Meaning

Hie linguistic study of meaning has traditionally concentrated on investigating conceptual or logical meaning, known as 'sense'. However, logical or conceptual meaning is not the only kind of meaning that sentences or utterances convey. In terms of child development, the interpersonal meanings of language are primary. And utterances might tell you who the speaker/writer is (idiosyncraey), their age or when they were speaking (age), what activity they are engaged in (occupation), where they come from (provenance), their relationship with the hearer/reader (status), and whether they are speaking or writing or combinations of these, such as reading aloud (mode) (Crystal and Davy 1969). It is clear that all these are social and interpersonal meanings, except the last, which is textual.