Topic 11

Lexical and semantic fields of English. Necessary vocabulary for socialization, information and expression of attitudes. Typology of activities related to teaching and learning vocabulary in the foreign language classroom

Lexical and semantic fields of English

Necessary vocabulary for socialization, information and expression of attitudes

Typology of activities related to teaching and learning vocabulary in the foreign language classroom

SEMANTICS is the branch of Linguistics that studies meaning in the language. The entire words of a language is called lexicon. There are extensive networks in the lexicon, words relating to each other in a structured way, involving:

- Semantic field: set of words related in meaning.

- Lexical field: vocabulary related by topic.

- Lexical family: group of words that share a common root.

Criteria for selecting words beacuse there is no consensus of what vocab should be taught:

1. Frecuency: commonly used words should be taught first. Function words (articles, prepositions and pronouns) will be learned through exposure. Content words should be explicity taught.

2. Usefulness: a word is more useful if it has more than one meaning.

3. Learnability: some words are easier to learn if they are similar to the L1, if they are short, regular spelling or interesting for the students.

How to decide which words we should teach: important and related to the subjects, are suitable and useful, appear on a daily bases.

How they are going to be learnt: must be first presented orally, writing them in a dictionary or notebook, saying them and looking at their pronunciation, grouping them, making associations.

Stages: 1. Lead in (warm up). 2. Introducing new vocab (presentation) (context, visual support, in groups: lexical sets, rhyming sets, colour sets, grammatical sets, opposites) --> Techniques: visual (flashcards, photos...), verbal (definition, opposites (2 words instead of 1), guessing meaning from context), translating. 3.Practising and memorising (classifying into categories, picture dictation, hiding flashcards, word search, labelling, memory games, bingo). 4. Production.

In order to consolidate and recycle words: vocabulary books (dictionaries), collages, word networks, word banks.

1. Semantic fields: main ideas of this theory are: Words define themselves against each other (an apple is not an orange). Words can belong to more than one field (orange: fruit and colour). Fields are constantly expanding and contracting

2. Lexical fields: can be analysed under:

Syntagmatic relationships: between lexemes that can often go together (i.e., rural life).

Paradigmatic relationships: between lexemes that can replace each other:

- Synonymy: same meaning. English is rich in synonyms because of the influence of a variety of languages.

- Antonymy: opposit meaning. Gradable (expression of degree, big/small). Ungradable (mutually exclusive, dead/alive). Converse (reciprocal relationship husband/wife).

- Hyponymy: the meaning of one is included within the other (blue and colour).

-Homonymy: words that have the same form, either same sound or same spelling (train: teach or transport).

- Polysemy: express different meanings that are somehow related (branch as in tree and branch as in a company).

- Incompatibility: in the same category, words that are mutually exclusive (apple and banana are incomaptible).

- Translation.

Theories to group English vocabulary:

1. Semantic field: the lexical content should be understood as a collection of interrelated networks with relationships between words, grouped according to different criteria.

2. Basic English: constructed by around 850 words. According to Ogden (1920) it would take 7 years to learn English but only 7 weeks to learn Basic English.

3. General Service List (1953): list of 2000 words considered as basic vocabulary, organised like a dictionary: word families, listed alphabetically, brief definitions and examples, % of occurences.

4. Threshold Level (1970): the Council of Europe specified what a learner should be able to do when using the language. It derives vocabulary into active (words usually used in S and W) and passive (words understood when used by others).

Important to deal with vocabulary that deals with the 3 main communicative functions of human beings:

EXPRESSING ATTITUDES: to express oneself (emotions, wishes, desires and opinions).

Likes and dislikes, expressing grattitude, expressing appreciation, expressing disappointment, apologizing, granting forgiveness, hope, regret, suprise.

INFORMATION: to give info we think they don't know.

Information about oneself, questions, information about physical characteristics, places, health, the time, the weather, prices.

SOCIALIZATION: initiate or maintain social relationships. We are social creatures so it is essential. Part from real situations.

Greetings, saying goodbye, introductions, complimenting and congratulating, asking or requesting, attracting attention, seasonal greetings, expression in written language, speaking on the phone.