Abovemeaning

Abovemeaning is a neologism used in linguistics and communication studies to denote the layer of meaning that lies above the literal proposition of an utterance. It is used to describe information conveyed through context, speaker intention, tone, social cues, and discourse structure that is not encoded in the proposition's semantics. The term emphasizes pragmatic meaning that listeners infer rather than directly assert.

Origin: The term is a blend of "above" and "meaning," signaling that it sits atop the literal meaning. It has appeared in informal discussions and some theoretical writings as an umbrella for implicatures, presuppositions, and attributions of stance.

In usage: Abovemeaning is often discussed when analyzing conversational implicatures, speech acts, or deliberate rhetorical effects. Example: "It's getting late" may have abovemeaning of a request to end the gathering or leave the venue, depending on context.

Relation to other concepts: It overlaps with but is not identical to pragmatic inference, implicature, and presupposition. Some theorists treat abovemeaning as equivalent to pragmatic meaning, while others distinguish intention-based content from contextual inference.

Criticism: Critics argue that the term is redundant with established notions of pragmatics and that it risks ambiguity without precise operational definitions.

See also: Pragmatics, Implicature, Presupposition, Speech act, Discourse analysis.