SWOT analysis is conducted to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in a program, individu, organization, etc. Here I'll give you an example of SWOT analysis related to design a program. The name of the program in this sample is english for children which will be conducted in an certain area area (for example X area).
SWOT analysis involves identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve the objective of the program. SWOT analysis can be obtained by doing observation and interview. The information from observation and interview can help the program designer to make SWOT analysis. Based on the result of observation and interview, here is the SWOT analysis of English Program for children in X area:
Strengths:
a.The program designer has enough materials about games, songs, and activities for teaching English for children.
b.There are many children in X area. The children are active and they like playing. This will ease the program designer to design interesting and fun activities of English program.
c.The program is free. Since the parents will not be charged the fee, they will allow their children to join the program. The program designer will not get any difficulties about parents’ permission.
Weaknesses:
a.The program designer has not found the appropriate location to hold the program. The program designer needs a large place or area to hold the program. However, there is no large public place or room that can be used to hold the program.
b.The program designer has a limited budget. The program designer needs some facilities to conduct the Fun English Program, for example paper, marker, etc. Since the program is free, the program designer has difficulties in arranging the financial aspect.
c.The program designer doesn’t have any detailed plan yet. In addition, the place has not been decided. Thus, the program designer faces difficulties in creating the appropriate activities.
Opportunities
a.There is no other English course/program in X area. Most of children in that area do not take any English course before. This program will be something new for them and they will be more interesting to join the program.
b.There is good supports from parents. The parents agree and will support the program by giving permission to hold the program.
Threats
a.There will be another program for children that will be held in the afternoon in X area. The schedule may disturb the English program.
b.There are many interesting tv programs in the afternoon. Most channel on tv have program for children, especially cartoon, such as sponge bob, avatar, etc. Children like to watch that program every afternoon. This may become other obstacle for the program designer since the English program will be held in the afternoon.
The result of SWOT analysis will help the program designer to decide whether the program is feasible to hold or not. Based on the result, the strengths and opportunities are more than the weaknesses and threats. Moreover, the weaknesses and threats can be minimized in many ways. So, it can be concluded that English Program for Children in X area is feasible to design and conduct.
Jumat, 25 Mei 2012
Kamis, 03 Mei 2012
Stop Using Plastic Bags
Berikut ini merupakan salah satu contoh hortatory exposition text. Sebelum membaca lebih lanjut contoh di bawah ini, perlu kita ingat kembali bahwa tujuan teks eksposisi adalah untuk memaparkan argumen berdasarkan informasi atau fakta yang telah dirangkum tentang suatu hal/masalah yang seharusnya mendapatkan perhatian. Secara tidak langsung, teks ini bertujuan mempengaruhi pembaca tentang suatu permasalahan tertentu. Tentu saja cara mempengaruhi pembaca yaitu dengan memaparkan argumen-argumen yang telah dikumpulkan terlebih dahulu berdasarkan fakta-fakta atau data-data yang ada.
Teks eksposisi sendiri dibagi menjadi dua, yaitu hortatory exposition dan analytical exposition. Perbedaan kedua jenis teks eksposisi tersebut terletak pada bagian akhir teks. Berikut struktur kedua teks tersebut supaya lebih jelas.
the general structure of analytical exposition texts:
- Thesis : berisi tentang suatu pernyataan tentang permasalahan tertentu.
- Arguments : berisi tentang alasan-alasan untuk medukung thesis yang dikemukakan.
- Reiteration : berisi tentang simpulan dari thesis dan arguments yang dikemukakan.
the general structure of hortatory exposition text:
- Thesis : berisi tentang suatu pernyataan tentang permasalahan tertentu.
- Arguments : berisi tentang alasan-alasan untuk medukung thesis yang dikemukakan.
- Recommendation : berisi tentang saran dari penulis atas thesis dan arguments yang dikemukakan.
Terlihat jelas kan kalau perbedaannya hanya terletak di bagian akhir paragraf saja. pada teks analytical exposition, bagian akhir berisi kesimpulan posisi/sikap penulis tentang argumen-argumen yang telah disampaikan sebelumnya, atau berisi tentang penguatan pernyataan pada bagian thesis. Biasanya di bagian akhir ini diawali dengan Based on the arguments above, The conclusion is, In my conclusion.
Sedangkan pada bagian akhir teks hortatory exposition berisi tentang kesimpulan beserta saran-saran yang dapat dilakukan untuk menanggapai suatu permasalahan tertentu berdasarkan argumen-argumen yang telah dinyatakan sebelumnya. Biasanya di bagian akhir ini berisi keywords should, should not.
Here below is an example of hortatory text.
Thesis:
Plastic is the common thing that we can find in all aspects of life, such as in the form of plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic bottles, plastic toys, etc. Then, where is the end of our plastic trash? We see them floating on the river, being scattered on the ground, and sometimes we see some of them being on a tip of tree. Surprisingly, most of them are plastic bags that are used for containing our stuff or items. Unconsciously, that trash contaminates our environment because of its harmful chemical additives. It can lead to environmental problems and serious health risks. Thus, we should stop using plastic bags considering the bad effects of them.
1st argument:
A plastic is an artificial substance that is made of carbon from petroleum, natural gas, coal, or biological sources. The elements can be combined in various combinations in order to form a certain property and characteristic, for example plastic bag. Thus, most plastic bags are made of various chemical additives. Because of that flexible shape and use of plastic bag, it has been a part of our lives for more than 100 years and becomes increasingly used for its multiple functions.
