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Unit 2 The Study of English

Module 3 Lexis

At the end of this module you will:-

a) have more understanding of the difficulties ESOL studentsface in their choice of vocabulary

b) understand the importance of teaching appropriate language

c) have a basic understanding of the formation of words

and their relationships

d) have begun to think more deeply about the languageyou are going to teach

LEXIS

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Lexis refers to the vocabulary or words that are a vitally important part oflearning a language. A student acquires vocabulary in two ways: the firstis by discovery, through interaction/conversation or reading materialswhich the student has chosen for himself/herself; the second is by havingwords presented to him/her in the classroom in a more formal manner.

The teacher has various ways of achieving this: s/he can point to objectsin the classroom, draw pictures, mime an action or make a gesture etc.

SELECTION

The vocabulary you introduce may to a large extent depend on thecourse book your school uses, but you are free to introduce other areasof vocabulary when you feel that it is relevant to your teaching. Howeverit is essential that your students do not "drown" in too much new

vocabulary as, if this is the case, they will retain little of it. Long lists ofvocabulary without the structure, relevant context, form and idiom will notbring about language competence.

Not only is it important not to introduce too much, and particularly not inunrelated lists, but the selection of the vocabulary is of great importance.As with grammar, words need to be introduced in a context wherestudents can see how they are used and you need to help students seeconnections between groups of words (teach table and chair, not tableand octopus!)

FORMATION

Students need to know the facts about the formation of words and howdifferent forms fit different grammatical contexts - for example take theverb 'smile'. 'Smile' can also be a noun, and the present participle'smiling' can also be used as an adjective:

The children never smile at the teacher.The teacher looked angry then he gave me a smile.Happy children are always smiling.The smiling face of the Mona Lisa looks down on the crowd.

This use of the same form of a word for both a verb (smile) and a noun (asmile) is not a feature of all languages and can be very confusing forstudents.

SELF-CHECK 2:3 1

Can you think of three more words where the verb and the noun are thesame?

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a noun and a gerund making one item of two words

eg - skating rink

two hyphenated words making one item

eg - play-off

PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES

Students also need to know common prefixes:-

a- auto- dis- pre-

ab- co- ex- re-

ante- con- mis- sub-

an- non- per- un-

and suffixes:-

-able -ism -er -ist

-or -ise -ic -ness

-ify -tion

. . . . and how they work

For example they can make words opposite in meaning:mis + understand = misunderstand

un + happy = unhappy

Or a noun can be formed from an adjective

happy - y + i + ness = happiness

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There are a lot of Greek and Latin based prefixes, suffixes and roots inEnglish that have a clear meaning. Show students for example that mis-and dis- are usually negative in tone. You as a teacher also need to befamiliar with common meanings of prefixes and suffixes so look them upif there are any with which you are unfamiliar.

Students also need to know how the words are spelt and how theysound. Of particular importance is the way these words are stressed asthis can alter the meaning and make them incomprehensible

eg potent + im = impotent, put the stress on the wrong syllable and it willsound like - important. Be careful not to insult a visiting V.I.P.!

SELF CHECK 2:3 3

Place each of these words in a circle on a piece of paper and add wordsto the legs of the spider that have a word form connection with them.

vision (comes from the Latin root vis see).

ject (comes from the Latin throw or put)

reject

television

Think about how the words relate to the root meaning.SYNONYMS AND ANTONYMS

Students also need to know how the meaning of one lexical item relatesto another.

Items which mean the same or almost the same are synonyms -

Sizeable and large are synonyms of big.

Items which mean the opposite are antonyms -

Sad is an antonym of happy

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Please note that when a student is translating from his/her mother tonguethat he/she will choose one word but that there may be many synonyms.Two words cannot be exactly the same in meaning, otherwise therewould be only one word.

SELF CHECK 2:3 4

1. Read the following passage and pick out as many prefixes and suffixesas you can.

2. Find a synonym for the underlined words. Then find an antonym for thewords in bold. Be careful.

3. Now look at the words in italics. How are they constructed?

In 2005 a famous chef called Jamie Oliver made the government awareof the unhealthy school meals children were being given every day. Hiscampaign worked and school meals have improvedconsiderably. Theyare now often cooked daily at the school rather than defrosted from largeweekly or monthly deliveries. The nutritional value of meals hasundergone changes and several foods have been highlighted asunsuitable.

