The key lies in the fact that the units of meaning, words, can be strung together in different ways, according to rules, to communicate different meanings.

关键在于表意的单位——词语可以按规则以不同的方式串连在一起，来传达不同的意思。

youdao

I can find the meaning of the new words by looking them up in a dictionary.

我可以通过查字典来找到生词的意思。

youdao

It includes four steps: seeing a word, getting back its meaning from your memory, connecting it to other words in the same sentence, and then moving on to the next word. This process uses many parts of the brain at one time.

它包括四个步骤：看到一个单词，回忆这个词的意思，将它与句子中其他单词联系起来，再看下一个单词。这个过程同时调动了大脑的很多部分进行工作。

youdao

In other words, the text is what makes the ascertainment of meaning possible and available to us, but meaning is not in the text.

换言之,作品才是使含义得以传达的必要条件，但含义又并不在文本里。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选

We no longer appeal, in other words, to the authority of the author as the source of the meaning that we find in the text.

换言之，我们也不会再诉求作者的权威,把它作为我们在原文中找到的原意。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选

You can tell lies in language you may not understand the meaning of the words you used.

你可以用语言来说谎,也许你甚至不懂,你所用的词的含义。

麻省理工公开课 - 电影哲学课程节选

The BBC's legal affairs correspondent Clive Coleman said the High Court "meaning hearing" was held in front of a judge and involved both sides arguing over the meaning of the words in the tweet.

BBC: Sally Bercow tweet 'pointed to Lord McAlpine'

For a lover of language, the precise meaning of words contained in the law has been his goal.

CNN: Scalia dismisses talk of internal court rancor

In a sinister ironic climax, his boss, a police captain with a sadistic intellectual bent, pins him to the meaning of words looked up in the dictionary.

NEWYORKER: Police, Adjective