What Is Meaning? (1960s)

so you think you know what meaning is most people think that they know but when we study language closely we find that meaning is not as simple as we thought we begin to ask questions what exactly is mean what are the various kinds of me how does meaning come into existence we look for answers to these questions by exploring three kinds of meaning doated meaning conceptual meaning and evocative mean in the book of Genesis one of Adam's first tasks was to give names to all cattle through the fowl of the air to every beast of the field today we're still naming the things brought us but sometimes we have trouble see that horse most people see it this way but what a child is likely to remember seeing is this a something with four legs consequently when he sees this another something with four legs and calls it a horse he's bewildered when his father says no but when he sees this animal again and his father says there's a horse things begin to fall into place this something with four legs is different from this one here we have the problem of naming of recognizing a thing for what it is and finding the name which most people will apply to it many words like horse name things in the case of the word horse the word stands for the actual animal or the word Cree stands for actual objects like this thus one kind of meaning which a word may have lies in the thing or things to which the word refers this kind of meaning we call denotative meaning the word building for example names this and this or this automobile names this and this believe it or not but all words whether they name things or not stand for ideas ideas which exist in our minds and which are not things to be observed and named for instance molecule stands for an abstract concept which people who understand the word can carry about in their head this abstract idea if we more or less logically attach to a word constitutes a second kind of meaning conceptual when we were trying to form a concept which would enable us to recognize a horse to the idea of four-legged something we have to add the idea of a flowing tail strong legs solid h a m a long cylindrical head a glossy shired coat and the idea of size and strength these ideas taken together form a fairly accurate concept of what constitutes a horse the idea will remain in the mind so that we can use the word horse and understand it whether we happen to be where an actual horse is or not all words stand for ideas these ideas are a kind of meaning we call conceptual meaning when we formulate the conceptual meaning of a word to ourselves or to others we make up the sort of thing we call a definition thus the conceptual meaning of the word building could be expressed as a fixed structure with walls and roofs or the conceptual meaning which we give to the word automobile should be embodied in these words but besides being associated with ideas words always produce additional responses in our minds a third kind of evocative consisting of the sense imag the emotion the attitude which the word makes us feel the word democracy can call to mind the speakers and Crow the excitement the beating of drums the sounds of band the shows the tension C [Music] the word democracy May remind us of the serious responsibility of voting it may recall the Dignity of our government and of Lincoln's words about democracy the evocative meaning of a word then may be very complex to it belong all the pictures and other sense images which a word evokes in our imagination for the evocative meaning includes the feelings and the Motions of the word awaken to evocative meaning belongs our sense of the appearance and sound of the word itself elephant we anti deluvian beat bag never yes hierarchy all these particular responses which a word can produce are quite distinct from the conceptual meaning the abstract idea for which the word stands we get this kind of meaning from experience rather than from reason from living rather than some think we have seen horses we've heard the sounds of their H our experience has Associated sound images and pictures with the word for then do the feelings which we had when we were in the presence of the horse perhaps of pleasures and excitement perhaps of anxiety and distrust are related to word horse may be recalled by it but in addition to all this experience with hor other events May Be Associated of the more particular experience of the horse in such a way as to add to the evocative connotation of the word the S of the field where we saw the an the light of the SK the work going on about the farm the look of the fine building the other sounds in the place all these may now be evoked by that simple syllable the evocative meaning of every word grows out of our experience experience which is always changing adding to or canceling out the evocative responses with the word you produce the evocative meanings of a word may be extremely complex involving many images some of them inconsistent sometimes we see water like this but at other times water wears a very different aspect both experience that with a gentle brook and that with a Mighty Sea become part of the evocative connotations of the word water but despite these complications or perhaps rather because of it it is the evocative meaning of language its ability to Kindle our imagination to make us see and hear feel and judge it makes words something more than mechanical symbols for abstract ideas or verbal arrows pointing a things so in our dealing with words we must recognize three kinds of meaning there is denotative meaning the things which words name there isal meaning the idea which the word brings to mind the meaning which we can express by drawing up a definition and there is a bucket all the images feelings attitudes and value judgments which a word awakens in our imagination there are many complexities to the problem of meaning but here is at least a preliminary answer to the question what is meaning