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Anatomy of a word Jo Gakonga

elt-training.com

Vocabulary

“Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.”

Wilkins 1972

How many words?

»Over a million» Typical NS knows about 40,000» Typical NS only uses 5,000 – 10, 000

in speech

Coverage levels

BUT……

1 WORD≠

1 MEANING

An ‘easy’ example..

Mug

But….

noun or verb…

Or different contexts..

An ugly mug

He’s such a mug!

Or related words..

mugshot

Or….

Phrasal verb…

to mug up..

So what does ‘knowing’ a word mean?

MeaningFormPronunciation

Meaning- connotation

What problems do you have putting these words in order…

ShortTallLankyVertically challengedPetite

Meaning- register

Do these words mean the same?

accommodate put someone up

ameliorate change

agitate stir

Meaning- function

Do these words mean the same?

Can you swim?

Can you pass the salt?

Meaning- appropriateness

What’s wrong here?

Hey there – how are you going? Good morning, sir.

Meaning- synonyms

Do these words mean the same?

short smallbig largelight bright

Homonyms? Homophones? Homographs?

fan fan

bow bow

steak stake

Homophones

steak stake

Homographs

bow bow

Homonyms

fan fan

Form - Spelling

» What are the issues here?

through coughblow coatcaution politician

Form – word formation

» Irregular plurals /count or non-count

mouse mice mouses?

» Irregular conjugationsSwim swam swum

Form – word formation

» What do prefixes do?

unlucky dishonest rewrite

» What do suffixes do?

careful careless carelessly care

Form - collocations

» Why do these sound odd?

D ĞƌƌLJŝƌƚŚĚĂLJG

^ŚĞ͛ JƐĂƐƚƌŽŶŐƐŵŽŬĞƌ͘�

ƌĂŶĐŝĚĨŝƐŚ

Form-grammatical forms

» Make a sentence with these beginnings…

I love ….I sleep….He suggested…

» What do you need to know?

Pronunciation

» Spelling isn’t only a problem with form. How do you say these words?

enough boughwas lastskirt pert

What are the problems here?

Pronunciation

What are the problems here?

Piano o0o pianist 0oo

Photograph 0oo photographer o0oo

Do they need all this?

Do they need all this?

Receptive purposes

Productive purposes

Some extra reading

http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/0472030299-intro.pdf

http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/99057110.pdf

http://www.lib.tezuka-gu.ac.jp/kiyo/rTEZUKAYAMAGAKUINUNI/r42PDF/r42Duppenthaler.pdf

What does it mean to know a word?An Introduction to Second Language Vocabulary

Vocabulary in Language Teaching by Norbert Schmitt

Vocabulary Acquisition; The research and its pedagogical implications byPeter Duppenthaler