Off the Map

In an article today about the title of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, should her husband become King of England, the word “semantic” appeared in a way that got me thinking about its meaning.

I usually define the word “semantics” as “the historical study of words and their meanings.”  What comes to mind usually is definitions of words (especially at different time periods), and that semanticists trace the definitions of words as they change over the years.  Words constant, definitions variable.

But in the article, I got to thinking that “semantics” might have a more backward definition than what I’d come to know.  I wondered if the word “semantics” might be better defined as “the historical study of words and how they’re applied.”

Think of semantics not as the study of words and their meanings, but instead as the study of meanings and their words!  In this context, a meaning could be a number of things: it could be a phrase, but it could also be an object.  In this sense, “meanings” are the same thing as “referents,” and semantics in this newfound sense looks at the different words that get applied to referents.  Essentially, it is assumed that the meanings stay the same over time, it’s just that the words change.  Definitions constant, words variable.

The passage that brought about this thinking was this one (bolding mine):

‘

Camilla legally will be queen if Charles takes the throne, but when the couple married in 2005 officials said she planned to adopt the title Princess Consort rather than the more traditional Queen Consort.

NBC’s Brian Williams asked the 62-year-old heir to the throne if Camilla would become “Queen of England, if and when you become the monarch.” Charles hesitated as he replied “That’s, well … We’ll see won’t we? That could be.”

The difference is purely semantic — the role of consort carries no constitutional power. But polls have suggested there is hostility to Charles’ divorced second wife, whom he married eight years after the death of Princess Diana, being called Queen Camilla.

How I read “semantic” here, it means “having to do with a label.”  Changing the title from “Queen Consort” to “Princess Consort” is merely a label swap.  And since the referent stays the same but the word changes, the semanticist takes note.

And perhaps the general semanticist takes note, too!  The field of semantics is different from the field of general semantics.  If semantics studies referents and the words historically applied to them, what does the term “general semantics” mean?  Perhaps general semantics is more open to looking at things (actual objects, events, etc.) over verbal definitions.  So maybe “general semantics” means “the study of the referents and the words historically applied to them” but “semantics” contents itself with verbal definitions (and not actual objects)?

That is, say that general semantics studies that pleasant feelings you’re experiencing inside your skin and what you call it (“happy”).  And say that semantics studies the phrase “feeling good” and what you call it (“happy”).  General semantics pays attention to the names of the non-verbal; semantics pays attention to the verbal.  But if general semantics is truly a general kind of semantics, maybe it’s that general semantics studies both the non-verbal and the verbal, while semantics just concerns itself with the verbal.

But here is where I’m led to confusion.  Isn’t linguistics what studies labels and how they’re applied?  That is, linguistics is the study of language, and word choice seems to fall under that heading.  Doesn’t linguistics pay attention to how we code our experience into language?

I turned to Wikipedia to see how it defined “semantics.”  The entry led me to yet another consideration: Maybe the meaning of the term “semantics” is relative to the specific context it comes up in?  For example, if you’re talking about linguistics, maybe linguistic semantics has a special meaning that is different from, say, when you’re talking about semantics in the context of physics?  Linguistic semantics is “the study of interpretation of signs or symbols […]”, and maybe physical semantics would be the study of interpretation of nature?  Would “semantics” mean usually “the historical interpretation of words”? Would “general semantics” means thus “the interpretation of objects, events, etc.”?

I love that interpretation comes up at this point.  In my high school and college years, I had a lot of joy in the practice of interpretation, and a number of my papers were essentially interpretations of what I was reading and experiencing.  In general semantics, we pay a lot of attention to how people bottle up the reality they witness and experience.  And then they talk about what they bottle up.  Sometimes what they bottle up doesn’t gel with what scientifically is known about reality.  Therein general semantics likes to pipe up and teach.

Ultimately, this blog post shouldn’t be read for understanding.  It is a fairly live processing of the appearance of the word “semantics” in an article and how its presumed meaning may relate to the defining of the terms “semantics” and “general semantics.”  If you enjoy the pursuit of defining “general semantics” as I do, I hope you appreciated this little stopover.

See also: camilla-duchess-of-cornwall, definition, interpretation, meaning, queen, queen-consort, referent, semantics