Essay On Connotative Meaning

Connotative meaning is the non-literal and associative meaning that a word or phrase has in addition to its central meaning. This part of meaning shows people's emotions and attitudes towards what the word or phrase refers to. For example, the denotative meaning of the word "child" could be as 'a young human being', but it can be associated with, e.g. affectionate, amusing, lovable, sweet, and grubby (Richards and Schmidt, 2010: 118). According to Leech (1981: 12), this type of meaning is beyond the denotative meaning of words. It represents the broad meaning of a word. It is broader than the literal and primary meaning of a word and is often acquired through frequent associations (Trask, 2007: 51). Mwihaki (2004:133) illustrates that connotative meaning varies considerably according to factors such as culture, historical period, social class, and the experience of a speaker or group of speakers. In this case, connotative meaning can be described as coincidental to language rather than an …show more content…
In this way, one can respond to one sense of the lexical item and at the same time respond to the other sense of it. For example, in church service, there are two synonymous expressions 'The Comforter' and 'The Holy Ghost'. These two expressions refer to the Third Person in Trinity. They are religious words, but they can be used in non-religious texts too. In non-religious texts, 'The Comforter' looks warm and good, while 'The Ghost' sounds scary. The dominant meaning of the word 'Ghost' is scary and dreadful. This dominant meaning excludes the nice meaning. The other meaning of 'Ghost' is called reflective