it should be noted that the concerns of semantics is the interpretation of meaning in communication. In semantics, the emphasis is to study the meaning of words and sentences of languages. Linguistic semantics studies meaning in a systematic and objective way. Since meaning as a concept is not static, a great deal of the idea of meaning still depends on the context and participants in the act of communication. There is a strong connection between meaning and communication. Communication is used here to mean the exchange or relay of information, message, attitude, feelings or values from one person to another (Ogbulogo, 6). This is done mainly by the use of language. It is often expressed that language is a system, which uses a set of symbols agreed upon by a group. These symbols can be spoken or written, expressed as gestures or drawings. The symbols employed in language must be patterned in a systematic way. Ogbulogo (5) observes that language is organised at four principal levels – sounds (that is phonetics/phonology), words (that is phonology, sentences (that is syntax) and meaning (that is semantics). Phonology and syntax are concerned with the expressive power of language while semantics studies the meaning of what has been expressed. Knowledge of grammar is an aspect of the innate cognitive ability of human beings. The power of interpretation compliments that innate ability. Interpretation is an aspect of semantics. Therefore, language acquisition or learning includes not only the knowledge of the organisation of sounds and structures, but also how to associate meaning to the structures. Semantics can, therefore, be characterised as the scientific study of meaning in language.

From the above, it could be seen that most linguists agree to the idea that semantics studies meaning in language; however, this leaves us with the questions of what do we really understand by “meaning”? What is that “meaning” that is organized and expressed by languages? In very general terms, speaking consists of communicating information: somebody (the speaker) has something in his/her mind (an idea, a feeling, an intention, whatnot), and decides to communicate it linguistically. Vocal noises are then emitted that are heard by a second person (the hearer), who “translates” these noises back into ideas, with the result being that this hearer somehow “knows” what the first person had in mind. That “something” that was at first in the speaker’s mind and now is also in the hearer’s mind is what can be called meaning. However, the place of semantic lexical field analysis in the interpretation of meaning is paramount because it is almost impossible to do semantics without lexical field analysis. This is the concern of this paper.

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