Seven Types of Meaning

1. Conceptual meaning
Also called denotative or congnitive meaning, is the central factor in linguistic
communication;
It has a complex and sophisticated organization, similar to phonological and syntatic
organization: principal of contrastiveness and structure.
Contrastive features: classify the characteristics in positively (features it possesses), and
negatively (implies features it doesnt possess);
Structure features: linguistic units are made by smaller units, through a hierarchy.

2. Connotative meaning
It is the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and
above its purely conceptual content;
The features of a word provide a criterion of the correct use of it, that is translate into
real worls terms, become attributes to which the worss refers to (referent);
Connotative meaning vary to age, society, culture, etc;

3. Social meaning
It has to do with the situation in which an utterance takes place, the social meaning is
the part of the speech that we recognize by the social circumstances of its use (slangs,
pronunciation, dialectal, geographic and social aspects, hierarchy, status, etc)
Vary according to: Dialect (geographic and social variation); Time ( historical variation);
Province (language of law, of science,etc); Status (formal and informal); Modality
( language of memoranda, lecture, jokes, etc); Singularity (the styles of something or
someone);
4. Affective meaning
Also has to do with situation in which an utterance takes place, affective meaning refers
to emotive association or effects of words evoked in the listener;
It is conveyed about the personal feeling and attiture of the speaker trough use of
language towards the listener
Its often conveyed through the conceptual or connotstive contrnt of the words use,
making ambiguous the speakers feeling;
The tone of voice factors, like intonation and voice-timbre are also important;

5. Reflected meaning
It involves interconnection on the lexical level of a language;
Reflected meaning is the meaning that arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning;
senses connection;

6. Collocative meaning
It also refers to interconnection on the lexical level of a language;
It consistis of the associations a aquires on account of the meaning of words which tend
to occur im its environment; (synonymous)

7. Thematic meaning
 It the way that a speaker or writer organizes the message, in terms of ordering, focus,
and emphasis.
Thematic meaning is mainly a matter of choice between alternative grammatical
construction.
Thus active is different from passive though its conceptual meaning is the same, the
order of the message convey what is important and what is not.

REFERENCE

LEECH, Geoffrey. Seven types of meaning. 1981. pp. 9-23.