Lecture 3《英语词汇学》第三章教案.docx

1、Lecture 3英语词汇学第三章教案Lecture 3讲授题目：Basic Concepts of Words and Vocabulary所属章节：现代英语词汇学概论第1章计划学时：2 periods教学方法：传统讲授法参考资料：英语词汇学教程、英语词汇学 教学目的和要求：通过本单元的学习，学生对词的定义，词汇的分类等词的基本知识有了一定的了解。教学重点：1) What is a word? 2) The relationship between sound and meaning. 3) Classification of English words.教学难点：1) The defini

2、tion of word. 2) Classification of words.1. What is a word What is a word? This question has occupied the attention of linguists for ages. Although numerous definitions have been suggested, none of them seem to be perfect. Scholars dont agree on the definition of the word. To sum up, the definition

3、of a word comprises the following points: (1) a minimal free form of a language; (一门语言中最小的自由形式) (2) a sound unity; (一个声音统一体) (3) a unit of meaning; (一个意义单位) (4) a form that can function alone in a sentence. (在句子中能独立起作用的一个形式)Therefore, we can say that a word is “a minimal free form of a language that

4、 has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function”. (词是一门语言中具有一定的声音、意义和句法功能的最小的自由形式。) 如果撇开能不能独立运用这一点，词就不是最小的有语义的单位。 语言中最小的“语音语义的结合体”称为“词素”(morpheme)。2. Sound and Meaning A word is a symbol that stands for something else in the world. Each of the worlds cultures has come to agree that certain sou

5、nds will represent certain persons, things, places, properties, processes and activities outside the language system. This symbolic connection is almost arbitrary, and there is no logical relationship between the sound which stands for a thing or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself (Lodwig

6、and Barrett 1993 ). Introduction of Naturalist（自然派） and Conventionalist （习惯派） The difference between the two schools lies in the belief that sound has or hasnt direct or necessary connection with meaning. The naturalists think the sound must be an echo of the sense.（音必定成为义的回声） The conventionalists h

7、old that there is no intrinsic logical connection or relationship between the sound and the meaning except onomatopoeia （拟声词）.Onomatopoeia （拟声词） Gingle铃声铃 pat轻拍声轻拍 Ping-pong乒乓声乒乓球 Cuckoo布谷鸟叫声布谷鸟 Drum鼓声鼓 bomb爆炸声炸弹 Crash-轰隆声-猛撞,崩溃,破产,垮台 E.g. The thunder crashed overhead. 雷声在头顶隆隆作响。 The boiling water c

8、racked the glass. 滚烫的开水使玻璃杯炸裂了。 Onomatopoeia also exists in Chinese: 请帮我“咔嚓”一张。 两人都同时“哦”了一声。For example, a dog is called a dog not because the sound and the three letters that make up the word just automatically suggest the animal in question. It is only symbolic. The relationship between them is co

9、nventional because people of the same speech community have agreed to refer to the animal with this cluster of sounds. In different languages the same concept can be represented by different sounds. Woman, for example, becomes frau in German, femme in French and fn in Chinese. On the other hand, the

10、 same sound mi:t is used to mean meet, meat, mete. Knight and night, though denoting entirely different things, yet have the same sound. 3. Sound and Form It is generally agreed that the written form of a natural language is the written record of the oral form. Naturally the written form should agre

11、e with the oral form. In other words, the sound should be similar to the form. This is quite true of English in its earliest stage i.e. Old English. With the development of the language, more and more differences occur between the two. The internal reason for this is that English alphabet was adopte

12、d from the Romans (Latin alphabet ), which does not have a separate letter to represent each sound in the language, so some letters must do double duty or work together in combination. Another reason is that the pronunciation has changed more rapidly than spelling over the years, and in some cases t

13、he two have draw far apart. During the last five hundred years, though the sounds of speech have changed considerably, there have been no corresponding changes of spelling. A third reason is that some of the differences were created by the early scribes. Before the printing press was brought to Engl

14、and, everything was written by hand. Those scribes, who made a living by writing for other people, often worked in haste to meet the needs of the King, Church, and merchants. One problem was that several letters written with short vertical strokes (短竖笔 ), such as i. u. v. m. w and n looked all alike

15、. Consequently, their handwriting caused misunderstanding. To solve the problem, they changed letter u to o when it came before m. n, or v. This is how sum, cum, wuman, wander, munk came to be written as some, come, woman, wonder, monk. At some point, too, the scribes seem to have decided that no En

