Words can have meanings other than how they are used
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Linguistic and philosophical studies show that words can possess polysemous, symbolic, or contextual meanings that extend beyond their primary or direct usage.
This research paper aims to shed light on one of the Arabic-speaking EFL learners' lexical problems, concerning translating words used in context from English into Arabic. It focused on translating polysemous words when they are used both in their direct core and indirect secondary meanings. In order to investigate this problem, a translation test was administered to a sample comprised 28 male and female students studying English at the Faculty of Education- Yafea, University of Aden, Yemen. The test consisted of 10 English sentences used to collect quantitative data from the participants. Each five sentences tested one polysemous word (break and sound,). The meanings of the polysemous words in the first sentence in each five sentences is direct, core meaning; whereas their meanings in the other 4 sentences are indirect secondary meanings. Based on the results of the study, it was found that Arabic-speaking EFL learners were unable to a great extent to translate the words well, especially when those words were used in their indirect secondary meanings. Based on the results, this research suggested that polysemous words should be given much attention in ELT B.educational courses at all stages of English language learning and teaching because of students' drastic incompetence in understanding the different meanings of polysemous words.
Chinese language has many words containing a color related Chinese character. These words not simply indicate colors but also imply other meanings deriving from these colors. In China, colors often have symbolic meanings. The present paper discusses these social, cultural, and ideologieal meanings of colors used in Chinese language. 9 KJ00004671240
The New York Times is USA’s most popular digital news platform which can be accessed easier by people around the world. Due to many new words that can be combined to become compound words, it is interesting to see the compound words that are applied on the New York Times website. This study looked at the different the types and meanings of compound words used in the New York Times articles. The study describes the types of compound words with the theory proposed by Katamba (1993). Then, to analyze the meanings of compound words, the theory by Palmer (1991) was used. To achieve the objectives, descriptive qualitative methods were used in the study. The data were taken from the New York Times website. In collecting data, the documentation method with note-taking techniques was applied. From 58 data collected, the results showed that compound nouns become the most common types of compound words used in the articles with 33 compound words, followed by compound verbs with 13 compound words, and compound adjectives with 12 compound words. Referring to the meaning of compound words, there are 34 compound words with opaque meanings and 24 compound words with transparent meanings.
Does translation translate the meanings of words? The relationship between words and meanings is very complex. ‘Words, contexts, and purposes’ explains that there are many aspects of the meanings of words from propositional meaning and prototypes to expressive meaning and connotational meaning. Even within a language a word’s meanings shift as it is used in different circumstances; when it is translated into another language more radically different meanings will appear. Words need to be placed in context and the purpose of the translation is crucial too. Purpose influences what particular kind of freedom or closeness a translation pursues.
Symbolic meanings, which can be objects or words, can have varying meanings depending on the context. This research aims to determine the frequency of words containing the words "Water" and "Path" in the book of Proverbs and their symbolic meanings. Using qualitative methods and document analysis, the author compares the meanings of these words through context using Mishler's (1979) theory. In this research there are two problem formulations, namely 1) What is the frequency of words containing the words "Water" and "Path" in the book of Proverbs? 2) What are the symbolic meanings of the words "Water" and "Path" used in the book of Proverbs? The results show that the word "Water" appears 14 times and "Path" 13 times in the book of Proverbs, which often discusses sound guidance for individuals to make their path right and acceptable to God the Almighty. The research results can assist readers in understanding the meaning of these words when reading the book of Proverbs, a rare area of research on symbolic meanings.
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