Denotation and Connotation

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Denotation and Connotation

• They go together like peas and carrots.
• --Forrest Gump

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Denotation

• What a word is
• What it describes

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Examples

• Student
• IS describing someone who attends school.
• Boy
• IS describing a male.
• Job
• IS describing a profession / what someone does
  for a living.

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Clarification

• The denotation of a word IS what it is.
• There is NO emotional loading in the word. It
  is NEUTRAL.
• The word doesnt make you feel any particular way.

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Connotation

• The emotional level of a word
• Many ways to describe connotation of certain
  words
• Positive
• Negative
• Ways we usually describe words
  connotationsemotional loading

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For example

• Pleasant words calm, friend, truth, clean,
  togetherness, honest, complete
•  
• Unpleasant words stormy, opponent, falsehood,
  dirty, loneliness, dishonest, unfinished

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Why Do I Need to Know This?

• When reading.
• Pick up writers bias (point of view)
• Miss writers message if you miss his or her
  perspective!
• When writing.
• Finding the perfect word for the situation.
• Adding greater word choice to writing
• Getting past.goodnice.things.stuff

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For example

• Positive connotation generous, wisdom, justice,
  patriot, happiness, heroic
•  
• Negative connotation stingy, stupidity,
  injustice, traitor, sadness, cowardly

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And

• Positive
• red-blooded, mouth-watering, true-blue,
  exquisite, saintly, magnificent
•  
• Negative
• cold-blooded, two-faced, heartrending, rotten,
  sadistic, poverty-stricken

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We can combine words.

• Positive
• complete honesty, sweet friend, cheerful grin,
  American cooperation
•  
•  
• Negative
• uncontrolled dishonesty, dirty opponent, sullen
  sneer, foreign interference

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What is the connotation of the underlined phrase?

• She walked up to him and smilingly killed him.
•   
• Money rained down from above.

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Think about context.

• That's a lazy cat.
• That's a lazy man.
• Whats the difference in the connotation of
  lazy in each?

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• I made noise taking the dishes out of the
  cupboard.
• I couldn't hear the speaker, because everybody
  around me was making noise.
• That isn't music! That's noise!
• What is the difference in the connotation of the
  word noise in each?

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What is the Subtle Difference Between

• Joy
• And.
• Pride

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• Anger
• And.
• Rage

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• Boredom
• And
• Despair

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You Try

• Stress and. Tension
• Calm and. Relaxed
• Friendliness and.. Love

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Exercise 1

• Separate the words below into three categories
• Positive, negative, or neutral (It is all right
  if you don't use all three categories.)
• Use your first reaction to the word to decide
  which category to use for it. Here are the words
  
•   

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• True
• Boring
• Sloppy
• Dependable
• Honor
• Paramedic
• Tidy
• Interesting
• Awkward
• Nasty

• Disorganized
• Champion
• Disloyal
• Clumsy
• Physician
• Talent
• Mismanage
• Failure
• Friendship
• Messy

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Exercise 2

• Combine 5 positive words with 5 negative words to
  make 5 positive phrases.
• You MAY change word forms, plural, etc.

• reformed
• patience
• honesty
• playful
• criminal
• strength
• unrelenting
• ghost
• stubborn
• unbending