Definition

Definitions are only one approach to meaning. Roland Barthes distinguished two mechanisms:

• denotation: what the signified stands for, in an abstract way

• connotation: what deeper meanings are related

Definitions are the result of an abstraction, and thus intentional and borne within a context. They engage the responsibility of whoever agrees about them. They are useful as means to explicit an agreement while the context remains implicit, behind a curtain of blindness, waiting for a breakdown.

One danger of definitions is that people would pretend that there is no context, that the denotations are universal.

An other danger is that they would not be precise enough for the breakdown to be detected ("That theory is worthless. It isn't even wrong!" i.e. Popper's falsifiability criterion by Wolfgang Pauli).

Lakoff offers another model which challenges the value of classical definitions. His contexts are based on metaphors (compare to connotations), structured as "ICM", and centered around stereotypes.