16、glish word should end in u or v. Thus, an e was added to such words as live, have, due and true but not pronounced. Finally comes the borrowing, which is an important channel of enriching the English vocabulary. When English borrowed words from other languages, it borrowed spelling as well. The earl

17、y borrowings were assimilated and the later ones, however, do not conform to the rules of English pronunciation and spelling, e.g. stimulus (L), denouement (F), fiesta (Sp), eureka (Gr), kimono (Jap). The written form of English is, therefore, an imperfect representation of the spoken form. In spite

18、 of the differences, at least 80% of the English words fit consistent spelling patterns. 由此可见，英语书面形式并不完全代表口语形式。两者虽有差异，但80%以上的拼写在书面语和口语中还是统一的。 4. Vocabulary Broadly speaking, vocabulary can be defined as : a complete inventory of the words in a language”. Vocabulary means the sum of all the words in

19、the language. It is more or less synonymous with lexis and lexicon, with the first more colloquial, the third more learned and technical, and the second situated half-way between the other two . The term vocabulary is used in different senses. Not only can it refer to the total number of the words i

20、n a language, but it can stand for all the words used in a particular historical period, e.g. Old English vocabulary, Middle English vocabulary and Modern English vocabulary. 5. Classification of words The English vocabulary can be classified by different criteria and for different purposes. Words m

21、ay fall into the basic word stock and nonbasic vocabulary by use frequency, into content words and functional words by notion, and into native words and borrowed words by origin. (1) Basic Word Stock and Nonbasic Vocabulary Basic word stock is the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centur

22、ies and forms the common core of the language. Though words of the basic word stock constitute a small percentage of the English vocabulary, yet it is the most important part of it. These words have obvious characteristics: All national character. Words of the basic word stock denote the most common

23、 things and phenomena of the world around us, which are indispensable to all the people who speak the language. They include words relating to the following respects: a. Natural phenomena: rain, snow, fire, water, sun, moon; b. Human body and relations: head, foot, hand, father, mother, sister, daug

24、hter, son; c. Names of plants and animals: oak, pine, horse, cow, cat; d. Action, size, domain, state: come, go, eat, good, evil, old, young, hot, cold.; e. Numerals, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions: one, ten, hundred, I, you, your, in, out, under, and, but, till, as. These words cannot be avoi

25、ded by any speaker of English, irrespective of class, origin, education, profession, geographical regions, culture, etc. Stability. Words of the basic word stock have been in use for centuries, e.g. man, fire, mountain, water, sun, moon. As they denote the commonest things necessary to life, they ar

26、e likely to remain unchanged. Stability, however, is only relative. Actually, the basic word stock has been undergoing some changes. Words like arrow, bow, chariot, knight, which were common in the past, have now moved out of the word stock whereas such words as electricity, machine, car, plane, com

27、puter, television, which denote new things and modern way of life, have entered the stock. But this change is slow. There are many more words joining in than dropping out. Productivity. Words of the basic stock are mostly root words or monosyllabic words. They can each be used alone, and at the same

28、 time can form new words with other roots and affixes, e.g. foot: football, footpath, footer, footed, footloose, footing, footman, etc. In the same way, dog: doglike, doghood, dog-cheap, dog-fall, dogfight, dog-paddle, dog sleep, to name just a few. Polysemy. Words be longing to the basic word stock

29、 often possess more than one meaning because most of them have undergone semantic changes in the course of use and become polysemous. The verb cut 在牛津英语词典(The Oxford English Dictionary)中将近150个义项，新英汉词典把它产归纳为32个义项。多义词的各个词义尽管纷繁复杂，但还是构成一定的关系，主要有：原始意义与引申意义，普遍意义与特殊意义，抽象意义与具体意义，字面意义与比喻意义。 Collocability. Ma

30、ny words of the basic word stock enter quite a number of set expressions, idiomatic usages, proverbial sayings and the like. Instances are numerous. Take heart for example: a change of heart; after ones heart; a heart of gold; break ones heart; cry ones heart out; eat ones heart out; and take sth. t

31、o heart; heart and soul so on. Of course, not all the words of the basic word stock have these characteristics. Pronouns and numerals enjoy nation-wide use and stability, but are semantically monosemous and have limited productivity and collocability. Therefore all national character is the most imp

32、ortant of all features.Nonbasic Vocabulary Words, void of the stated characteristics, do not belong to the common core of the language. They included the following: Terminology. Consists of technical terms used in particular disciplines and academic areas as in medicine: photoscanning, penicillin; in mathematics: algebra, calculus; in music: symphony, sonata (奏鸣曲); in educ