The push to change eating habits is encountering opposition from thekids though. They want their chips back! And the lack of exercise has notbeen dealtwith.

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A WORD IS NOT ALWAYS A WORD

What does this mean? Well only that it is not always appropriate to teachwords as single units. Sometimes it is important to teach chunks and theconcept of lexical chunks has become very important in TEFL.

You cannot always teach words in isolation. You need to teach phrasesas groups of words that are inseparable.

Lets look at the sentence:

Can I have a word with the head please?

If we break this down into individual words then we have a very oddscenario in front of us - a person asking for a single word with a part of

the body.

The chunks here would be have a word and the head - have a wordis a verb phrase that means to have a quick conversation with. Headwith the in front of it can mean the headmaster or principal of aninstitution. We can make students aware that words fit together orcollocate and that they have different meanings depending on thesituation and the words next to them.

Interestingly, this was a problem with early computer translation systems

that could not cope with word forms in English.

So a phrase like Time flies fast appeared in translation as:

A type of insect (time flies) do not eat (fast).

This was a result of one word translation and not recognizing the contextof the statement.These days the translations are much better! But our students need to beencouraged not to look at words in isolation.

APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE

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Here, of course, style and register also play a very important part inhelping us to decide which word to choose.

eg synonyms of 'angry' may be elicited as 'cross', which is acceptable inmost situations, or 'pissed off' which often isn't. It is important to ensure

that students are taught, and know how to choose, appropriate languagefor particular situations. Lack of awareness in students can causeoffence, confusion and can lead to students not being taken seriously.

A non-native speaker of English may impress an everyday speaker withhis/her skill in manipulating language as in his/her appropriate use oftenses or correct word order and all things grammatical, but may notknow a vitally important word which will satisfy his/her needs at the time.

eg "I would like some lighter fuel" Say "lighter fuel" only and you would

get what you want. "I would like" and "please" are simplypolitenesses and could be excluded.

When teaching lexis the teacher has to make a judgement on whichwords could be left until a later stage of learning or for the student todiscover for him/herself.

eg 'table' must be taught early on in the student's language learningbecause of the frequency of its use:- dining table, dressing table, bedsidetable, scientific table, frequency table etc.

SELF CHECK 2:3 5

Look around a room you know well, perhaps the one you are sitting in atthe moment. As well as table, what other nouns have multiple uses andmeanings? Explore them with a list or diagram.

(eg screen - computer screen, to screen (medical) a screen to hidesomething, be screened for a sensitive job)

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TEACHING VOCABULARY

Here are a few quick tips for teaching vocabulary that can be investigatedfurther for TASK 7 of this unit.

THINK ABOUT THE NEED FOR THE WORDS YOU ARE TEACHING.You cant teach the past perfect tense in English if your students arenot yet sure about past tense and perfect verb forms.

You cant teach general election vocabulary with 9 or 10 year olds if theydo not understand about voting.

You cant ask the class to have a debate if they do not have thevocabulary to do it.

HAVE I GOT TOO MUCH?TOO LITTLE?OR JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF LANGUAGE?

Teachers can make mistakes easily here. Sometimes they try to makestudents learn long lists of words. If you are teaching fruits andvegetables, do not teach all of them including ones that the studentsrarely eat!Turnip, radish, endive, artichoke, swede and parsnip can be left for later

unless you are teaching vegetable market tradesmen!Teach a few common ones, do a role play, bring in some real vegetablesand research others for homework!

Sometimes teachers do not introduce enough words. It is very boring forstudents to repeat and repeat This is my mother, this is my father. Is thisher brother? Is this their sister.

Set aside part of every lesson for the students to experiment a little. Oncethey have got the basic vocabulary, it will not hurt to introduce step-

brother if someone in the class needs the word to describe their family.Have a listening where someone talks about their family. Also build intime for them to ask questions: How do I say my sisters child? Is it thesame as my brothers child?

TIMING

Teaching vocabulary does not need to go on for hours - smallconcentrated sessions are good, especially if you make sure the studentssee, hear and use the words.

