МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РФ
ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ
ВЫСШЕГО ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
«ВОРОНЕЖСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»
Факультет Романо-германской филологии
О.М.Воевудская, О.В. Ивашенко
Практикум по лексикологии
современного английского языка
Учебно-методическое пособие
Издательско-полиграфический центр
Воронежского государственного университета
2010
Стр.1
ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ
В основу предлагаемого пособия положена действующая программа по
теоретическому курсу лексикологии современного английского языка для
филологических факультетов университетов. Пособие предназначено для
самостоятельной аудиторной и внеаудиторной работы студентов 3 курса
английского отделений (специальности: 022600 «Теория и методика
преподавания иностранных языков и культур», 022900 «Перевод и
переводоведение») всех форм обучения, а также студентов кафедры
иностранных языков СОФ ВГУ.
В нем нашли отражение основные теоретические вопросы лексикологии:
этимологические основы словарного состава английского языка, семасиология,
семантическая структура слова, стилистическая дифференциация
лексики, словообразование, фразеология, лексикография.
Пособие включает тестовые вопросы, целью которых является контроль
усвоения студентами теоретического материала, а также более 300 тренировочных
упражнений по всем разделам программы курса лексикологии современного
английского языка. Упражнения построены на материале художественных
произведений современных английских и американских авторов,
газетно-публицистических текстах, извлеченных из базы Интернета.
Предлагаемые в пособии задания и упражнения призваны помочь студентам
глубже усвоить теоретический материал, ознакомить их с основными
особенностями лексического строя английского языка, обеспечить сознательный
подход к практическому овладению лексикой, предотвратить некоторые
типичные ошибки в речи и способствовать развитию языковой догадки. Пособие
позволит подготовить студентов к более успешному восприятию других
теоретических курсов – стилистики, истории языка, практики перевода и
т.д., а также способствовать развитию навыков исследовательской работы.
3
Стр.3
Lexicology: Basic Terminology
Language, a semiological system serving as the main and basic means of human
communication.
Vocabulary, the totality of words in a language.
Diachrony, the historical development of the system of language as the object of
linguistic investigation. Diachronic, historical.
Synchrony, a conventional isolation of a certain stage in the development of language
as the object of linguistic investigation. Synchronic, representing one conventional
historical stage in the development of language.
Sociolinguistics, branch of linguistics studying causation between language and
the life of the speaking community.
Lexicology is a branch of linguistics which deals with the ‘lexis’, i.e. the study and
analysis of words. Its basic task is a systematic description of the vocabulary of
some particular language in respect to its origin, development and current use.
Lexicology, therefore, is concerned with words and complex word-equivalents as
recurrent and ready-made units of language.
The word, a basic unit of language system, the largest on the morphological and
the smallest on the syntactic level of linguistic analysis. It is a two-faced unit, having
a sound-form and meaning as its inner facet.
Lexeme, a word in all its meanings and forms, i.e. a word as a structural element
of language (invariant).
Allolex, a word as a member of speech, i.e. a variant of a lexeme in a given
speech-event.
Speech, the activity of man using language to communicate with other men, i.e.
the use of different linguistic means to convey certain content.
Paradigm, the system of the grammatical forms of a word.
Paradigmatics, 1) associative relationship of words in language as distinct from
linear relationship of words in speech (syntagmatics); 2) an approach to language
when the elements of its system are regarded as associated units joined by oppositional
relationship.
Syntagmatics, linear (simultaneous) relationship of words in speech as distinct
from associative relationship of words in language (paradigmatics).
Motivation, the relationship between the form or structure of the word and its
meaning.
Phonetic motivation, the connection between the sound form of the word and its
meaning.
Morphological motivation, a direct connection between the lexical meaning of
the component morphemes.
Semantic motivation, the relationship between the central and marginal meanings
of the word.
Paradigmatic relations, relations based on the interrelations of words within the
vocabulary system.
Syntagmatic relations, relations based on the linear character of speech.
6
Стр.6
The Object and the Aim of Lexicology
Lexicology is the branch of Linguistics that deals with the vocabulary of a
language. Unlike Phonetics, Grammar and Stylistics Lexicology aims at studying
and systematic description of vocabulary as regards to its origin, development and
current use.
Distinction is made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology.
