Many patterns are written this way, and you almost need to take a class to decipher all those codes!
What this means is that you only repeat what is inside the brackets. Yes, it is the same as what you said EXCEPT for one little thing.
This is telling you that the repeat is 4 stitches (2+2). When you want to increase or decrease the number of stitches to change the size, you need to do it in bunches of 4 stitches. So your count will always be divisible by 4 (with a remainder of 2), because you add 2 more stitches at the end to balance the design. You can make this as large or as small as you like, and it will always always follow that rule!
It is very difficult for us to see what happens next as you did not give us the link to the pattern, or include the next row. This is quite important!! The context is vital – as it will often explain what this row means.