Theory of Translation 1 Introduction

(IV) Affective Meaning 
Affective meaning is the meaning which reflects the personal feelings of the speaker 
and his attitude to the listener or to what he is talking about. Affective meaning is 

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often explicitly conveyed through conceptual or connotative contents of the words 
used. This category of meaning is dependent on other categories of meaning such as 
conceptual, connotative or stylistic to express our emotions. For instance, the speaker 
can make use of an impolite tone to show his displeasure or through a casual tone he 
may show his friendliness. There are certain linguistic elements which function to 
communicate the feeling without the help of any other category of meaning. These 
elements are chiefly interjections like ‘oh!’, ‘aha!’etc. 
(V) Reflected Meaning
Reflected meaning is the meaning found in words with more than one conceptual 
meaning of the same word. It appears when one meaning is a part of our response to 
another meaning of the same word. Some words have dominant power because of 
frequency and associations. For example, the words, ‘The Comforter’ and ‘The Holy 
Ghost’ in church service are synonymous expressions. In the religious context, ‘the 
comforter’ means one who supports but ‘the holy ghost’ suggests a feeling of respect 
mixed with fear. 
Similarly, taboo words need to be understood through the strength of emotive 
suggestion. Words like intercourse, ejaculation, are associated with physiology of sex. 
So they are very difficult to be used in their ‘innocent’ sense. Non-taboo meanings of 
some words have disappeared because of their association with taboos, e.g., the word 
‘cock’ in American English in the sense of a fully grown male chicken has been 
replaced by ‘rooster’. The same may happen with the other words mentioned above.