Denotative meaning and translation issues

This chapter is concerned with the two basic aspects of meaning: denotative meaning and connotative meaning. Denotative meaning , also known as cognitive’, ‘propositional’ or ‘literal’ is the dictionary meaning.

In fact, words may, and typically do, have more than one denotative meaning. The situation in which a word has more than one different and distinct denotative meaning – or more technically more than one sense – is known as polysemy

Polysemy can be illustrated by the word plain, which means: (i) ‘clear’ (as in ‘a plain sky’), (ii) ‘unadorned’ (as in ‘a plain paper bag’), and (iii) ‘obvious’ (as in ‘it’s a plain case of forgery’).

Homonymy: There are also problems in deciding between what constitutes two senses of a single word, and cases where two words happen to sound the same. This latter situation is known as homonymy An example of homonymy which is fairly frequently quoted is bank = ‘side of a river’ vs. bank = ‘institution for the investment and borrowing of money’

Typically dictionaries list polysemous words under single heads, separating what they regard as the distinct senses of a word by a semi-colon, and what are regarded as merely variants of a single sense by a comma.

Unfortunately, even dictionary definitions of words are not without their problems. Once words are put into a context, their denotative meanings become even more flexible. This makes it difficult to pin down the precise denotative meanings in any text of any complexity –whether they be literary or non-literary

This chapter will discuss three degrees of semantic equivalence – that is, how close given expressions are to having identical denotative meanings.  

Synonymy It is helpful to visualize denotative meanings as rectangles, because rectangles can represent intersections between categories. Rectangles are easier to manipulate, especially to show particular kinds of overlap.

In exploring correspondence between denotative meanings, it is these intersections that are most significant, because they provide a kind of measure of semantic equivalence

So, for instance, the expressions ‘my mother’s father’ and ‘my maternal grandfather’ may be represented as two separate circles. The two ranges of denotative meaning, however, coincide perfectly: that is, in every specific instance of use, ‘my mother’s father’ and ‘my maternal grandfather’ include and exclude exactly the same referents.

This exemplifies the strongest form of semantic equivalence: full synonymy: the two expressions are synonyms of one another.

Comparison of denotative meanings can also be made between expressions from two or more different languages. For example, ‘maternal uncle’ and خال cover exactly the same range of meanings and are therefore fully synonymous, as is seen in Figure 7.2: