A Semantic Study on the Perception of EFL Learners of Conceptual versus Associative Meaning

Abstract

Meaning is the heart of language and it is its ultimate purpose; without the capacity to express meaning language is rendered as sequences of sounds or letters, and only when those sounds are judged capable of having a meaning do they qualify as language. Perceiving meaning does not solely depend on scrutinizing the literal sense of words, but it also comprises recognizing the meaning beyond language. From here, it can be inferred that when tackling meaning of utterances, two perspectives must be rendered: conceptual meaning, the literal or the core sense of a word also referred to as the denotative meaning and the associative meaning, which refers to aspects of the meaning that do not contribute to the denotation or concept of an expression and that do not change the range of possible referents (Murphy & Koskela, 2010). As a matter of fact, though English as foreign language learners, at the Lebanese University, do relish a wide vocabulary bank, and do know many of the words’ meanings they encounter throughout their studies, they are, unfortunately, incapable of transferring their linguistic competence into semantic perception of comprehending the stylistic connotations of what they read. This can be traced to Lebanese University students’ unawareness of the stylistic features of discourse which, in turn, is rendered as an impediment obstructing language processing. In this respect, via a comprehensive questionnaire, the study is meant to reflect a practical investigation on the perception of post graduates preparing for their master’s degree in English at the Lebanese University, fifth branch, of stylistic features of words. The results depicted that stylistic features are not well perceived by EFL learners. Implications and recommendations for teachers, students, and curriculum designers were offered in the light of the study’s findings.