FREQUENCY

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We use the word frequency to talk about words having high frequencyand low frequency. For example: the word Stop! is a high frequencyword.Stop writingStop talking Stop smoking

Stop here please (taxi)Next stop, Central Station. (train)

Other wordsalso mean stop in some way, but they are lower frequencyand they have special uses, such as desist, cease and halt. Of courseyour students will need these words at some time, but at lower levels,most of your teaching should be with high frequency words .

TEACHER LANGUAGE

The language of instructions and explanations should be easier than thelevel of language you are teaching.

Be especially careful about using too many grammatical terms:

We are going to look at describing things using who , which and that.

NOT:

Today we will be considering the intratextual uses of defining and non-

defining relative clauses.

SELF CHECK 2:3 6

Look at these two lesson transcripts and homework assignments.Decide which statements apply to which lesson - A or B.The classes are both 15-16 years old.

EXAMPLE:

The students do not speak at the beginning of the lesson ( Lesson A)The students are asked to speak right from the start. (Lesson B)

STATEMENTS

Long words are used: conjunctions, connectives, and there are vaguephrases: thing, thing

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The context is not connected with the students.The language is simple, and the teacher gives the function of thelanguage.The students give their own context and talk about themselves.The sentences on the board all have the same ending.

There are three different sentences on the board.The students do not choose their sentences in the second exercise.The students give personal information to each other and so make moresentencesThe teacher does not know whether they know any of this languagealready.Students mistakes and correct language tell the teacher about what theclass can do.

Lesson A

Teacher: Good morning class. Do you all have your books ready? Good.This morning we look at the use of conjunctions in English. Write downthe following connectives in your book under the heading conjunctions.(Teacher writes these words on side of the board)So thatIn order toBecause

We will look at how to join sentences so that we can give reasons fordoing things.

Look at these three sentences (writes them on board).

He is saving money so that he can buy a new car.He is saving money to buy a new car.He is saving money because hewants to buy a new car.They all show the mans intention. He is doing one thing so that he can

do another thing. The structures are different.Write down the sentences in your books.

Teacher: Have you all finished? Good. Now turn to page 4 in your booksand do exercise 2.

Lesson B

Teacher: Good morning everyone!Who in this class has a money box? Are you saving money? (Drawscoins or notes going in to a money box).

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Everyone: yes.. yes..

Mohammed:(hand up, teacher gestures him to answer) I no money boxmy mum buy everything.

Teacher: OK, but many people have a money box.Why are you saving money in your box. Ali?

Ali: For buy mobile phone (Teacher writes mobile phone and drawspicture to the right of the board space)

Jamila: For Prada bag (Teacher writes new bag + picture underneaththe phone)

Peter: So that I can buy an electric guitar because my mum she is not

paying for one. (T writes electric guitar, plus picture under the bag)

Teacher:

Ok, class. This morning we are talking about why we do things, our plansfor the future. (writing on board)

Ali is saving money to buy a mobile phone.Jamila is saving money because she wants to buy a new Prada bagPeter is saving money so that he can buy an electric guitar.

3 ways to say why we are saving money.Now, in pairs, see if you can tell your partner 3 things you are savingmoney for.

Now look at the homework of the two classes.

Lesson A Lesson B

Fill in the blanks with one of theclauses of purpose:eg She is going to the shops to buysome bread/ because she wants tobuy some bread/ so that she can buy

Finish the sentences:Talk about your plans using thelanguage from the lessonWrite 3 sentences for this.

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some bread.1. I am learning Greek .live there.2. The dog chased the cat

catch it.3. He is going to exercise classes ..

lose weight.4. I bought this book studysharks.

5. She turned on the TV ..6. I have bought a car ..7. The postman bought a bicycle

because 8. I am going to Egypt on holiday

.

1. I am learning EnglishBecause I want toToSo that I can .

2. Write 3 sentences about your familysplans:For example:My mother is saving money to go toDubai on holiday.

Write 3 sentences about something youare learning or studying:I am learning the guitar because I wantto be a famous pop star.

COMMENT

The students do not speak at the beginning of the lesson. (A)The students are asked to say something right from the start. (B)Long words are used: conjunctions, connectives, intention and there arevague phrases: thing, thing. (A)The context is not connected with the students. (A)The language is simple, and the teacher gives the function of the

language. (B)The students give their own context and talk about themselves. (B)The sentences on the board all have the same ending. (A)

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There are three different sentences on the board. (B)The students do not choose their sentences in the second exercise. (A)The students give personal information to each other and so make moresentences. (B)The teacher does not know whether they know any of this language

already. (A)Students mistakes and correct language tell the teacher about what theclass can do. (B)

Overall, in the second lesson the students are more engaged in the topicand it seems as if they will have more fun. As for the homework, it isgoing to give them the opportunity to use words that they need. The firstlessons vocabulary and homework task are very limited and controlled.

