Horizons of Linguistic Thought: Semantics and Pragmatics
Semantics is one of the oldest branches of linguistics in the book, and goes back to Plato, whereas pragmatics is relatively newer. Semantics has been revised countless times and has revolved around philosophy; well, it is now its own discipline, outside philosophy and such abstractions. In that sense it is quite a bite like pragmatics. The two have evolved much in the past two centuries, since, say, the birth of Charles Dickens, the great English writer, who was born in 1812! Semantics involves the meanings of words; pragmatics is about the cultural assumptions behind spoken discourse, things such as directness, indirectness, entailment, relevance, and intention. Neither branch of linguistics is about grammar, per se, as are our first three "Bases" on the site herein. They contain the more mental stuff, the invisible pieces of the verbal pie. What baggage do words carry? How are words loaded? And why are they taken a certain way? Why should we be polite, not just kind?!! This last set, the questions heretofore, is pragmatics, in layman's language. One could say this is the heart of language, or it is the cutting edge of the science of language. Indeed, some, such as Sapir and Whorf, championed the notion that the mind stands relative to the way language specifically works in cultures; thus humans are creatures who think the way they speak and categorize and see the world in the same way their language does. Sapir, Whorf, and others are linguistic relativists, and semanticians of a certain par. Not all agree that the human mind is thus slave to its language. Chomsky, for instance, does not; Chomsky is a holist of language of his own brand and type.
Semantics -
A rose by any other name? Is it still what it is?
Flower means what? How about a type of flower? How about one observed and classified by pragmatic Aristotle?? For Plato it was an ideal flower in the sky somewhere (or in his own mind), to which the real flower referred. Plato's theories of forms is still known by many or most in intellectual circles, and though seemingly wrong, it jumpstarted the west into thinking about semantics and semiotics. Plato had loads of other quality material too, so we should appreciate him in his own time and place. This said, we now only consider the theory of reference of word meanings to be pertinent to literal or denotative significance of words. Most words operate as a web of relations to other words. This is how the thesaurus was originally arranged, in fact. Theories on semantics have transformed like a dancing Shiva in the past two centuries or less to give us this relational feel of semantics, often called lexical fields, a phase that came after the binary componential analysis, which developed alongside Quine's work, a person who was contemporaneous with another semantics guru, Strawson. So when Neil Diamond addresses his angst to the heavens in his song, I Am I Said, explaining to the audience that not even the chair hears his loneliness, it is worth noting that he is being metaphorical: metaphorical in the sense that the chair has no ears to hear (which is part of his point). He is also putting forth an ideal expectation of the state of affair of things: that there be something "more than this." That is, where is everyone? And where is God? What is fascinating about such involved, yet simple and elegant lyrics (I recommend the song to you) is how, as Alice said, a word can mean to many different things! THAT is semantics. Words carry force and urgency; they deal with practical situations and emotional circumstances, channeling them from one listener to the next, in many ways. To delve into pragmatics is to explain how overdetermination of semantics creates humor, or how a semantic overload can be direly offensive. Language is no longer thought to be deixis, as most of Western thought proposed (thus perhaps Whitehead was very wrong in his supposing that all Occidental philosphy is footnotes to Plato), though learners of all languages still point to things when learning words. Natural language is something much more, and carries the compelling force of mind of a person speaking, be it ASL, Mandarin Chinese, French, Swahili, Arabic, Hindi, Dari, Pashto, or Swedish. It is not just the bee-dance of the entire species, as Curzan and Adams say in opening pages of "How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction." Curzan and Adams are right. We are special, in a word, and the faculty of language is a unique and special endowment.
CS Lewis, in his own style of odd humor, explains how the word "wit" changed meaning over time. He tells us that it was first uncomplicated and straightforward, then is took on lots of meanings, then it bleached to the point that even the critics took a shine to it! The thing experienced, or percept, becomes a concept. Words change meanings and roles. Lewis is a critic of egalitarianization of words, the fanning out of words to the populace, but in the case of "wit," perhaps the populace owned it at first; it just altered its proclivity as a word, always belonging to the people. It started at the point of "mind/reason/senses" and ended nearer "clever" and even "funny person." Perhaps Lewis's judgmentalism is straightjacketing, but his observation is correct. "Wit" and "wisdom" are cognates! "Wit" altered its meaning over time, while "wisdom" did not. "Wisdom," at one point in English, meant, the "state of being witty," for wit was a character of mind! They are disparate sister words of the mother tongue English, and their second cousins are the Latin-Romance-variety words for see: VIDERE in Later and "vedere" in Italian, to serve up two examples. Fascinating? Well, it's not semantics; it's just word etymology and diachronic linguistics. But, hmmmmm, methinks there is a dash of semantics thrown into pretty much everything.
English Language Learner!
There exist easy ways to bring to the fore, for ELL's, this notion of semantics in language generally. One of the best means to this end is to bring into the lesson not only meanings, but to try to align words with other words. Words form groups, and groups intersect and overlap, or wind up on different sides of equations or are sheer polarities. Thus the antonym or synonym are common didactic tools. If we study Shakespeare or other time-tested Elizabethans and Jacobeans we can study apostrophe, or on into other literary devices the world over, such as onomatopoeia. This gives certain classes of words meanings for kids beyond the norm. Such active linguistics, as I call it, vivifies language study. Don't forget hononyms, homophones, and homographs. Remember, assessing them on this material per se is necessary, but as such it's all a means to learning English. A DRTA can do wonders for pragmatics, because it helps the students live out, experience, and also analyse the story. Note that is right-brained and it is left-brained. We must engage the kids for pragmatics. If they are to understand the "why" of language, the segues and the non-sequiturs and the quid pro quos, and the pauses and the questioning intonations or the uptalk, they must do it, for themselves. Right? They must start in the nested environment of the school, and work outward to the community. When they grow up, they will be able to function in public, face to face with strangers. We are a human community. So, send them to the office, buddied up, with a list of queries for the administration. Ham it up with them. Role play and sing songs, and if they are younger, ask them to do artwork and to label their own drawings and do show-and-tell in simple language. Starting them with writing their name is a real piece de resistance if they are in Kindergarten, truly. This is the basic stuff. For the high schoolers, they need to be coaxed into using our mechanisms of politeness. It's not that they are barbarians; they are not. It is that they do not know they are onstage. Luckily, they learn by leaps and bounds, and if we teach them effectively and continually, they can master the challenging things too, from academic vocabulary to pragmatics! Go, English Language Learner! This is your language, indeed!
Do you think semantics is not powerful? Then think of our nicknames, and how they carry import. Think of the Academie Francaise, and their efforts to curb linguistic change. Think of El Shaddai....the power of the name. Words (like the ancient Roman FAS and NEFAS) hold incalculable power over us all, each and every one of us. No one is hermetic. Everyone is involved. And there is a sense of chaos to it all. No one "controls" language, at all. Nobody even knows it all, in the slightest! Who would? So next time you look at an advertisement, and you think of your introductory ELL in his/her silent period, a la Krashen, recall with your faith of a teacher that this ELL might be looking at the same advertized sign, and recall that this is the first state of learning, the first stage of literacy (according to Robinson and McKenna). My point is that everything factors into the learning process. Harness it.