Introduction to the Course of Modern English Lexicology

Lecture 1 Introduction to the Course of Modern English Lexicology

• Irina S.Kirichenko
• Associate Professor

Plan

• A Course of Modern English Lexicology: General Information. Lexicology as a Branch of Linguistics
• Two Approaches to Language Study
• The Connection of Lexicology with Other Branches of Linguistics
• Types of Lexical Units
• The Notion of Lexical System
• Methods of Linguistic Analysis

Assigned Literature

• Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка: Учеб. для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. — 3-е изд., перераб. и доп. — М.: Высш. шк., 1986. — 295 с., ил. — На англ. яз.
• Гинзбург Р. 3. , С., Хидекель С. , Князева Г. Ю., Санкин А. А. Лексикология английского языка: Учебник
• для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз./. — 2-е изд., испр. и доп. — М.: Высш. школа, 1979.
• — 269 с, ил., табл.

• Антрушина Г. Б., Афанасьева О. В., Морозова Н. Н. Лексикология английского языка: Учеб. пособие для студентов. — М.: Дрофа, 1999. — 288с.
• Jackson, Howard, Etienne Ze Amvela. Word, meaning and vocabulary: an introduction to modern English lexicology/  2nd ed., by Howard Jackson and Etienne Zé Amvela. – Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. – London, 2007. – 240 p.
• Lipka, Leonhard. An outline of English lexicology : lexical structure, word semantics, and word-formationю. – 2. ed. – Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1992ю. – 218 p.

• The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. Philip K. Dick
• If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison and destroy. Ralph Ellison
• "What's in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet." W.Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Sc. 2

ETYMOLOGY

• The word "lexicology" derives from the Greek λεξικόν lexicon, neut. of λεξικός lexikos, "of or for words", from λέξις lexis, "speech", "word" (in turn from λέγω lego "to say", "to speak") and -λογία -logia, "the study of", a suffix derived from λόγος logos, amongst others meaning "speech, oration, discourse, quote, study, calculation, reason".

• GENERAL LEXICOLOGY is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language.
• Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are generally referred to as language universals.

• SPECIAL LEXICOLOGY is the Lexicology of a particular language ,i.e. the study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units, primarily words as the main units of language. It devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language.

TWO APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE STUDY

• Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
• «Cours de linguistique generale», published
• posthumously in 1916
• SYNCHRONIC ( Gr. syn ‘together, with’, chronos ‘time’) or descriptive;
• DIACHRONIC (Gr. dia ‘through’, chronos ‘time’) or historical;

• With regard to Special Lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time.
• Special Descriptive Lexicology deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time.
• Descriptive Lexicology of the English language deals with the English word and its morphological and semantic structures, investigating the interdependence between these two aspects. These structures are identified and distinguished by contrasting the nature and arrangement of their elements.

• The diachronic approach deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time.
• Special Historical Lexicology deals with the evolution of the vocabulary units of a language. So, English Historical Lexicology is concerned with the origin of English vocabulary units, their change and development, the linguistic and extralinguistic factors modifying their structure, meaning and usage within the history of the English language.
• The evolution of any vocabulary, as well as of its single elements, forms the object of HISTORICAL LEXICOLOGY or ETYMOLOGY. It studies the origin of various words, their change and development, and the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage.

THE CONNECTION OF LEXICOLOGY WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS

• PHONETICS studies the sounding of the language.
• PHONOLOGY deals with the way speech sounds behave in particular languages or in languages generally.
• Meaning changes if you change the sounding of a word: pill and bill, sheep and sleep, meat and meal.
• In some cases, the phonological difference does not involve discrete sound units but 'suprasegmental' or 'prosodic' features such as stress: e.g. ex'port (verb), vs. 'export. (noun).

• Compounds: green + house =‘greenhouse.
• VS
• ,Green 'house, 'a house that is green'. The major difference between the two utterances is a matter of stress, a phonological feature.
• Compare the stress pattern of the compound nouns