THREE
PERSPECTIVE OF MEANING
Thematic Meaning
It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the
message in terms of ordering focus and emphasis .Thus active is different from passive though its
conceptual meaning is the same. Various parts of the sentence also can be used as subject, object
or complement to show prominence. It is done through focus, theme (topic) or emotive emphasis.
Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its implications properly. For example,
the following statements in active and passive voice have same conceptual meaning but different
communicative values. For the example :
· She read the book in the library
· The book is read by her in the library
Conceptual meaning
Is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is the basic propositional meaning which corresponds to
the primary dictionary definition. Such a meaning is stylistically neutral and objective as opposed to other kinds
of associative meanings.
·
For example, a part of the
conceptual meaning of ‘Needle” may be “thin”, “sharp” or “instrument”.
The
organization of conceptual meaning is based on two structural principles-
Contrastiveness and the principle of structure. The conceptual meanings can be
studied typically in terms of contrastive features.