Why is it that if connotation increases the denotation decreases?

Answer 1

Since a word's connotation refers to its cultural meaning (how it is used by a culture, what emotions and opinions people associate with it) and its denotation is its neutral, dictionary definition, the two are inter-connected. But it's true that a word can go from being neutral to having a positive or negative connotation, and often the cultural meaning overwhelms what the dictionary definition is. Thus, as the connotation increases (as a culture begins to associate a certain word with a very favorable or very unfavorable set of emotions), people pay less attention to what the dictionary says and more attention to what the word brings to mind.

For example, the dictionary definition of the word "fat" may be something simple, like "overweight." But in a culture where being thin is an obsession, the word quickly loses its neutral meaning and becomes a word that makes the average person think something unfavorable.

We also see this with political concepts. The word "feminist" can simply refer to a person (not necessarily a woman) who believes in equal rights for women, or who champions women's rights. But in a culture that is traditional or male-dominated, the word would quickly pick up a negative meaning and make some people think a feminist is someone who dislikes (or even hates) men. Likewise, words like "liberal" or "conservative" or even "religious" can pick up an emotional meaning from the culture, and the emotion overwhelms what the word originally meant. These emotional meanings may not necessarily be negative-- people who are members of a political party, for example, might have very positive feelings about their party. (On the other hand, political opponents might feel entirely different and see the word "Republican" or the word "Democrat" as something unappealing.)

It is often confusing for international students when they study a language and find that the dictionary meaning doesn't always convey whether the culture sees a word as favorable or unfavorable. And it is also worth remembering that words are always changing, both in their dictionary meaning and in the emotions the word evokes. A word that had one particular connotation 100 years ago, might lose that connotation many years later. For example, 100 years ago, the word Muslim (usually spelled Moslem back then) generally referred to a person who believed in the religion of Islam, and since most Americans were unfamiliar with Islam, the word did not have a particularly negative connotation, nor a particularly positive one-- it was just another "foreign" word. But political and global events of the past thirty years have given the word a far different set of connotations, and rightly or wrongly, those connotations have overwhelmed the original dictionary meaning.

Answer 2

When connotation increases, it means that a word gains additional meaning or emotional nuances beyond its literal definition, which can limit its specific denotation. This is because as connotation grows, the word becomes associated with more varied and nuanced interpretations, making it less precise in its literal meaning or denotation.