Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Connotation. 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]
Loaded language[ a] is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations. This type of language is very often made vague to more effectively invoke an emotional response and/or exploit stereotypes. [ 1][ 2][ 3] Loaded words and phrases have significant emotional implications and involve strongly positive ...
Clear counter-examples include words with positive connotations that regularly co-occur with negative words, for example ease, soothe, tackle. [5] In such cases, the words that follow such verbs are probably perceived as negative, but not the verbs themselves. Another debate concerns whether the term semantic/discourse prosody only relates to ...
Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction between sense and reference. Sense is given by the ideas and concepts associated with an expression while reference is the object ...
Literal and figurative language is a distinction that exists in all natural languages; it is studied within certain areas of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics. Literal language uses words exactly according to their direct, straightforward, or conventionally accepted meanings: their denotation.
v. t. e. In linguistics, the term lexis (from Ancient Greek: λέξις 'word') designates the complete set of all possible words in a language, or a particular subset of words that are grouped by some specific linguistic criteria. For example, the general term English lexis refers to all words of the English language, [ 1] while more specific ...
e. In semiotics, signified and signifier ( French: signifié and signifiant) are the two main components of a sign, where signified is what the sign represents or refers to, known as the "plane of content", and signifier which is the "plane of expression" or the observable aspects of the sign itself. The idea was first proposed in the work of ...
In diachronic (or historical) linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations, which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of ...