Watch out for this when you are planning lessons.

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Now consider the following extract:

One of the reasons we are now able to make statements about vocabulary with considerably moreconfidence than before is because lexicographers and other researchers are able to analyse largebanks of language data stored on computers. From a corpus of millions of words (made up of novels,scientific articles, plays, newspapers, brochures, speeches, recorded conversations, etc. stored on

computers) quick accurate information can be accessed about how often words are used and in whatlinguistic contexts. We can find out what other words are commonly used with the word we areinterested in, and we can also state, with some confidence, how frequently words are used in thelanguage. This is a huge advance on, say, the pioneering work of Michael West (see West 1953) whotried to get the same kind of information through manual sweat and toil and a card index. It wasimpossible for him and his researchers to achieve even a fraction of what computers can now tell us.

Users of computer corpora can get a concordance for words they are looking for. A concordance is aselection of lines from the various texts in the corpus showing the search word in use. Here forexample, is a 20-line concordance for the word asleep in written English:

FIGURE 1: Twenty-line concordance forasleepfrom the British National Corpus (written), generated by the Compleat Lexical tutor(www.lextutor.ca)

Twenty lines is just a small sample of the many occurrences of asleep found in the written corpus.But even with such a small sample, some things are instantly clear - partly because the computer wasasked to provide the lines in alphabetical order of the words immediately to the left ofasleep. Thuswe can see that in writing it seems that fall asleep, half asleep and was/were asleep are verycommon word combinations.

The Compleat Lexical Tutor (a free concordance program) allows us to look, as well, at how asleep isused in speaking.

FIGURE 2 : Twenty-line concordance forasleepfrom the British National Corpus (spoken), generated by the Compleat Lexical tutor

(www.lextutor.ca)

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It becomes clear immediately that fast asleep is a more common word combination in speaking thanin writing, but that the other combinations we noticed in writing also occur in speech.

Lexicographers work with considerably more complex concordance information than this, of course,but the principle is the same, and it allows them to provide dictionary entries which not only givedefinitions, but also list frequently occurring combinations (collocations), and say how common words

are. In the dictionary entry for asleep (Figure 3) we see that it is one of the 2,000 most commonwords in speech, but that it falls outside the 3,000 most common words in written English (becauseno frequency information is given for writing [W]).

Word meaningThe least problematic issue of vocabulary, it would seem, is meaning. We know that table means athing with three or four legs which we can write on and eat off and that book is a collection of wordsbetween covers. But of course the situation is more complicated than this. Both words have manydifferent meanings, quite apart from those already mentioned. We can eat off a table, or we can tablea motion at a conference. We can summarise information in a table, too. Then again, when we haveread our book, we can ring up a restaurant and book a table, but if we drive too fast on the way, wemight be booked for speeding. Some people have been keeping a book on whether we will keep our job because everyone knows we've been cooking the books for years. The point is that the samecollection of sounds and letters can have many different meanings. As with multi-meaninggrammatical forms, this polysemy is only resolved when we see the word in context. It is

understanding the meaning in context that allows us to say which meaning of the word is being usedin this particular instance.

What a word means is often defined by its relationship to other words. For example, we explain themeaning offullby saying that it is the opposite ofempty; we understand that cheap is the opposite ofexpensive. Such antonyms reinforce the meaning of each word in the pair, though of course becausea word can be polysemous it may have more than one antonym (e.g. a rich person - a poor person,rich food-plain food, etc.).

Words can also have synonyms that mean exactly or nearly the same as each other. We say thatbad and evil are synonymous, as are good and decent in certain situations, such as She's a

good/decent pianist. Once again, much will depend on the context in which the words appear. Yet intruth it is very difficult to find real synonyms. Costly and expensive might seem on the surface tomean the same, yet they are subtly different: we tend to use the former about larger projects and

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larger amounts, while expensive has a broader range of use. We would be unlikely to say That penyou've got there looks very costly, but The new building programme is proving very costly soundsperfectly all right.