2nd argument:
Only few plastic bags are recycled. Most of them end up in a landfill and ocean. They need a long time to be decomposed. Then, they break down into toxic particles that become part of the soil and water. According to Geenpeace organisation, at least 267 marine species are known to have suffered from getting entangled in or ingesting marine debris which 90% of that is plastic. A plastic bag which is floating in the water and a jellyfish are very difficult to be differentiated. Thus, plastic bags are easily mistaken for food and eaten by marine animals that consume jellyfish. This case makes plastic bags become dangerous for ocean wildlife.
3rd argument:
Furthermore, plastic bags also give bad effects for our health. The components of plastics; polyvinyl, polystyrene, polyethylene, etc. can cause health problems, such as cancer, birth defects, genetic changes, chronic bronchitis, indigestion, and liver dysfunction. The toxic particles of plastics in the ocean may be involved in food chain to fish and to human consumers. Unconsciously, it causes health problems for us by eating that contaminated fish. In other way, black plastic bags that we usually use to put our foods contain higher chemical additives because it has been recycled many times. Easily, foods can be contaminated with high risk toxic, for example carcinogens that cause cancer.
Recommendation:
Cosidering the effects above, we should be aware that plastics have bad effects to our environment and health. Plastic can cause environmental problems and health risks. To minimalize those effects, from now on we should stop using plastic bags to avoid the bad effects of that. We should switch to reusable bags for containing our shopping stuff. Moreover, reusable bags’ materials do not harm the environment and it is safe for foods.
**taken from many sources
Teks eksposisi sendiri dibagi menjadi dua, yaitu hortatory exposition dan analytical exposition. Perbedaan kedua jenis teks eksposisi tersebut terletak pada bagian akhir teks. Berikut struktur kedua teks tersebut supaya lebih jelas.
the general structure of analytical exposition texts:
- Thesis : berisi tentang suatu pernyataan tentang permasalahan tertentu.
- Arguments : berisi tentang alasan-alasan untuk medukung thesis yang dikemukakan.
- Reiteration : berisi tentang simpulan dari thesis dan arguments yang dikemukakan.
the general structure of hortatory exposition text:
- Thesis : berisi tentang suatu pernyataan tentang permasalahan tertentu.
- Arguments : berisi tentang alasan-alasan untuk medukung thesis yang dikemukakan.
- Recommendation : berisi tentang saran dari penulis atas thesis dan arguments yang dikemukakan.
Terlihat jelas kan kalau perbedaannya hanya terletak di bagian akhir paragraf saja. pada teks analytical exposition, bagian akhir berisi kesimpulan posisi/sikap penulis tentang argumen-argumen yang telah disampaikan sebelumnya, atau berisi tentang penguatan pernyataan pada bagian thesis. Biasanya di bagian akhir ini diawali dengan Based on the arguments above, The conclusion is, In my conclusion.
Sedangkan pada bagian akhir teks hortatory exposition berisi tentang kesimpulan beserta saran-saran yang dapat dilakukan untuk menanggapai suatu permasalahan tertentu berdasarkan argumen-argumen yang telah dinyatakan sebelumnya. Biasanya di bagian akhir ini berisi keywords should, should not.
Here below is an example of hortatory text.
Thesis:
Plastic is the common thing that we can find in all aspects of life, such as in the form of plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic bottles, plastic toys, etc. Then, where is the end of our plastic trash? We see them floating on the river, being scattered on the ground, and sometimes we see some of them being on a tip of tree. Surprisingly, most of them are plastic bags that are used for containing our stuff or items. Unconsciously, that trash contaminates our environment because of its harmful chemical additives. It can lead to environmental problems and serious health risks. Thus, we should stop using plastic bags considering the bad effects of them.
1st argument:
A plastic is an artificial substance that is made of carbon from petroleum, natural gas, coal, or biological sources. The elements can be combined in various combinations in order to form a certain property and characteristic, for example plastic bag. Thus, most plastic bags are made of various chemical additives. Because of that flexible shape and use of plastic bag, it has been a part of our lives for more than 100 years and becomes increasingly used for its multiple functions.
2nd argument:
Only few plastic bags are recycled. Most of them end up in a landfill and ocean. They need a long time to be decomposed. Then, they break down into toxic particles that become part of the soil and water. According to Geenpeace organisation, at least 267 marine species are known to have suffered from getting entangled in or ingesting marine debris which 90% of that is plastic. A plastic bag which is floating in the water and a jellyfish are very difficult to be differentiated. Thus, plastic bags are easily mistaken for food and eaten by marine animals that consume jellyfish. This case makes plastic bags become dangerous for ocean wildlife.
3rd argument:
Furthermore, plastic bags also give bad effects for our health. The components of plastics; polyvinyl, polystyrene, polyethylene, etc. can cause health problems, such as cancer, birth defects, genetic changes, chronic bronchitis, indigestion, and liver dysfunction. The toxic particles of plastics in the ocean may be involved in food chain to fish and to human consumers. Unconsciously, it causes health problems for us by eating that contaminated fish. In other way, black plastic bags that we usually use to put our foods contain higher chemical additives because it has been recycled many times. Easily, foods can be contaminated with high risk toxic, for example carcinogens that cause cancer.
