Do autistics have a problem with semantics?
Or, do we get tripped up when a speaker confuses connotation and denotation?
Semantics refers to both the differentiations that people make about the meanings of words, and the linguistic sub-field that studies the construction of meaning in words. The linguistic study of semantics is concerned with words as signs, or things that represent concepts. Semantics can impact all sorts of things, including how people communicate, reading comprehension, and interpretations of texts. There are three main kinds of semantics:
Literary works often rely on semantic ambiguity. The best way to determine whether a word is being used figuratively or literally is to look at the context, or the text surrounding the word which gives it much of its meaning. Another important element of semantics is nuance, or the shades of meaning in a word.
To that end, the Indiana Resource Center for Autism notes that “People with autism have problems with abstract and conceptual thinking.” What they’re really saying is that people often don’t mean what they say, shade their language, or are deliberately ambiguous … and they blame autistic people for not being able to understand what’s being said.
With this in mind, I thought to do an info-dump on semantics in the hope that we can all agree to say what we mean and mean what we say … making communication more clear for everyone.
Semantics Definition
What does semantics mean? There are actually two different definitions of semantics that apply in different contexts. In daily life, semantics is a term used to describe the differentiations that people have between the meanings of words. Semantics is also a formal term for a branch of linguistics that is concerned with studying how meaning is constructed and communicated in written or spoken language. Both of these senses of the word are important and connected to one another. Semantics can help determine how people interpret a text, individual reading comprehension, and how people communicate with each other.
Semantics Meanings: Formal, Lexical, and Conceptual
Semantic meaning can be studied at several different levels within linguistics. The three major types of semantics are formal, lexical, and conceptual semantics.
Formal Semantics
Formal semantics is the study of the relationship between words and meaning from a philosophical or even mathematical standpoint. This branch of semantics is concerned with the truth of utterances and how that truth is determined. Rather than interpreting real-world examples, formal semantics is concerned with creating models of potential linguistic utterances and examining them to determine their semantic relationships. It is unusual for people to engage in the study of formal semantics outside of the broader study of linguistics.
Lexical Semantics
Lexical semantics is what many people are describing when they talk about semantics in general. It is the study of the meaning of individual words, especially in the context of things like metaphor and other literary devices that can alter the meanings of words and phrases. Lexical semantics takes into account things like context, or the text surrounding a word that gives it a particular meaning, and nuance, or shades of meaning in a word.
Conceptual Semantics
Conceptual semantics is all about the dictionary definition of a word before any context is applied. What concepts are words connected to? How does meaning get assigned to those words? How do meanings change over time? These are all questions asked in conceptual semantics. In linguistics, a word that represents a concept is usually referred to as a sign. The study of signs is most applicable to conceptual semantics.
Semantics Types: Connotation vs Denotation
Two important concepts when it comes to semantics are connotation and denotation. The denotation of a word is the dictionary definition. This is also known as the literal meaning of a word. Consider the word ''mansion.'' The denotation of the word is a large house, usually impressive in its scale.
Connotation, on the other hand, is a word's figurative meaning or the additional layers of meaning that many people associate with a word beyond its dictionary definition. For instance, the word “mansion” might carry connotations of wealth and opulence. Figuratively, an objectively small dwelling might be referred to as a mansion if it feels subjectively large: “The apartment only had two bedrooms, but it was a mansion compared to their old place.” In other contexts, “mansion” might carry the connotation of being haunted, run-down, or overgrown.
When studying semantics, it is important to take both denotation and connotation into account to get a full picture of what a word means, both objectively and in context.
Semantics Examples in Everyday Life
Semantics comes up in everyday life for many different reasons. Each semantics example listed here relies on ambiguity of meaning to create different possibilities for interpretation:
Words like ''run'' can have different meanings in context: a person can run, a refrigerator can run, and paint can run.
Bear spray and mosquito spray sound similar but have different applications: bear spray should be sprayed on a bear, while mosquito spray should be sprayed on a person.
Saying that someone is charming can be sincere, or it can be sarcastic depending on the person's behaviour and demeanour.