Another relationship which defines the meaning of words to each other is that ofhyponymy, wherewords like banana, apple, orange, lemon, etc. are all hyponyms of the superordinate fruit. And fruit

itself is a hyponym of other items which are members of the food family. We can express thisrelationship in the following diagram.

Part of a word's meaning, therefore, concerns its relations with other words, not only in terms ofantonymy and synonymy, but also in terms of how it fits into the vocabulary hierarchy.

One final point should be made about word meaning, namely that what a word means is notnecessarily the same as what it suggests - or rather that words have different connotations, oftendepending on the context they occur in. Thus the word chubbyhas a very positive connotation whenit is combined with baby, but it suddenly becomes somewhat negative in tone if it is combined with

middle-aged English teacher! And what about a sentence like He's really smart, where smartwouldseem to have a positive connotation of intelligence yet could be interpreted as suggesting the man issomewhat devious orself-seeking.

Extending word use

Words do not just have different meanings, however. They can also be stretched and twisted to fitdifferent contexts and different uses. We say that someone is in a black mood (very cross) orsomeone is green (nave), yet we are not actually describing a colour. In such contexts black andgreen mean something else.

There are many examples of how the literal meaning of words can be extended. We say, for

example, that the price of mangoes went up but went up here cannot mean the same as it does inshe went up the stairs. When we say thatprices have taken a dramatic tumble, how are we to explainthe meanings ofdramaticand tumble?Such metaphorical use of words allows us to move beyond their purely denotational use (where aword only describes a thing, rather than the feelings or ideas it suggests). It helps us extend ourrange of expression and interpretation, allowing us the opportunity to explain our feelings about thingsin a way that creates readily available images. Poets use such metaphors all the time, of course.Consider, for example, these lines:

The w ind c lawed through the shrunken t rees

And scratche d and bi t and roared with rage.

Some metaphors become fixed into phrases which competent speakers recognise at once, eventhough the meaning of the phrase is not decipherable from any understanding of the individual words.We all know that She kicked the bucketmeans She diedand that He has bitten off more than he can chew

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means that he has attempted something that is too difficult for him. If someone says I've got him eatingout of my hand,we understand the metaphor, but it is not original; it is a common expression, anaccepted idiom. The metaphorical and idiomatic use of words and phrases is not always popular,however, as the following example shows. For some years it became commonplace for people todescribe someone who had suffered a disappointment as being as sick as a parrot,and this idiomaticexpression became so widely used that it began to irritate everybody, except, perhaps, when used

ironically.As sick as a parrothad become a clich,what Crystal calls a 'lexical zombie'. Money doesn'tgrow on trees, you knowqualifies as a clich, too, so does the phrase to add insult to injury.

However, a clich is not necessarily strongly metaphorical all the time as the following two lines ofdialogue from a recent radio soap opera episode show:EX-LOVER: I never meant to hurt you.JILTED LOVER: Oh please, Richard, not that tired old clich.Word combinations

Although words can appear as single items which are combined in a sentence (She was asleep),wehave seen that they can also occur in two-or-more item groups (She washalfasleep all through dinner,butfast asleepthe moment coffee was served).

Word combinations (also known as collocations)have become the subject of intense interest in therecent past, in part spurred on by discoveries from language corpora (see above). Collocations arewords which co-occur with each other and which language users, through custom and practice, havecome to see as normal and acceptable. It is immediately apparent that while some words can livetogether, others cannot. We can talk about a clenched fistand even clenched teeth,yet we cannot talkaboutclenched eyebrows.

The way in which words combine collocationally and in larger chunks has led people to talk aboutlexical phrases.Such phrases are often part of longer memorised strings of speech. We know, forexample, what the word ironicmeans, but we can also say that it is typically used in the phrase It isironic that....

Lexical phrases or language chunks are like pre-fabricated building units. Apart from phrasal verbs,collocations and compound words, such as traffic lights, walking stickand workshop(where two wordsjoin together to form one vocabulary item), language also chunks itself into functional phrases (by theway, on the other hand, if you see what I mean),idiomatic or fixed expressions (a close shave, an onlychild, in love)and verbal expressions (can't afford to, not supposed to, don't mind). Michael Lewis, aproponent of the Lexical approach, demonstrated how a 'lexical unit', like I'll, crops up time and timeagain in what he calls archetypal utterances, such as I'll give you a ring, I'll drop you a line, I'll see what Ican do, I'll see you later,etc. (Lewis 1993: Chapter 5).

