Approaches to the Study of Semantics

Approaches to the Study of Semantic

Traditional semantics .

Traditional semantics is associated with the works of such great philosophers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as well as many others who came after them. Their main focus was on the nature of human language itself. Based on their views of the nature of human language, these early philosophers were divided into two – the naturalists and the nurturists.

To the naturalists, language was God-given such that there was hardly anything anybody could do to understand language. Man was not expected to make alterations,butu should concern himself with merely observing and describing the rules of language. The Greek language was perceived to be the chosen language upon which all other languages should be based. Later, Latin became the focus of philosophical analysis.

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Example:

We can use minang languge, indonesian language and english language, etc. We can observasi and describe the rules of these languageand learn grammatical and struktural the language.

The nurturists, on the other hand, viewed language as a social property common to a speech community. Language was therefore perceived to be man’s creation for he convenience of communication. Thus, in spite of difference in languages, the uniting point is that they are all for communication. 

Traditional semantics was also concerned with the relationship between form and meaning. The meaning of a word was considered as what it refers to. This view has also been shared by Ogden and Richards (1923). There have also been later scholars who believed that the image of a word tahes shape in the speaker’s or hearer’s mind. Another major view of traditional semantics is that the meaning of a word can be decoded from its shape or sound. Words in this category are onomatopoeic. The major ideas in traditional semantics are reference, concepts, truth condition etc.

Behavioral Semantics 

Behaviorism is a systematic approach to the understanding of human and animal behavior. It assumes that all behavior are either reflexes produces by a response to certain stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual’s history, including especially reinforcement and punishment, together with the individual’s current motivational state and controlling stimuli.

The external environment is perceived to be the major stimulus to all human utterance. The stimulus-response scenario is synonymous with the cause and effect connection in most natural situations. Those who favour the behavioural approach to semantics have argued that by reducing meaning to observable entities, language, as an aspect of human favour can lend itself to examination. They also argue that meaning is influenced by reinforcement. The theory stresses nurture rather than nature. Thus, the physical environment is perceived to contribute to meaning rather than the internal thought processes. Though behaviourism tends to lend meaning to experimental explanation, it has been criticized for its rejection of introspection, concepts and ideas. It is not everything in language that can be observed physically. The over-reliance on reinforcement tends to present animal and human behavior as identical.

Example : 

A man have a pet, its a cat. Usually , cat eat at 9 am and when the ring bell. Cause was habitual, every the alarm goes off, the cat know the time is eat. 

Structural Semantics 

focuses on the process of segmenting and classifying the features of utterances. Structural processes are useful in lexical relations in the study of words.

Structural Semantics is Relationships between the meanings of terms within a sentence. How meaning can be composed from smaller elements. Meaning are divided into smaller structural units via its regulation in concrete social interactions. Outside of these interactions language may become meaningless

Structuralism is Wide range of discourses . Study underlying structures of signification. Signification occurs wherever there is a practice of. Meaningful events  OR Meaningful actionsmight include any of following Writing or reading a text, Getting married, Having a discussion over a cup of coffee, A battle, Meaningful events involve Either a document or an exchange. According to structuralism, Meaning is not a private experience. As Husserl thought,  It is a product of a shared system of signification

Example :

 i play football in garden (present)

I played football in garden (past)

The two sentences have different strultural dan different meaning, so the struktural of sentence influence in meaning of the sentences. 

Generative Semantics

Generative sematics views that knowledge of language is generated in the mind. Noam Chomsky is the father of generative grammar. According to the theory of transformational generative grammar, knowledge of language is generated in the mind. A language user has a finite set of rules from which he can generate an infinite number of sentences. This power of generations is facilitated by the power of transformational rules which convert deep structure sentence types into other various forms via transformations. At the beginning of Chomsky’s generative grammar, there was the assertion that syntax was autonomous and independent of semantics. It was only later in Aspects of the theory of Syntax (1965) that Chomsky pointed out that the semantic component specifies the rules necessary for the interpretation of deep structures. This observation enhanced the semantic representation of sentences. Deep structures specify the original meaning of sentences before the application of transformationsA language user has a finite set of rules from which he can generate an infinite number of sentences. This is facilitated by the power of transformational rules which convert deep structure sentence types into other various forms via transformations. Generative semantics would be concerned with sentence meaning and interpretation.