Recommendation:
Cosidering the effects above, we should be aware that plastics have bad effects to our environment and health. Plastic can cause environmental problems and health risks. To minimalize those effects, from now on we should stop using plastic bags to avoid the bad effects of that. We should switch to reusable bags for containing our shopping stuff. Moreover, reusable bags’ materials do not harm the environment and it is safe for foods.
**taken from many sources
Sabtu, 05 Juni 2010
Harmful Effects of Junk Food
Are you overweight? Are you tired and moody throughout much of the day? Do you sometimes have trouble concentrating?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you could be suffering symptoms of a junk food diet. But, what is junk food?
Let’s face it, junk food is, as the name, just pure junk. While it tastes great, it has very little nutrition content and it will cause some health issues in the near future.
Junk food generally refers to foods that are high in sugar (such as soda pop, candy, ice cream), high in fat (such as burgers, pizza, hot dogs, french fries) and high in salt.
Nowadays, there are many people out there that are not thinking of their general health all the time when they are thinking of something to eat all the time. Hope you aren’t one of those people. With all the fast food restaurants out there many people do not think about exactly what they are eating all the time.
There is nothing wrong with eating at fast food restaurants but you really need to watch what you are eating all the time. If you were to think about it what you eat really reflects your general health all the time.
Eating junk food can devastate your body. Here are some harmful effects of eating junk food. Eating junk food is one of the main contributing factors to the development of cancer. Another devastating effect of a junk food diet is the obesity epidemic. Obesity can cause many other health complications, including cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, sleep apnea and others. For children, the effect of eating too much junk food could become extremely hyperactive.
To avoid those bad effects, you should try to begin healthy life by avoiding junk food. Here are five ways to quit eating junk food:
1. Always have your reason. When you have enough reasons for something you want to do, you’ll be able to do anything you want. What are your reasons for quitting junk food: losing weight? Becoming healthy? Lower cholesterol? Be clear on your reasons and write them down.
2. Quitting doesn’t happen overnight. So plan well. Cut down slowly over time. For example, if you eat junk food more than once a week, cut down to once a week. Then cut down to twice a month. Then to once a month, then cut it out totally.
3. Play some fun sports. Playing sports, as well as being good for your body, makes you feel good about yourself.
4. Enjoy eating. Food is to be eaten and enjoyed. Take time to prepare a tasty healthy meal and enjoy eating it knowing what goodness you’re providing to your body and life.
5. Control. Many people can’t control their ability to eat junk food. In fact, you could put it this way: The junk food controls their health, rather than their health controlling the junk food. Don’t let it get to that. Control your food and think. What is more important to you - eating junk food or achieving your goal?
In conclusion, you should not be eating too much junk food. It does nothing but causing some negative health issues for you. It is in your hands to choose junk food or health.
(taken from many sources)
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you could be suffering symptoms of a junk food diet. But, what is junk food?
Let’s face it, junk food is, as the name, just pure junk. While it tastes great, it has very little nutrition content and it will cause some health issues in the near future.
Junk food generally refers to foods that are high in sugar (such as soda pop, candy, ice cream), high in fat (such as burgers, pizza, hot dogs, french fries) and high in salt.
Nowadays, there are many people out there that are not thinking of their general health all the time when they are thinking of something to eat all the time. Hope you aren’t one of those people. With all the fast food restaurants out there many people do not think about exactly what they are eating all the time.
There is nothing wrong with eating at fast food restaurants but you really need to watch what you are eating all the time. If you were to think about it what you eat really reflects your general health all the time.
Eating junk food can devastate your body. Here are some harmful effects of eating junk food. Eating junk food is one of the main contributing factors to the development of cancer. Another devastating effect of a junk food diet is the obesity epidemic. Obesity can cause many other health complications, including cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, sleep apnea and others. For children, the effect of eating too much junk food could become extremely hyperactive.
To avoid those bad effects, you should try to begin healthy life by avoiding junk food. Here are five ways to quit eating junk food:
1. Always have your reason. When you have enough reasons for something you want to do, you’ll be able to do anything you want. What are your reasons for quitting junk food: losing weight? Becoming healthy? Lower cholesterol? Be clear on your reasons and write them down.
2. Quitting doesn’t happen overnight. So plan well. Cut down slowly over time. For example, if you eat junk food more than once a week, cut down to once a week. Then cut down to twice a month. Then to once a month, then cut it out totally.
3. Play some fun sports. Playing sports, as well as being good for your body, makes you feel good about yourself.
4. Enjoy eating. Food is to be eaten and enjoyed. Take time to prepare a tasty healthy meal and enjoy eating it knowing what goodness you’re providing to your body and life.
5. Control. Many people can’t control their ability to eat junk food. In fact, you could put it this way: The junk food controls their health, rather than their health controlling the junk food. Don’t let it get to that. Control your food and think. What is more important to you - eating junk food or achieving your goal?
In conclusion, you should not be eating too much junk food. It does nothing but causing some negative health issues for you. It is in your hands to choose junk food or health.
(taken from many sources)
Kamis, 22 April 2010
Types of Meaning
Semantics is the study of meaning of language. It is important to study semantics because this subject covers all aspects of how people deal with language related to how people get a sense of meaning (language acquisition) and how meaning change over time (language change). According to John I Saeed, Semantics is the study of meaning which is communicated through language. He further says that a speaker’s semantic knowledge is an exciting and challenging task. In other words, study semantics means that we study about meaning of language. It becomes important to study meaning of language because everyday we communicate (spoken and written form), we transfer or convey the meaning or message to the readers or hearers. We can call meaning as the most vital part of communication which built the understanding between speakers and hearers and between writers and readers. Without understand the meaning, a communication through language cannot be called as communication.
