El procés de combustió

Dickins et al (2002: 53) identify two different levels of meanings: denotative meaning and connotative meaning. Denotative meaning is that kind of meaning which is fully supported by ordinary semantic conventions, such as the convention that "window" refers to a particular kind of aperture in a wall of roof. To define a denotative meaning is to specify a 'range' covered by a word or phrase (in the relevant sense) in such a way that one knows what items are included in the range of category and what items are excluded'.

Baker (1992:13) points out that the denotative meaning (also termed propositional meaning) of a word or utterance arises from the relation between it and what is refers to or describes in a real or imaginary world, as conceived by the speakers of the particular language to which the word or utterance belongs. It is this type of meaning which provides the basis on which we can judge an utterance as true or false. For instance, the propositional meaning of shirt is ‘a piece of clothing worn on the upper part of the body’. It would be inaccurate to use shirt, under normal circumstances, to refer to a piece of clothing worn on the foot, such as socks.

Dickins et al (2002:52-3) state that "denotative meaning is a matter of categories into which a language divides the totality of communicative experience. For example, the denotative

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meaning of the word ' pencil' (in the relevant sense) consists in the fact that all over the world one may find similar objects that are included in the category of ' pencil' and of course all sorts of other objects that are excluded from it. Dickins et al (2002: 52) go on to say that even dictionary definitions of words are not without their problems. The reason for this is that they impose, by abstraction and crystallization of one or more core senses, a rigidity of meaning that words do not often show in reality, and partly because, once words are put into a context, their denotative meanings become even more flexible. These two facts make it difficult to pin down the precise denotative meanings in any text of any complexity. The more literary the text, the more this is so: but it is true even of the most soberly informative texts. Dickins, Hervey and Higgins go on to discuss three degree of semantic equivalence, "that is how close given expressions are to have identical denotative meanings" (Dickins et al 2002:52).

In the following sections, I will consider basic semantic relations which derive from denotative meaning – synonymy, hyperonymy-hyponymy, and semantic overlap – and the implications for the translation of these.

3.3.1 Synonymy

One may visualize denotative meanings as squares, because squares can represent intersections between categories. In exploring correspondence between denotative meanings, these intersections provide a measure of semantic equivalence. For instance, the expressions 'my mother's father' and 'my maternal grandfather 'my be represented as two separate sequences. The two ranges of denotative meaning 'my mother's father' and my maternal grandfather' include and exclude exactly the same referents. This can be visualized as sliding the two sequences on top of each other and finding that they are same size and cover one another exactly, as in Figure 3.1 (Dickins et al 2002).

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Figure 3.1

This exemplifies the strongest form of semantic equivalence, which is called full synonymy: the two expressions are synonyms of one another.

Dickins et al (2002:53-4) point out that the comparison of denotative meanings can also be made between expressions from two or more different languages. For example, 'maternal uncle' and the Arabic word ااخل xāl (in one sense of the word لااخ xāl) cover exactly the same range of meanings and are therefore fully synonymous, as in Figure 3. 2.

Figure 3.2 my maternal grandfather my mother's father my mother's father my maternal grandfather لاخ xaal maternal uncle لاخ xaal maternal uncle

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3.3.2 Hyperonymy-hyponymy

Dickins et al (2002: 54) argue that full synonymy is exceptional, both intralingually and interlingually. Even the nearest semantic equivalent for translating the denotative meaning of an ST expression usually falls short of being a full TL synonym, A single example of this kind of failure is provided by a comparison between ' uncle' in English and ماع camm ('paternal uncle') and لااخ xāl ('maternal uncle') in Arabic. Here the English term 'uncle' might be a typical translation equivalent of Arabic ماع ' camm ('paternal uncle') or لااخ xāl ('maternal uncle'). 'Uncle', in English lacks the technical associations of ' paternal uncle' and 'maternal uncle', and would therefore be preferred in many contexts in many contexts in translating ماع c

amm (paternal uncle') or لااخ xāl ('maternal uncle), regardless of the translation loss involved. From the point of view of denotative meaning, however, 'uncle' has a greater range of meanings than ماع camm (paternal uncle') or لااخ xāl ('maternal uncle'), since 'uncle' includes both paternal uncle and maternal uncle. Using sequences to represent ranges of denotative meaning, we can show the relationship between 'uncle' in English, and ماع camm ('paternal uncle') and لاخ xāl (' maternal uncle') in Arabic as in Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.3

The relationship between 'uncle' and ماع camm (paternal uncle'), and between 'uncle' and لااخ xāl ('maternal uncle') is known as hyperonymy-hyponymy. An expression with a wider, less specific, range of denotative meaning is a hyperonym (or superordinate) of one with a narrower and more specific meaning. Conversely, an expression with narrower, more specific

مع c amm لاخ xāl uncle

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range of denotative meaning is a hyponym of one with a wider meaning. Thus ماع camm ('paternal uncle') and لاخ xāl ('maternal uncle') are both hyponyms of 'uncle'.