It can be very easy to mistake someone's meaning when situations are sufficiently semantically ambiguous; indeed, many romantic comedies, mysteries, and other films rely on just this kind of ambiguity to create a lot of their conflict.
Significance of Semantics
Many of us non-verbal autistics struggle with language. Some are able to grow into it through a great amount of practice and struggle. Others simply can’t. For those of us that are able to learn, the more fluent we get in a language, the deeper understanding of words and their meaning we need. Knowing only one meaning of a word becomes limiting and inefficient. Words have conceptual, connotative, collocative, affective, stylistic, and other meanings. Let's take a look at each:
Conceptual meaning, also called cognitive, denotative, or primary, is the first meaning that will pop up in our mind when we see a word in isolation.
Connotative meaning varies according to age, culture, or individual experience; it conveys feelings and emotions related to the word. For example, ''white'' may have a positive connotation in Western societies because it is associated there with light, purity, and innocence. Yet, elsewhere, it may have a negative connotation when dealing with concepts like race, privilege, and colonialism.
Stylistic meaning reflects the social situation. For example, the news on TV won't sound the same as when your best friend recaps what was announced.
Affective meaning conveys the individual feelings and attitudes of the speaker, such as politeness, irritation, and sarcasm. Tone and intonation help communicate affective meaning.
Collocative meaning refers to word ''partnerships'' that always co-occur together and must remain the same. Replacing any word with a synonym affects the meaning. Examples of collocative pairs are ''right on time,'' ''draw attention,'' and ''big deal.''
Semantics Examples in Literature
Semantics are very often used in literature, where words can take on a literal or figurative meaning. Looking at the context for a word or phrase is usually the best way to determine if a literal or figurative meaning is being used in a given instance. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, ''What It Looks Like to Us and the Word We Use'' by Ada Limón, and ''Having 'Having a Coke with You' with You'' by Mark Leidner all feature interesting examples of semantics.
William Shakespeare
One of the most famous passages in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare features Juliet talking about semantics as she wonders how she and Romeo will ever be able to be together given how much their families hate each other:
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
When Juliet says “That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet,” what she is saying is that all this talk of names and titles is useless semantics in her eyes: what is important is Romeo and what he is like as a person regardless of his family.
Ada Limón
The middle section of Ada Limón's poem “What It Looks Like to Us and the Words We Use” involves two people discussing their views of the universe and God:
I think of that walk in the valley where
J said, You don't believe in God? And I said,
No. I believe in this connection we all have
to nature, to each other, to the universe.
And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there,
low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,
and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets,
woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so.
The two people in this section of the poem are experiencing the same concept: a feeling of connection to nature, each other, and the universe. For one of them, this experience is semantically consistent with her idea of God. For the other, the concepts are distinct. They do not define this concept in the same way, so there is a gap in their ability to communicate about it.
Mark Leidner
In “Having 'Having a Coke with You' with You,” Mark Leidner heavily references the poem “Having a Coke with You” by Frank O’Hara. The speaker of Leidner's poem is on a walk with a lover who recites O’Hara's poem in its entirety, to the surprise of the narrator. After finishing the recitation, the lover asks the speaker a question:
as soon as you finished you started to talk about how
you used to think that that poem was just about how
liberatingly banal being in love with someone was
but then you said you'd started to think more recently
it was more about the idiocy of caring about art at all
when you could spend all that energy caring about someone
you loved instead, and you said you were wondering where
I stood on that question now that I had heard the poem.
The lover in the poem is asking a question about the semantics of O’Hara's poem, offering two potential interpretations. This is possible because “Having a Coke with You” is semantically ambiguous as so many poems are, allowing readers to interpret the meanings of the words in different ways and leading to many potential conclusions.
Conclusion
Language is complex. English, as a language, is a messy mash-up of dissimilar dead and nearly-dead old languages. When trying to communicate with another human, why deliberately try to be ambiguous? Why confuse? Why not just be direct? It’s a lot easier.
— December 16, 2023 Note —
Some of the materials herein have made it into my latest book, Holistic Language Instruction. It will be out in 2024 from Lived Places Publishing and available at major retailers.