Based on the activities in our daily life, we always do a communication with others using language. To understand language in social contexts is vey important, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for understanding varieties of English language and effects of style. It is one of the most basic concepts in linguistics, especially in semantics. When we study about semantics, we study the scope of semantics that covers all aspects of studying meaning of language. The semantic analysis, generally, explain how the sentences of language are understood, interpreted, and related to states, processes and objects in the world.
The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased. There are some important areas of semantic theory or related subjects: symbol and referent, conceptions of meaning, words and lexemes, denotation, connotation, implication, pragmatics, ambiguity, semantic fields, synonym, antonym, hyponym, collocation, polysemy, homonymy, homophones and homographs.
Dealing with communication through laguage means that there will be many interpreted meanings from what the speakers say. To avoid unexpected interpretation of meaning that the speakers convey to us, we should know the type of meaning. In this paper, I will give some explanations about types of meaning. However, for a basic uderstanding about meaning, we should know the conception of meaning itself. There are some conceptions of meaning:
Word --> things: This theory was found in the Cratylus of Plato (427-347 BC). It means that words “name” or “refer to” things. This appears in proper nouns, for examples: Jogja, Avanza, Bali, etc. This concept will not clear when applied to abstraction nouns, adjectives, and verbs because there are no real existing things in the world to correspond to that words.
Words --> concepts --> things: This theory was expressed by C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards in The Meaning of Meaning (1923). It states that there is no direct connection of words and things, but an indirect connection in our minds, that is called concepts. For each word there is a related concept.
Stimuli --> words --> responses: This theory was expressed by Leonard Bloomfield in Language (1933). A stimulus (S) leads someone to a response (r), which is a called speech act. To the hearer the speech act is also a stimulus (s), which leads to a response (R), which may be an action or understanding.
S --> r.................s --> R
Example: The room is dark, John needs much light (S) and asks to George to switch the lamp on (r). This new language stimulus, George’s hearing John (s) leads to his action (R) of switching the lamp on.
Seven Types of Meaning
A part of language conveys its dictionary meaning, connotations beyond the dictionary meaning, information about the social context of language use, and speaker’s feelings and attitudes. Further discussion, ‘meaning’ means the sum total of communicated through language. Words, phrases and sentences have meanings which are studies in semantics. Geoffrey Leech in his Semantic- A Study of meaning (1974) divides meaning into seven types. The seven types of meaning according to Leech are:
1) Conceptual or Logical Meaning
Conceptual meaning is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is the literal meaning of the word indicating the idea or concept to which it refers. Conceptual meaning is the basic propositional meaning which corresponds to the primary dictionary definition. Such a meaning is stylistically neutral and objective as opposed to other kinds of associative meanings. Leech stated that conceptual meaning has sophisticated organization based on the principle of contrastiveness and hierarchical structure.
At the lexical level, conceptual meaning is represented as a set of distinctive features. For example, the operant features for “woman” are [human], [male], [adult]. The application of these features uses a binary notation where the value of a feature is specified as either positive [+], negative [-], or neutral [±].
Examples of conceptual meaning:
“woman” can be described as +human -male +adult
“hen” can be described as -human -male ±adult +wings
Conceptual meaning deals with the core meaning of expression. It is the denotative or literal meaning. It is essential for the function of language. For example, a part of the conceptual meaning of “needle” may be “thin”, “sharp” or “instrument”.
The purpose of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic representation to a sentence or statement. Conceptual meaning helps us to distinguish one meaning from the meaning of other sentences. A language essentially depends on conceptual meaning for communication. So, it can be said that conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning.
The next five types of meaning are grouped under the umbrella of assosiative meaning: connotative meaning, social/stylistic meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, and collocative meaning. Associative meaning describes a group of six modes of language usage, which draw on certain mental connections. All these five types of meaning have more in common with connotative than conceptual meaning. They all have the same open ended, variable character and can be analyzed in terms of scales or ranges (more/less) than in either or contrastive terms.
2) Connotative Meaning
Connotative meaning is the communicative value of an expression over and above its purely conceptual content. It is something more than the dictionary meaning (lexical/logical meaning). The purely conceptual content of “woman” is +human +female +adult but the psychosocial connotations could be ‘gregarious’, ‘having maternal instinct’ or typical (rather than invariable) attributes of womanhood such as ‘babbling’, ‘experienced in cookery’, ‘skirt or dress wearing’. Still further connotative meaning can embrace putative properties of a thing due to viewpoint adopted by individual, group, and society as a whole. Thus, in the past woman was supposed to have attributes like frail, prone to tears, emotional, irrigational, inconstant , cowardly etc. as well as more positive qualities such gentle, sensitive, compassionate, hardworking etc. Connotations vary age to age and society to society.
Examples:
connotations of the word “woman” = soft, caring, gregarious, having maternal instinct, skirt or dress wearing, etc.
connotations of the word “man” = powerful, egoism, strong, brief, etc.
The boundary between conceptual and connotative looks to be analogous. Connotative meaning is regarded as incidental, comparatively unstable, in determinant, open ended, variable according to age, culture and individual, whereas conceptual meaning is not like that . It can be codified in terms of limited symbols.