The evolution of any vocabulary as well as of its single elements forms the
object of Historical Lexicology. In the 19lh
and the beginning of the 20th
Linguistics was mainly based on historical principles.
Descriptive Lexicology is concerned with the lexical system of a language as
it exists at the present time. Numerous varieties and schools of Descriptive Linguistics
have contributed, among other things, to the methods of vocabulary research,
the main being the analysis into immediate constituents, distributional analysis,
the method of linguistic opposition and the statistical method.
centuries
Closely connected with Historical Lexicology is Contrastive and Comparative
Lexicology, whose aims are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of
two or more languages. Contrastive analysis is of great importance in class-room
teaching of foreign languages and in translation as it calls for a detailed comparison
of the structure of the foreign language with that of the mother tongue.
Lexicology is inseparable from Phonetics, Grammar, Stylistics and the History
of the Language.
Lexicology to a greater extent than Phonetics or Grammar is a sociolinguislic
science, for in the vocabulary of a language are reflected, recorded and fixed the
results of man's knowledge of the world, the concepts and categories which his
mind has evolved, e.g. the study of the shifts of meaning in different words shows
that the content of words reflected the changes that were taking place in life.
Variations in language depending on social, geographical, educational, sex,
age etc. stratification, social evaluation of speech habits, correlation of linguistic
facts with the life and attitudes of the speaking community also constitute a large
part of problems dealt within Lexicology.
The theoretical importance of Lexicology is determined by the fact that it
studies one of the three main aspects of language - its vocabulary.
Practical Lexicology meets the needs of such branches of applied Linguistics
as lexicography, language teaching, translation, etc.
The term 'vocabulary' has at least two meanings: 1) a correlation of words in a
7
Стр.7
dictionary, i.e. the national vocabulary; 2) the number of words an individual has at
his disposal, i.e. an individual vocabulary.
Lexicology is concerned with the national vocabulary. The total vocabulary of
Modern English is immense and runs to about half a million items.
The vocabulary of a language is not just a collection of words, but as it is now
generally agreed, a collection of elements which are related and interconnected in
different ways.
The relationships existing between language units may be either paradigmatic
and syntagmatic.
Paradigmatic (associative, non-simultaneous) relations are based on the interdependence
of words within the vocabulary and manifest themselves in the morphemic
composition of the word and in various possible groupings of words (word
families, synonymic groups, hyponymic groups, stylistically marked - stylistically
non-marked words, new words - obsolete and archaic words, etc.).
Syntagmatic (simultaneous) relations are based on the linear character of
speech and manifest themselves through context, e.g. green fields and green years;
the head of the table and his head ached, etc. Each language is distinguished by its
own system of interrelations. This is the reason why vocabulary systems, covering
the same field of objective reality and human experience do not always coincide:
cf. pyкa - hand, arm; мизинец - little finger; большой палец - thumb.
The units of vocabulary are words, parts of words (morphemes) and set expressions.
Even
the simplest one-syllable word is a complex unit in which different aspects
of the language interact.
A word has a sound form and a fixed morphological structure. A word has a
definite paradigm, and, last but not least, a definite meaning.
The precise linguistic definition of a word is not easy to state. In the course of
the development of Lexicology as a science there have been made many attempts
to define the term 'word'. It has been defined syntactically (H. Sweet, L. Bloomfield),
semantically (Stephan Ullmann), phonologically (Ch. Hockett), and by combining
various approaches (E.Sepir, John Lyons, A. Gardiner, etc.). But so far, no
exhaustive definition of the word has been given by linguists.
Most linguists hold that for a comprehensive word theory a description seems
more appropriate than a definition. The description of the word based on the results
of investigations carried out in Russia by eminent scholars such as V.V.Vinigradov,
A.I. Smirnitsky, O.S. Ahmanova, L.V. Scerba, M.D. Stepanova - to name
but a few - may be summarised as follows:
1) the word is a dialectical unity of form and content;
2) the word is a structural and semantic entity within the language system, e.g.
it exists within the latter as a system and unity of all its forms and variants;
3) the word is a basic unit of language system, the largest on morphological
and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.
As compared with words phonemes and morphemes are language units that
form words; the phoneme has no meaning of its own; the morpheme cannot be
functioning alone.
8
Стр.8