Translating by a hyponym implies that a TT expression has a narrower and more specific denotative meaning than the ST expression. TT لااخ xāl ('maternal uncle') is more specific than ST 'uncle', adding particulars not present in the ST expression. Dickins, Hervey and Higgins call this particularizing translation, or particularization for short.

3.3.3 Semantic overlap

There is a third degree of semantic equivalence. Consider what the word ةذاتاسأ ustāḏah ('female university or college lecturer/female schoolteacher'), and its possible translation as ' teacher', have in common, as represented in Figure 3.4.

Figure 3.4

In Figure 3.4 the large rectangle represents the material the ST and TT have in common – i.e. that they both belong to the 'educator' semantic field. The small top left-hand rectangle represents what is omitted form the TT; whereas ST ustāḏah ('female university or college lecturer/female schoolteacher') specifies the femaleness of the 'instructor', TT 'teacher' does not make this specification. The small bottom right-hand rectangle represents what is added to the TT: whereas ST ustāḏah ('female university or collage lecturer/female schoolteacher’) does not specify the level of education in which the person works is a school and not a university or college. سأ ــــــــــ ت ــــــــــ ةذا ustādhah

female

male

(higher education) school

t e a c h e r

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3.3.4 Semantic disjunction

Cruse (1986:87) points out that in addition to denotative identity (synonymy ), denotative proper inclusion (hyperonymy-hyponymy) and denotative overlap, there is one other possible basic denotative relationship- that of disjunction. Consider Figure 3.5 in which class A and class B have no members in common.

Figure 3.5

A _B

Semantic disjunction (or, to use more precise terminology, denotative disjunction) happens when there are two denotative ranges which do not overlap (intersect) at all. An example of semantic disjunction in English is 'bachelor' vs. ' woman'. All bachelors are men (in fact, they are unmarried men); it is not possible, even in principle, to have a woman bachelor. For simplicity's sake, we will ignore in this discussion possible complications such as the fact that a man may also perhaps be a woman, e.g. if he is a hermaphrodite, or a man may become a woman, e.g. if he has a sex-change operation. For a rigorous treatment of the semantic relationship between 'man' (also 'bachelor') and 'woman', all such issues would need to be properly considered. For current purposes, we will assume that 'bachelor' and ' woman' really are semantically disjunct: no bachelors even in principle could be women', and no women even in principle could be bachelors. Taking ‘achelor' and 'woman' as an example, semantic disjunction can be represented as in Figure 3.6

Figure 3.6

(It would also be possible to draw Figure 3.6 with the two squares just touching, but this is not of particular interest. The different visual representation does not involve any difference in the semantic relationship being represented.).

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3.3.4.1 Antonymy

Form a linguistic point of view there are many different aspects to semantic disjunction. Antonymy is considered one of the most interesting, i.e. the situation in which one word means the opposite of another word (e.g. 'black' vs. 'white'). The two words in question are antonyms of one another. There are many different kinds of antonyms. Cruse (1986: 204) points out antonyms often have the following characteristics:

i. They are fully gradeable (most are adjectives; a few are verbs).

ii. Members of a pair denote a degree of some variable property such as length, speed, weight, accuracy, etc.

iii. when more strongly intensified, the members of a pair move, as it were , in opposite directions along the scale representing degrees of the relevant variable property. Thus, 'very heavy' and 'very light', for instance, are more widely separated on the scale of weight that 'fairly heavy' and 'fairly light'.

iv. the terms of a pair do not strictly bisect a domain: there is a range of values of the variable property, lying between those covered by opposed terms, which cannot be properly referred to by either term, As a result, a statement containing one member of an antonym pair stands in a relation of contrariety with the parallel statement containing the other term. Thus, 'it is long' and 'it is short' are contrary, not contradictory, statement.

Although antonymy is normally restricted to individual words in a single language, we can use antonymy to apply to phrases which are the opposite of one another, or a word which means the opposite of a phrase (and vice versa). Similarly, although antonymy is generally restricted to comparisons within a single language, we can, by extension, talk about words and phrases in different languages being antonyms of one another.