3) Social Meaning
Social meaning is the meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social context of language use. The interpretation of a text is dependent on our knowledge of stylistics and other variations of language. We recognize some words or pronunciation as being dialectical that is as telling us something about the regional or social origin of the speaker. Social meaning is related to the situation in which an utterance is used.
Social meaning is concerned with the social circumstances of the use of a linguistic expression. For example, some dialectic words inform us about the regional and social background of the speaker. In the same way, some stylistic usages let us know something of the social relationship between the speaker and the hearer.
Examples:
“I ain’t done nothing”.
The line tells us about the speaker and that is the speaker is probably a black American, underprivileged and uneducated.
Stylistic variation represents the social variation. This is because styles show the geographical region social class of the speaker. Style helps us to know about the period, field and status of the discourse. Some words are similar to others as far as their conceptual meaning is concerned. But they have different stylistic meaning.
For example:
Steed, horse and nag are synonymous. They all mean a kind of animal, that is horse. But they differ in style and so have various social meaning:
steed = used in poetry
horse = used in general
nag = slang
The word “home” can have many use:
domicile = official
residence = formal
abode = poetic
home = ordinary use
The word “teacher”, in the past had meaning as person who gives/shares their knowledge. However, today, in logical or real meaning, it means person who works as teacher in an institutionary.
The illocutionary force of an utterance also can have social meaning. According to the social situation, a sentence may be uttered as request, an apology, a warning or a threat, for example, in the sentence “I haven’t got a knife” has the common meaning in isolation. However, this sentence uttered to waiter mean a request for a knife.
4) Affective or Emotive Meaning
Some linguists describe it as emotive association or effects of words evoked in the reader or listener. It is what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker or writer towards the listener or reader. Some feelings or attitudes are usually negative or insincere in nature. They are normally expressed through such forms of language use as insults, flattery, hyperbole or sarcasm.
In affective meaning, language is used to express personal feelings or attitude to the listener or to the subject matter of his discourse. Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of the words used.
Examples: “You are a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobation and I hate you” Or “I hate you, you idiot”.
Here speaker seems to have a very negative attitude towards his listener. This is called affective meaning.
However, very often we are more discreet (cautious) and convey our attitude indirectly.
Example: “I am terribly sorry but if you would be so kind as to lower your voice a little”
Intonation and voice quality are also important here.
For example: when we ask somebody to open the door = “Would you open the door?” (in this term we use low intonation)
Words like darling, sweetheart or hooligan, vandal have inherent emotive quality and they can be used neutrally. I.A. Richards argued that emotive meaning distinguishes literature or poetic language from factual meaning of science. Finally it must be noted that affective meaning is largely a parasitic category. It overlaps heavily with style, connotation and conceptual content.
5) Reflected Meaning
It is what is communicated through assosiation with another sense of the same expression. At the lexical level of language, reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning or multiple conceptual meaning. In some cases while responding to one sense of the word we partly respond to another sense of the word too. One sense of the word seems to rub off on another especially through relative frequency and familiarity.
In poetry, we have reflected meaning as in the following lines:
Are limbs so dear achieved, are sides
The writer here uses ‘dear’ in the sense of ‘expensiveness’. But, the sense of beloved is also avoided.
The could not but be gay in such jocund company
The word ‘gay’ was frequently used in the time of William Wordsworth but the word now is used for ‘homosexuality’.
Other example occurs in the word ‘bird’ is usually used as the name of an animal. However, it also can be used as ‘man’ and ‘freedom’.
In some type cases of multiple meaning, one meaning of the word pushes the other meaning to the background. Then the dominant suggestive power of that word prevails. This may happen because of the relative frequency or familiarity of the dominant meaning. This dominant meaning which pushes the other meaning at the background is called the reflected meaning.
6) Collocative Meaning
Collocative meaning is what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word. Words collocate or co-occur with certain words only, for example “big business” not large or great. Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words.
Examples:
The words ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’. However, they slightly differ from each other because of collocation or co-occurrence.
The word ‘pretty’ collocates with girls, woman, village, gardens, flowers, etc. On the other hand, the word ‘handsome’ collocates with boys, men, etc. so ‘pretty woman’ and ‘handsome man’. While different kinds of attractiveness, hence ‘handsome woman’ may mean attractive but in a mannish way. Other example also occur in the word phrase ‘short time’ and ‘short hair’.
Collocative meanings need to be invoked only when other categories of meaning don’t apply. Generalizations can be made in case of other meanings while collocative meaning is simply on idiosyncratic property of individual words. Collocative meaning has its importance and it is a marginal kind of category.
7) Thematic Meaning
It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus and emphasis .Thus, active is different from passive though its conceptual meaning is the same. Various parts of the sentence also can be used as subject, object or complement to show prominence. It is done through focus, theme (topic) or emotive emphasis. Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its implications properly. For example, the following statements in active and passive voice have same conceptual meaning but different communicative values.
Example:
1) Mrs. Smith donated the first prize
2) The first prize was donated by Mrs. Smith.
In the first sentence “who gave away the prize” is more important, but in the second sentence “what did Mrs. Smith gave is important”. Thus the change of focus changes the meaning also.
Alternative grammatical construction also gives thematic meaning.
For example:
1) He likes Indian good most.
2) Indian goods he likes most.
3) It is the Indian goods he likes most.
