Bedeutungsanalyse

Bedeutungsanalyse, literally "meaning analysis" in German, is a term used in linguistics and philosophy to refer to the study and analysis of meaning in language and symbols. It encompasses the examination of word meanings (lexical semantics), how those meanings combine in phrases and sentences (compositional semantics), and the ways context influences interpretation (pragmatics). In German scholarship, Bedeutungsanalyse can denote both formal semantic analysis and hermeneutic approaches within philology and literary studies.

Methods include lexical field analysis, polysemy and synonymy studies, semantic roles, and the use of formal tools such as model-theoretic semantics and lambda calculus to specify truth-conditions. Researchers may also analyze semantic change over time, semantic fields, and the relation between Bedeutung (meaning) and Bezeichnung (designation).

Relation to other disciplines: In philosophy of language, Bedeutungsanalyse intersects with questions of sense and reference and truth-conditions. In cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics, it engages with conceptual structure and mental representations. In lexicography and translation studies, it supports dictionary entries and semantic similarity assessment.

Applications include linguistics research, translation studies, lexicography, textual interpretation, and education. The term is often used to emphasize careful examination of how authors construct and convey meaning in texts. See also semantics, pragmatics, semiotics, and hermeneutics.