DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

Words, as the smallest isolable and meaningful units of

speech and writing, literally denote different objects, actions,
qualities, phenomena, relations, states, existence, etc.
Thus, the word book (a noun) denotes the respective object,
to drink denotes an action (it is a verb from a grammatical point of
view), toward stands for a relation (it is a preposition), rare
expresses a quality (it is an adjective), etc.
The basic meanings of words are objective and impersonal in
the sense that the have been used for a long time as such by a large
group of indred people as a set of conventional signs to
communicate intelligibly among themselves.
Then by denotation we understand the objective, impersonal
and intelligible meaning of a word.
!any words, however, do not only denote, i.e. mar, indicate
or designate objects, actions, states, phenomena, etc., but they also
signify something in addition to the respective primary meaning, a
certain feeling which has been attached to it as a result of social
and personal experience. Thus a word denotes the indispensable
minimum of definition while a word connotes all of the attributes
which are not denoted but which are associated with it. The word
pig, for example, denotes a young swine of either sex. "t connotes
filth and gluttony and high#pitched squealing, the little pig of the
story that went to maret, the one that built his house of brics,
various characters in literature that have gone by that nicname,
and whatever else, in addition to its basic denotation, the word may
conjure up in the mind of one who hears or reads it. (cf. Dictionary
of Contemporary American Usage, $andom %ouse, &ew 'or,
()*+ by ,ergen -vans and .ornelia -vans)
Connotation, then, is the subjective, personal and emotive
implied meaning of a word. Words in general get their connotation
from social and personal experience.
"n the historical evolution of one society, as a result of
people/s common experience, certain definite feelings or attitudes
are generated about many objects, events and ideas, which feelings
and attitudes fuse organically with the basic denotations of the
respective words. Thus, a high school student may learn that
,rutus, .aesar/s favourite, was one of the plotters who illed
.aesar and then he will be able to grasp the connotation of the
possible expression 0he is a perfect ,rutus1, i.e. he is able to stab
one in the bac in spite of one/s complete trust in him.
2ersonal experience is also a main source of connotation. 3n
individual/s personal experience, negative or positive, with objects,
events and ideas can suggest to him connotations of these things
quite different from other people/s. Thus, the denomination 0anti#
communist revolution1 connotes different feelings with a member
of the former nomenclature and a genuine revolutionary.
3 miner will feel no revulsion at hearing the word rat
because miners encourage rats to populate their woring pits since
rats are oversensitive to iminent earthquaes and dangerous
accumulations of explosive gases and give it a run minutes before
the oncoming tragic event, thus enabling the miners to tae shelter.
4ishermen are also nown to tal highly of and loo up to
certain otherwise repulsive worms and flies on account of their
special qualities as bait, etc.
5ne can also spea of semantic connotations of a lexical unit,
its plurality of meanings or homonyms. "n the sentence6 It appears
that the new bank clerk had pocketed a large sum of the banks
money before he disppeared, the verb to pocket derived from the
noun pocket has a richer connotation than the verb to appropriate
or the phrase to takehold possession of, implying dishonesty and
grubbiness while suggesting the actual concrete action of
introducing money into one/s pocet.
The denotations and connotations of comparable words or
lexical units in different languages are of paramount importance.
While there is no difficulty in understanding the 0denoted1
meaning of a word such as boy (b7iat) in !oys will be boys etc.
both in -nglish and in $omanian one should also be aware that
0boy1 is also a 8outh 3frican derogative word to denote a ,lac
male servant and that a young negro in the 9.8.3. would not be
addressed to with 0boy1. Translators are often challanged with the
impossible tas of translating a context literally even if the
denotation of words poses no problem. 8uch is the case of the
-nglish noun ear which sounds highly poetical in ,yron:s/lines6
"hey name thee before me#
A knell to my ear. (,yron, $hen $e "wo %arted) # but in
$omanian translation 0ear1 would sound unpleasant6 ureche
rhyming with streche and implying a long series of semantic
associations such as6 a fi &ntr'o ureche# fudul de'o ureche# a purta
c(ciula pe'o ureche, etc.