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A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation. A connotation is frequently described as either positive or negative, with regard to its pleasing or displeasing emotional connection. [ 1 ]
Some people consider it best to use person-first language, for example "a person with a disability" rather than "a disabled person." [1] However identity-first language, as in "autistic person" or "deaf person", is preferred by many people and organizations. [2] Language can influence individuals' perception of disabled people and disability. [3]
Politicians employ euphemisms, [11] and study how to use them effectively: which words to use or avoid using to gain political advantage or disparage an opponent. . Speechwriter and journalist Richard Heller gives the example that it is common for a politician to advocate "investment in public services," because it has a more favorable connotation than "publ
Proper use of emotive conjugation provides words that are synonymous in their factual definitions, but different in their emotional connotation. While most examples are in triads, emotive conjugation can be used with a single subject. Examples of emotive conjugation include: I am sparkling; you are unusually talkative; he is drunk. [5]
An example given by John Sinclair is the verb set in, which has a negative prosody: e.g. rot (with negative associations) is a prime example of what is going to 'set in'. [1] Another well-known example is the verb sense of cause , which is also used mostly in a negative context (accident, catastrophe, etc.), [ 2 ] though one can also say that ...
Two of them also use emphasis to make the meaning clearer. The last example is a popular example of a double negative that resolves to a positive. This is because the verb 'to doubt' has no intensifier which effectively resolves a sentence to a positive. Had we added an adverb thus: I never had no doubt this sentence is false.
French semiotician Roland Barthes used signs to explain the concept of connotation—cultural meanings attached to words—and denotation—literal or explicit meanings of words. [2] Without Saussure's breakdown of signs into signified and signifier, however, these semioticians would not have had anything to base their concepts on.
"On Denoting" is an essay by Bertrand Russell.It was published in the philosophy journal Mind in 1905. In it, Russell introduces and advocates his theory of denoting phrases, according to which definite descriptions and other "denoting phrases ... never have any meaning in themselves, but every proposition in whose verbal expression they occur has a meaning."