Like the grammatical structures, stress and intonation also make the message prominent. For example, the contrastive stress on the word ‘cotton’ in the following sentence give prominence to the information.
1. John wears a cotton shirt.
2. The kind of shirt that john wears is cotton one.
Dealing with communication through laguage means that there will be many interpreted meanings from what the speakers say. To avoid unexpected interpretation of meaning that the speakers convey to us, we should know the type of meaning. After the discussion above, we know that generally, there are seven types of meaning. They are conceptual or logical meaning, connotative meaning, social/stylistic meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, and thematic meaning.
sources:
Aitchison, J. 2003. Teach Yourself-Linguistics. London: Contemporary Books.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/329791/language/27171/Types-of-meaning
http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/lang/semantics.htm
http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/01/types-of-meaning.html
Based on the activities in our daily life, we always do a communication with others using language. To understand language in social contexts is vey important, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for understanding varieties of English language and effects of style. It is one of the most basic concepts in linguistics, especially in semantics. When we study about semantics, we study the scope of semantics that covers all aspects of studying meaning of language. The semantic analysis, generally, explain how the sentences of language are understood, interpreted, and related to states, processes and objects in the world.
The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased. There are some important areas of semantic theory or related subjects: symbol and referent, conceptions of meaning, words and lexemes, denotation, connotation, implication, pragmatics, ambiguity, semantic fields, synonym, antonym, hyponym, collocation, polysemy, homonymy, homophones and homographs.
Dealing with communication through laguage means that there will be many interpreted meanings from what the speakers say. To avoid unexpected interpretation of meaning that the speakers convey to us, we should know the type of meaning. In this paper, I will give some explanations about types of meaning. However, for a basic uderstanding about meaning, we should know the conception of meaning itself. There are some conceptions of meaning:
Word --> things: This theory was found in the Cratylus of Plato (427-347 BC). It means that words “name” or “refer to” things. This appears in proper nouns, for examples: Jogja, Avanza, Bali, etc. This concept will not clear when applied to abstraction nouns, adjectives, and verbs because there are no real existing things in the world to correspond to that words.
Words --> concepts --> things: This theory was expressed by C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards in The Meaning of Meaning (1923). It states that there is no direct connection of words and things, but an indirect connection in our minds, that is called concepts. For each word there is a related concept.
Stimuli --> words --> responses: This theory was expressed by Leonard Bloomfield in Language (1933). A stimulus (S) leads someone to a response (r), which is a called speech act. To the hearer the speech act is also a stimulus (s), which leads to a response (R), which may be an action or understanding.
S --> r.................s --> R
Example: The room is dark, John needs much light (S) and asks to George to switch the lamp on (r). This new language stimulus, George’s hearing John (s) leads to his action (R) of switching the lamp on.
Seven Types of Meaning
A part of language conveys its dictionary meaning, connotations beyond the dictionary meaning, information about the social context of language use, and speaker’s feelings and attitudes. Further discussion, ‘meaning’ means the sum total of communicated through language. Words, phrases and sentences have meanings which are studies in semantics. Geoffrey Leech in his Semantic- A Study of meaning (1974) divides meaning into seven types. The seven types of meaning according to Leech are:
1) Conceptual or Logical Meaning
Conceptual meaning is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is the literal meaning of the word indicating the idea or concept to which it refers. Conceptual meaning is the basic propositional meaning which corresponds to the primary dictionary definition. Such a meaning is stylistically neutral and objective as opposed to other kinds of associative meanings. Leech stated that conceptual meaning has sophisticated organization based on the principle of contrastiveness and hierarchical structure.
At the lexical level, conceptual meaning is represented as a set of distinctive features. For example, the operant features for “woman” are [human], [male], [adult]. The application of these features uses a binary notation where the value of a feature is specified as either positive [+], negative [-], or neutral [±].
Examples of conceptual meaning:
“woman” can be described as +human -male +adult
“hen” can be described as -human -male ±adult +wings
Conceptual meaning deals with the core meaning of expression. It is the denotative or literal meaning. It is essential for the function of language. For example, a part of the conceptual meaning of “needle” may be “thin”, “sharp” or “instrument”.
The purpose of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic representation to a sentence or statement. Conceptual meaning helps us to distinguish one meaning from the meaning of other sentences. A language essentially depends on conceptual meaning for communication. So, it can be said that conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning.
The next five types of meaning are grouped under the umbrella of assosiative meaning: connotative meaning, social/stylistic meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, and collocative meaning. Associative meaning describes a group of six modes of language usage, which draw on certain mental connections. All these five types of meaning have more in common with connotative than conceptual meaning. They all have the same open ended, variable character and can be analyzed in terms of scales or ranges (more/less) than in either or contrastive terms.
2) Connotative Meaning
Connotative meaning is the communicative value of an expression over and above its purely conceptual content. It is something more than the dictionary meaning (lexical/logical meaning). The purely conceptual content of “woman” is +human +female +adult but the psychosocial connotations could be ‘gregarious’, ‘having maternal instinct’ or typical (rather than invariable) attributes of womanhood such as ‘babbling’, ‘experienced in cookery’, ‘skirt or dress wearing’. Still further connotative meaning can embrace putative properties of a thing due to viewpoint adopted by individual, group, and society as a whole. Thus, in the past woman was supposed to have attributes like frail, prone to tears, emotional, irrigational, inconstant , cowardly etc. as well as more positive qualities such gentle, sensitive, compassionate, hardworking etc. Connotations vary age to age and society to society.
