Connotation in the Word’s Dictionary Meaning

An act of verbal communication is possible primarily because units of communication (i.e. words) can be referred to extralinguistic situations and things meant. The word denotes a concrete thing as well as a concept of a thing, i.e. it has denotative meaning [5, p. 10]. Thus, the word “table” denotes any object that is a table. An isolated word “table“ denotes the concept of the thing that is a table. The word “table” within a certain context denotes a definite thing.

Apart from denoting a concrete thing, action or concept, the word may also carry connotation (* feelings and ideas that are suggested by the word, rather than the actual meaning) [5, p. 11]. It may express the speaker’s attitude to the thing spoken about – emotive component of meaning, or indicate the social sphere in which the conversation takes place – stylistic reference. Both components may either be part of the word’s dictionary meaning or part of the word’s contextual meaning.

An emotive component of meaning may be expressed with the help of:

· suffixes (e.g. the suffix ie / y in such words as “birdie” or “Freddy” serves to express the diminutive or the hypocoristic.)

· the concept the given word denotes (e.g. in the word “ horrid”, “ terrifying”, “lovely”, etc.)

However, there are words of purely emotive meaning. These are interjections which differ from the words with denotative meanings (i.e. notional words) by their peculiar sound pattern: oh, ouch, wow, hmm, etc. They also differ by their syntactic role in an utterance, because they are not components but equivalents of sentences [5, p. 12].

Stylistic reference. Each spheres of human activity has a peculiar mode of linguistic expression, which is generally known as functional style. Words that are preferably used in one functional style are said to have a stylistic reference conditioned by the respective sphere. The overtone of stylistic reference is always present in the world along with its denotative meaning.

E.g. dismiss – discharge – sack; follow – pursue – go after.

Each of these groups represents a different stylistic layer: stylistically neutral – literary-bookish – colloquial. Thus one should distinguish between stylistically neutral and stylistically marked words [5, p. 12].

There are numerous subdivisions within the class of stylistically marked words. The main opposition lies between words of literary stylistic layer (words of Standard English) and those of non-literary stylistic layer (words of Sub-Standard English).

Words of literary stylistic layer in their turn are divided into literary-colloquial and literary-bookish. Literary-bookish words include [5, p. 13]:

a) Terms, subdivided into: 1) popular terms of some special sphere of human knowledge known to the public at large (e.g. “pneumonia”); 2) terms used exclusively within a profession (e.g. “phoneme”, “micro-linguistics”)

b) Poeticisms – words used exclusively in poetry; many of them are obsolete (e.g. “whilom” – sometimes; “Childe” – nobleman’s son)

c) Foreign words and barbarisms (e.g. négligé, au revoir, Bundeswher)

Barbarisms are considered part of the vocabulary of the given language making its peripheral layer, they are usually registered in dictionaries (e.g. vis-à-vis), while foreign words are not found there.(e.g. croissants – breakfast/bread).

Words of non-literary stylistic layer are divided into [5, p. 14]:

a) Colloquialisms – words that occupy an intermediate position between literary and non-literary stylistic layers and are used in conversational type of everyday speech (e.g. “awfully sorry”, “a pretty little thing”, etc).

b) Slang words – those that have originated in everyday speech and exist on the periphery of the lexical system of the given language (e.g. “go crackers” = “be off the rockers” – to go mad)

c) Professionalisms – words characteristic of the conversational variant of professional speech. Contrary to terms, professionalisms are the result of metonymic or metaphoric transference of some everyday words (e.g. “bull” – one who buys shares at the stock-exchange; “bear” – one who sells shares).

d) Vulgarisms – rude words or expressions used mostly in speech of the uncultured and uneducated (e.g. “missus” – wife, “son of a bitch” – a bad person)

e) Jargonisms – words used within certain social and professional groups

f) Regional dialectisms – words and expressions used by peasants and others in certain regions of the country (e.g. “baccy” – tobacco, “winder” – window)

It’s often hard to draw the border-line between colloquial, slang and vulgar words, because there are no proper linguistic criteria of discrimination.

Stylistic reference and emotive component are inherent connotative features of lexical units. They should not be confused with those connotative effects, which practically any words may acquire in speech (text) [5, p. 14].

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