Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Linh]

Hi,

Again, I have a question concerning semantics. This time it's about a component of word meaning.

Reflected meaning is described as one "which arises in cases of mutiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a word form part of our response to another sense". Then follows this example: "the 40th President of the US and the Great Communicator both refer to Ronald Reagan. The Great Communicator sounds better, and is more about Reagan's personality than his job."

Well, I don't really understand this. Could you analyse the example according to the definition of "reflected meaning" of a word? Thank you.

[Anuradha Chepur]

Reflected meaning is when one sense of a particular word affects the understanding and usage of other senses of the word.
For instance if one of the senses is too suggestive or taboo, it may haunt us in our response to the other senses, which may die out eventually. Now, gay also means happy and merry, but nowadays it is not used in this sense as it involves homosexuality.
There are other such words which have regular connotations too, in addition to the slang/obscene connotations they tend to get contaminated by.

Ronald Reagan is better known as the Great Communicator rather than as the 40th president of the USA. The former (which tells us about him) overshadows the latter (which tells us about his job) and makes it disused/less-used.

[Linh]

It's you again. Thank you so much! And I hope to continue to receive your help with more questions in the future