Describing Language: Form and Function - The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan Vol 5 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
Chapter 8: Syntax and Semantics [1971]
Describing Language: Form and Function - The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan Vol 5 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
Ruqaiya Hasan† [+]
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
Description
In terms of the relationship between meaning and form, the semantic level is dynamic, providing input to be mediated through the lexicogrammar before subsequently being realized as a string of meaningful noise. This view of semantics puts meaning before the actual selection of the set of meaning-encoding categories, structures or symbols; at the same time it claims by implication that the only linguistic level capable of handling the notion of meaning in language is that of semantics.