Examples:
connotations of the word “woman” = soft, caring, gregarious, having maternal instinct, skirt or dress wearing, etc.
connotations of the word “man” = powerful, egoism, strong, brief, etc.
The boundary between conceptual and connotative looks to be analogous. Connotative meaning is regarded as incidental, comparatively unstable, in determinant, open ended, variable according to age, culture and individual, whereas conceptual meaning is not like that . It can be codified in terms of limited symbols.
3) Social Meaning
Social meaning is the meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social context of language use. The interpretation of a text is dependent on our knowledge of stylistics and other variations of language. We recognize some words or pronunciation as being dialectical that is as telling us something about the regional or social origin of the speaker. Social meaning is related to the situation in which an utterance is used.
Social meaning is concerned with the social circumstances of the use of a linguistic expression. For example, some dialectic words inform us about the regional and social background of the speaker. In the same way, some stylistic usages let us know something of the social relationship between the speaker and the hearer.
Examples:
“I ain’t done nothing”.
The line tells us about the speaker and that is the speaker is probably a black American, underprivileged and uneducated.
Stylistic variation represents the social variation. This is because styles show the geographical region social class of the speaker. Style helps us to know about the period, field and status of the discourse. Some words are similar to others as far as their conceptual meaning is concerned. But they have different stylistic meaning.
For example:
Steed, horse and nag are synonymous. They all mean a kind of animal, that is horse. But they differ in style and so have various social meaning:
steed = used in poetry
horse = used in general
nag = slang
The word “home” can have many use:
domicile = official
residence = formal
abode = poetic
home = ordinary use
The word “teacher”, in the past had meaning as person who gives/shares their knowledge. However, today, in logical or real meaning, it means person who works as teacher in an institutionary.
The illocutionary force of an utterance also can have social meaning. According to the social situation, a sentence may be uttered as request, an apology, a warning or a threat, for example, in the sentence “I haven’t got a knife” has the common meaning in isolation. However, this sentence uttered to waiter mean a request for a knife.
4) Affective or Emotive Meaning
Some linguists describe it as emotive association or effects of words evoked in the reader or listener. It is what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker or writer towards the listener or reader. Some feelings or attitudes are usually negative or insincere in nature. They are normally expressed through such forms of language use as insults, flattery, hyperbole or sarcasm.
In affective meaning, language is used to express personal feelings or attitude to the listener or to the subject matter of his discourse. Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of the words used.
Examples: “You are a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobation and I hate you” Or “I hate you, you idiot”.
Here speaker seems to have a very negative attitude towards his listener. This is called affective meaning.
However, very often we are more discreet (cautious) and convey our attitude indirectly.
Example: “I am terribly sorry but if you would be so kind as to lower your voice a little”
Intonation and voice quality are also important here.
For example: when we ask somebody to open the door = “Would you open the door?” (in this term we use low intonation)
Words like darling, sweetheart or hooligan, vandal have inherent emotive quality and they can be used neutrally. I.A. Richards argued that emotive meaning distinguishes literature or poetic language from factual meaning of science. Finally it must be noted that affective meaning is largely a parasitic category. It overlaps heavily with style, connotation and conceptual content.
5) Reflected Meaning
It is what is communicated through assosiation with another sense of the same expression. At the lexical level of language, reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning or multiple conceptual meaning. In some cases while responding to one sense of the word we partly respond to another sense of the word too. One sense of the word seems to rub off on another especially through relative frequency and familiarity.
In poetry, we have reflected meaning as in the following lines:
Are limbs so dear achieved, are sides
The writer here uses ‘dear’ in the sense of ‘expensiveness’. But, the sense of beloved is also avoided.
The could not but be gay in such jocund company
The word ‘gay’ was frequently used in the time of William Wordsworth but the word now is used for ‘homosexuality’.
Other example occurs in the word ‘bird’ is usually used as the name of an animal. However, it also can be used as ‘man’ and ‘freedom’.
In some type cases of multiple meaning, one meaning of the word pushes the other meaning to the background. Then the dominant suggestive power of that word prevails. This may happen because of the relative frequency or familiarity of the dominant meaning. This dominant meaning which pushes the other meaning at the background is called the reflected meaning.
6) Collocative Meaning
Collocative meaning is what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word. Words collocate or co-occur with certain words only, for example “big business” not large or great. Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words.
Examples:
The words ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’. However, they slightly differ from each other because of collocation or co-occurrence.
The word ‘pretty’ collocates with girls, woman, village, gardens, flowers, etc. On the other hand, the word ‘handsome’ collocates with boys, men, etc. so ‘pretty woman’ and ‘handsome man’. While different kinds of attractiveness, hence ‘handsome woman’ may mean attractive but in a mannish way. Other example also occur in the word phrase ‘short time’ and ‘short hair’.
Collocative meanings need to be invoked only when other categories of meaning don’t apply. Generalizations can be made in case of other meanings while collocative meaning is simply on idiosyncratic property of individual words. Collocative meaning has its importance and it is a marginal kind of category.
7) Thematic Meaning
It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus and emphasis .Thus, active is different from passive though its conceptual meaning is the same. Various parts of the sentence also can be used as subject, object or complement to show prominence. It is done through focus, theme (topic) or emotive emphasis. Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its implications properly. For example, the following statements in active and passive voice have same conceptual meaning but different communicative values.
