Utterance Meaning and Language Meaning: Their Relations and Disparities

In recent years,with the emergence of discourse studies, the semantic research has widened its scope to involve issues concerning utterance meaning or pragmatic meaning.However,how is utterance meaning related to language meaning? In this connection there doesn't seem to be much literature.Since rhetorical activities mean the choice of words and sentences in the linguistic system,it is necessary to first have a clear linguistic understanding of the meaning of words and sentences.On the other hand,rhetorical activities are conducted regarding utterances and rhetoric is inseparable from utterance with its utterance meaning.In terms of rhetoric,therefore,one has to face the problem of how utterance meaning and language meaning are related.The present paper aims to account for the relations and disparities of the two types of meanings by contrast from two perspectives: the general nature of language meaning and the concreteness of utterance meaning,the stability of language meaning and the temporariness of utterance meaning.