English semantics exercises

October 28, 2015 – 01:10 am

Teaching Semantic Meaning to English Students

Written by: Heather Marie Kosur • edited by: SForsyth • updated: 3/2/2012

Semantics is a subfield of linguistics that refers to the study of meaning in a language. This English lesson plan outlines how and what to teach English students about semantic meaning and includes a sample practice exercise for increasing understanding of this new concept.

Semantics

Begin the lesson on semantic meaning by defining the linguistic term "semantics." Offer several definitions for better understanding. For example, semantics is:

"the study of how meaning is generated in language." [1]

"the branch of linguistics which studies meaning in language." [2]

"in general, the study of the relationship between words and meanings.The field of semantics has three basic concerns: the relations of words to the objects denoted by them, the relations of words to the interpreters of them, and, in symbolic logic, the formal relations of signs to one another (syntax)." [3]

"is a subfield of the study of language which focuses on meaning. Semanticists examine how words, phrases and sentences combine in ways that are acceptable to language users, observing that appeals to grammaticality alone cannot explain these.The field also examines how sentences that are grammatically very different can nevertheless be semantically equivalent...and how language users can recognise ambiguity in sentences..." [4]

Semantics, therefore, is the study of meaning in a language including the relationship between words and referents, the relationship between words and language users, and the relationship between words and other words.