The chunking of language in this way suggests that talking about vocabulary exclusively in terms ofwords is not sufficient to account for the different kinds of meaning unit which language users haveat their disposal. A phrasal verb(e.g. take off, put up with)is made up of two or more words (if weaccept one definition of what a word is), yet it is only one meaning unit. We could argue that wideawake and a close shaveare single meaning units, too. Some people refer to such meaning units aslexemes, but whatever we call them, we need to see that words-in-combination have to be perceivedas meaning units in their own right, just as single words such as bookortable do.

What we are saying is that we use words either in prefabricated chunks or insert them into thetemplates provided by grammar. As Steven Pinker expresses it, ' ... the mind analyses language assome mixture of memorised chunks and rule-governed assemblies' (1999: 26).

Adapted from The Practice of English Language Teaching, Jeremy Harmer 2007, Longman.

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TASKS FOR SUBMISSION TO YOUR TUTOR

TASK 1

Find at least 2 other different forms of the following words. Name the

forms and demonstrate them in sentences as in the example:Argue (verb)

1. Argument (Noun)The newly-weds had a big argument on their wedding night.

2. Arguably (Adverb)He is arguably one of the best in his profession

repentance

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grief

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cleanliness

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allowance

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tolerance

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TASK 2

Give 5 examples of each of the following compounds:-

1. Two nouns making a single compound noun

a..................................................................................................................................

b..................................................................................................................................

c..................................................................................................................................

d..................................................................................................................................

e..................................................................................................................................

2. A noun and a gerund making one item

a..................................................................................................................................

b..................................................................................................................................

c..................................................................................................................................

d..................................................................................................................................

e..................................................................................................................................

3. Two hyphenated words making one item

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a..................................................................................................................................

b..................................................................................................................................

c..................................................................................................................................

d..................................................................................................................................

e..................................................................................................................................

TASK 3

Form 2 words from each of the following prefixes:-

1. auto ....................................................................................................................

2. con ...................................................................................................................

3. per ....................................................................................................................

4. sub ....................................................................................................................

5. ante ....................................................................................................................

Form 2 words from each of the following suffixes:-

1. able ....................................................................................................................

2. ness ....................................................................................................................

3. er ....................................................................................................................

4. ise ....................................................................................................................

5. tion ....................................................................................................................TASK 4

List 5 words like 'table' which have a frequent and varied use, givingexamples.

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Example: Tip:a) Piece of advice:The teacher gave us good tips for preparing the testb) The very end of an object

She poked me with the tip of the pencilc) A small amount of money given to someone who has provided youwith a service:The waitresses like him; he always leaves large tips

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TASK 5

Which of the following words would you not teach beginners and why?

orange......................................................................................................

jacket.................................................................................................

student................................................................................................

welder....................................................................................................

omelette................................................................................................

bloke.....................................................................................................

chauffeur...............................................................................................

hungry...................................................................................................

telephone..............................................................................................

car.........................................................................................................

angry.....................................................................................................

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TASK 6

How many different lexical choices do we have to say someone hasdied? Select a few common ones and describe the situations/contexts inwhich they would be appropriate.

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Unit 2 Module 326

8/3/2019 Unit2 Mod3

27/27

TASK 7

" A general principle of vocabulary selection has been that of frequency.We can decide which words we should teach on the basis of howfrequently they are used by the speakers of the language. The words

which are most commonly used are the ones we should teach first.Another principle that has been used in the selection of vocabulary is thatof coverage. A word is more useful if it covers more things than if it onlyhas one very specific meaning...."

"Especially at intermediate levels and above, discovery techniques(where students have to work out rules and meanings for themselvesrather than being given everything by the teacher) are an appropriatealternative to standard presentation techniques. This is certainly true of

vocabulary learning where students will often be asked to 'discover forthemselves' what a word means and how and why it is being used"

What ideas would you bring to the classroom to make the learning ofvocabulary more interesting and rewarding?

Your answer should be between 500 and 750 words. It should showresearch and personal examples and ideas.Please use references to show where any information has come from.

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