Example:
1) Mrs. Smith donated the first prize
2) The first prize was donated by Mrs. Smith.
In the first sentence “who gave away the prize” is more important, but in the second sentence “what did Mrs. Smith gave is important”. Thus the change of focus changes the meaning also.
Alternative grammatical construction also gives thematic meaning.
For example:
1) He likes Indian good most.
2) Indian goods he likes most.
3) It is the Indian goods he likes most.
Like the grammatical structures, stress and intonation also make the message prominent. For example, the contrastive stress on the word ‘cotton’ in the following sentence give prominence to the information.
1. John wears a cotton shirt.
2. The kind of shirt that john wears is cotton one.
Dealing with communication through laguage means that there will be many interpreted meanings from what the speakers say. To avoid unexpected interpretation of meaning that the speakers convey to us, we should know the type of meaning. After the discussion above, we know that generally, there are seven types of meaning. They are conceptual or logical meaning, connotative meaning, social/stylistic meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, and thematic meaning.
sources:
Aitchison, J. 2003. Teach Yourself-Linguistics. London: Contemporary Books.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/329791/language/27171/Types-of-meaning
http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/lang/semantics.htm
http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/01/types-of-meaning.html
Should Smoking be banned in Restaurants?
Smoking bans has been debated since there are many countries ban smoking in public areas, such as in United States, Italy, and Turkey. It is not only in public areas such as hospital and public transportation, but also in private areas such as restaurants, bars, café which are the owners have their own right to rule their business place. People have their own right to choose. Perhaps, smoking should not be banned in public places because it is the smoker's choice to smoke just as it is the non-smokers choice not to smoke.
Most controversial debate is going on public smoking ban. There have been a lot of arguments brought up both in agree and against smoking bans. People against smoking bans say that freedom of choice would be affected by such legislation. They say that smoking bans damage business. A smoking ban could lead to a significant fall in earnings from bars, restaurants, and tobacco industries. The most effect of smoking ban at restaurant is the lower benefit gained by many restaurants and bars. According to research by Dave Kuneman, worked for 6 years in the 1980s as a research chemist, has shown that smoking bans damage bar and restaurant businesses 80% of the time. Further, other studies which find that smoking bans don’t damage business are odd because they use tax revenue and employment data to determine ban effects and fail to measure for a sufficient length of time before and after bans take effect.
On the other hand, Some of the arguments which are agree with smoking bans are based on medical reason. Smoking ban is one of the ways for reducing smoking and recognizing non-smokers' right to health protection. They also stated that passive smoking or second hand smoke does carry risks. The health situation could be significantly improved if one of the risk factors, that is tobacco, was eliminated.
However, Patrick Carroll, president of the Cincinnati, Ohio based Buckeye Liquor Permit Holders Association, states that too many places (bars and restaurants) are losing too much money and that some are even on the verge of closing their doors. Bar and restaurant owners are extremely upset because the ban is taking away their rights and sales are decreasing. Since the May 3rd ban, most Ohio bars’ sales are down 50%, and some even 70%.
In conclusion, smoker has a basic human right to smoke in public places and the ban is a limitation for smokers' rights. Smokers light a cigarette because they need to smoke, not because they want it. So, it is not fair if smoking should be banned in public places. It is the smoker's choice to smoke just as it is the non-smokers choice not to smoke. In my opinion as non-smoker, I realize that smoking is not good for health; however I cannot ask people to stop smoking when it is occurred at public areas, especially at restaurant. It will be better for me to move than disturb someone’s right.
(taken from many sources)
Most controversial debate is going on public smoking ban. There have been a lot of arguments brought up both in agree and against smoking bans. People against smoking bans say that freedom of choice would be affected by such legislation. They say that smoking bans damage business. A smoking ban could lead to a significant fall in earnings from bars, restaurants, and tobacco industries. The most effect of smoking ban at restaurant is the lower benefit gained by many restaurants and bars. According to research by Dave Kuneman, worked for 6 years in the 1980s as a research chemist, has shown that smoking bans damage bar and restaurant businesses 80% of the time. Further, other studies which find that smoking bans don’t damage business are odd because they use tax revenue and employment data to determine ban effects and fail to measure for a sufficient length of time before and after bans take effect.
On the other hand, Some of the arguments which are agree with smoking bans are based on medical reason. Smoking ban is one of the ways for reducing smoking and recognizing non-smokers' right to health protection. They also stated that passive smoking or second hand smoke does carry risks. The health situation could be significantly improved if one of the risk factors, that is tobacco, was eliminated.
However, Patrick Carroll, president of the Cincinnati, Ohio based Buckeye Liquor Permit Holders Association, states that too many places (bars and restaurants) are losing too much money and that some are even on the verge of closing their doors. Bar and restaurant owners are extremely upset because the ban is taking away their rights and sales are decreasing. Since the May 3rd ban, most Ohio bars’ sales are down 50%, and some even 70%.
In conclusion, smoker has a basic human right to smoke in public places and the ban is a limitation for smokers' rights. Smokers light a cigarette because they need to smoke, not because they want it. So, it is not fair if smoking should be banned in public places. It is the smoker's choice to smoke just as it is the non-smokers choice not to smoke. In my opinion as non-smoker, I realize that smoking is not good for health; however I cannot ask people to stop smoking when it is occurred at public areas, especially at restaurant. It will be better for me to move than disturb someone’s right.
(taken from many sources)
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