SEMANTICS ANALYSIS IN THE BANNER “LIFE WAS MUCH EASIER THAN WHEN APPLE AND BLACKBERRY WERE JUST FRUITS”

A. INTRODUCTION

Semantics is a study of the meaning of lexical items and other parts of language. According to Godfrey Leech, there are seven types of meaning in Semantics; conceptual, connotative, stylistic, affective, reflected, collocative and thematic meaning (1981). This paper focuses on only two of the types of meaning: conceptual meaning and connotative meaning. The lexical items chosen for the study are /Life/,/Was/, /Much/, /Easier/, /When/, /Apple/, /and/, /Blackbery/, /Were/, /Just/, and /Fruits/. These words seem so interesting and unique to be elaborated as follows:

B. CONCEPTUAL MEANING

Conceptual meaning means logical, cognitive, or denotative content (Nida, 1975:25). It is based on two structural principles, which are contrastiveness and constituent structures. It is usually derived from definitions we find in dictionaries and the appearance of these lexical items. We give these lexical items features (constituent structures) and eliminate other features which are not present (contrastiveness structures).

Life	+Abstract entity + A condition that distinguishes human beings, animals and plants from earth , rock, etc.
Was	+One of  the to be of Past tense +showing state
Much	+It is used for the uncountable plural noun +similar to the word “many”
Easier	+it means not difficult +free from pain, discomfort, anxiety, trouble etc.
When	+Showing period or time something happened.
Apple	+Inanimate + it is one kind of fruit, +its shape is round +it has firm juicy flesh +Its skin is green, red or yellow when the fruit is ripe.
And	+A conjunction connecting words, clauses and sentences
Blackberry	+Inanimate +commonly found in USA +a kind of small berry +this fruit when ripe growing wild on bushes called “brambles”.
Were	+One of the to be of past tense +showing state
Just	Used in Great Britain in the perfect tenses and often in US with the simple  past tense, place with the verb, to indicate an immediate past..
Fruits	+Inanimate +collective pattern +parts of a plant or tree +They contain the seeds +It is also used as food e.g. Apples, bananas.

C. CONNOTATIVE MEANING

Connotative meaning refers to what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to (Nida, 1975:25). In other words, it is the meaning above the conceptual meaning and it may vary according to culture, background or society. Thus, connotative meaning can be subjective or unstable. It depends very much on how an individual or society perceives a word. It is the association that we make in our mind of what these lexical items represent.

At first there is a word of “Life”. This word as the part of message of that slogan is given by human being aimed at the same kind of creature. So, the word “Life” in this case refers to the life of human being in living their daily life. Then it is stated that “Life was much easier” which means that human life in the past time was assumed as “lesser difficulty or “much easier”. The life of human being will be predictably easier if “Apple and Blacberry were just fruits”. In this context the speaker or the communicator try to propose a problem by delivering a direct comparison between the entity of Apple and Blackberry as the real fresh fruits and Apple and Blackberry as modern technological gadget findings.

In addition, the word “Apple” denotatively refers to a round fruit with firm juice flesh a skin that is green, red and yellow when the fruit is ripe. In addition, in the context of modern era the word “Apple” refer to the Steve job’s famous brand of computer and electronic gadget like iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. People around the world mostly youngsters in urban area will have this famous brand in mind when they hear someone saying the word “Apple”.
Besides that the word “BlackBerry” denotatively refers to the small berry which when it ripe, it grows wild on bushes. Similar to the case of the modern context of the word “Apple”, this word associate to the company of RIM issued this famous product all over the world.

The most interesting thing from that slogan is the hidden  or implicit effort of the speaker or the communicator of this slogan to say how hard the competition companies which want to promote their product brands and how the use of sophisticated gadget of famous brand will also create competition of the pride in social and cultural status. Most teenagers will be happy and feel proud if the can buy and use both famous technological gadgets. They will ready to stand in line to buy the newest release of Apple and Blackberry as their favorite products.

D. CLOSURE

The speaker or the communicator of the banner has been successfully proposes the conceptual and connotative idea of the hard battle of rivalry between the products of the techno-gadgets of Apple and BlackBerry. Before the existence of both new references, they were just fruits as a part of a tree or plant that is used as food like bananas, grapes or apples.

REFERENCES:

Hafriza, 1997. Semantics: Words without meaning is meaningless. University of Kebangsaan Malaysia Press.

Nida,Eugene A. 1975. Componential Analysis of Meaning. Paris. Mouton –The Hague.

http://www.wikipedia.com

http://www.merriam-webster.com

http://www.askoxford.com