A. Introduction—what does meaning mean?
To learn semantics, it’s important to know what the word means first. By
definition from the dictionary, Collins Cobuild, the meaning of word, expression, or
gesture is the thing or idea that it refers to or represents and which can be explained
using other words. More importantly, the meaning can also be divided into two
different types in the semantics field-- utterance meaning and sentence meaning.
Utterance meaning is the idea which speakers intend to convey to others while
sentence meaning is the expression that a sentence or word means literally. In daily
life, when people express their thinking and ideas through words, they may not
convey sentence meaning; instead, they try to show their real intention through words
which hide utterance meaning. Sentence meaning is very easy to understand by the
denotation of every single word while sorting out utterance meaning is more complex
due to different contexts and people. Wherever conversation is occurred, it is not very
hard to find some utterance meaning. The examples are as follows.
B. Example of utterance meaning
Out of daily conversation
1.「你是一個好人。」這句話最近年青人之間的用語。是用在女生回絕男生的示
愛。因為不好意思直接回拒男生的追求，只好對男生說「你是個好人。」但是背後的意思卻是說：「你真的是一個好人，但是我實在不喜歡你，不願意接受你的追求。」
2.「你黑掉了！」從字面上看來的意思當然就是指一個人身上髒掉了，但是另外也有被長官盯上的背後意義。
3. 「瞎掉了!」也是時下年輕人常用的流行語。當有人對你說「瞎掉了!」並不代表說你或某人的眼睛看不見了,而是說「你的行為讓人覺得丟臉。」Therefore, “Xia” means “lousy” but not “blind.”
4. 我們可以常聽到有人說某某人「吃了炸藥了!」。事實上,那個人不可能真的把炸藥吃了,他/她只是很生氣,到處發脾氣。
5. This example Eunice found when watching television. It is a talk show aiming to
comment some controversial issue. The two hosts and three guests are talking about
the death of the three-year-kindergarten boy who was left in the school bus whole day.
Because of the high temperature in this stuffy bus, he died of dehydration there. In
addition to the careless drivers and teacher, the hosts and guests also discussed the
unqualified bus. One of the hosts said, “Is it possible for the whole kindergarten to
buy those new and qualified buses and get rid of those old ones?” The question made
the other people laugh immediately. Then the other host said, “You are so cute!”
Everyone there and those people watching TV knew that the comment didn’t mean
the personality of the host asking question is cute or she looks cute. It is a sarcastic
comment. The underlying meaning (utterance meaning) of the sentence “you are so
cute” is “how innocent you are!” Most of people open a kindergarten for making
money not really for taking care of children. Now that they view their kindergarten as
a lucrative institution, they are businessmen not educators. They won’t do something
impairing their profit. Therefore, even though the school buses they use may be
harmful for children, based on the account of cost, they still don’t want to buy a new one.
6. Eunice also found an interesting example when she was in class. The classmate A
sitting next to her said in the middle of class, “I want to kill the teacher.” Because the
student A is not a killer, it is impossible for her to put the teacher to death. The only
thing she wanted to do is to complaint the teacher’s boring teaching style so sitting in
the class is like a torture for her and she hoped the class would finish as soon as
possible.
7. 阿嬷看到孫子漫畫一本接著一本的看,說: 「你好用功喔!」。其實阿嬷不是真的在讚美孫子認真唸書,而是想說如果孫子「看書也有像看漫畫依樣認真就好了。」
8. 朱自清在背影一文中提到, 「我那時真是太聰明了!」其實他是在挖苦自己那時真是太愚昧了, 不能了解父親愛護兒子的心意。
9. 胡適的媽媽對他說:「你沒有老子是一件多得意的事好用來說嘴!」其實他母親的意思是告誡胡適,沒有父親是一件悲傷的事,沒有必要到處宣揚。
C. Conclusion
From the previous examples, we all know that people use language not merely
for communication. The purpose of speaking, most of time, is beyond language itself.
When people say, “ Nice day!”, they don’t really want to talk about weather but do
some greeting or sometimes emphasize the opposed meaning. Discussing people’s
“playing with language” is the most interesting but time consuming subdivision of
semantics. For human beings with the gift of speaking, knowing how to use language
appropriately plays a very vital role in their daily life. Every human being needs to
learn the art of speaking to create their own unique personal speaking style.