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Файл:Lexicology. Practical Course. Лексикология. Практический курс. Учебное пособие
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Vietnam is very simple. I haven't spoken on it because I haven't felt there
was any major contribution that I had to make at the time. I think that our
concepts as a nation and that our actions have not kept pace with the
changing conditions. And therefore our actions are not completely relevant
today to the realities of the magnitude and the complexity of the problems
that we face in this conflict.”
2. Give an example of political statements, excerpts from official
documents, quotes from scientific papers demonstrating how language
can obscure rather than clarify the speaker's thought.
3. Today in Russia the expansion of the English language takes the
following forms. Analyze them and think of more examples:
1) numerous unjustified borrowings, for example: black-out, superstar,
security, etc.;
2) dissonant transcriptions and transliterations of advertising names:
Herbal Essentials, Real Transhair;
3) The use of capital letters in accordance with English canons that
conflict with the rules of the Russian language.
4. Using American dictionaries, find Russian words, which are
included in the English vocabulary. What explains the choice of these
particular words?
5. Try to express as accurately as possible by means of Russian
language the content of the following concepts: mainstream culture, self-
righteous, fundraising, self-reliance, nuclear family, outspoken, achiever.
6. Read the following excerpt from a newspaper article. Explain
how the event described in it relates to the categorization of the world
using language.
“A muddle over metric units caused the loss of the Mars Climate
Orbiter, embarrassed officials of the US space agency Nasa have admitted.
One team in California used metric units; another in Colorado used
imperial, and nobody noticed. As a result, the wrong instructions were given
to the spacecraft as it approached Mars, and it was lost. <...> Mars Climate
Orbiter, which cost $125 million, disappeared on September 23 as rockets
were fired to bring it into orbit around Mars. It had flown 416 miles in nine
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months. The error occurred in calculating the force of the thruster firings
needed to get the spacecraft into the right orbit. Lockheed Martin
Astronautics in Colorado submitted data calculated in imperial pounds of
force, instead if the metric unit, newtons. One newton is less than a quarter
of one-pound force." (The Times, Oct. 2, 1999)
7. Read information on internal form transparence, think of more
examples in English and Russian languages.
For many linguistic units of the American version of the English
language, a more transparent internal form is characteristic than for their
counterparts from the British version: compare, for example: Amer. frostbite
vs. Brit, chilblain; Amer. sidewalk vs. Brit. pavement; Amer. eggplant vs.
Brit. aubergine; Amer. doghouse vs. Brit. kennel; Amer. bedspread vs. Brit.
counterpane. One of the reasons for this is the pragmatism of the first
settlers who arrived in the United States, their simple and practical approach
to the development of the New World. The merit of the new names was
their clarity and accessibility – useful properties in a country in whose
population there was still a large number of non-native English speakers.
8. The basis of the national-cultural specifics of the internal form is
formed by different aspects. Analyze them and add more examples to
each group.
1. Historical memory of the people – the bearer of the linguistic culture:
Москва не сразу строилась; тяжела ты, шапка Мономаха; Мамаево
побоище; Gay Nineties; sell smb. down the river, etc.
2. Cultural realia – задать баню; вольный казак; выносить сор из
избы; перебиваться с хлеба на квас; лаптем щи хлебать; не лыком шит;
терпи, казак, атаманом будешь; give one an inch and he will take a mile;
apple-pie order; cliff dweller; cliffhanger; play possum.
3. Onomastic realia – ехать в Тулу со своим самоваром; Волга
впадает в Каспийское море; Демьянова уха; I'm from Missouri; Lucy
Stoner; Simon Legree.
4. Mentality of cultural representatives, e.g. Russian fatalism: от судь
-
бы не уйдешь; лбом стену не прошибешь; чему быть, того не миновать; American ethnocentrism: Empire City; Hub (colloquial name for
Boston).
5. Values accepted in a given culture: не имей сто рублей, а имей сто
друзей; с милым рай и в шалаше; American dream, yellow ribbon.
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9. American English contains a lot of nicknames, the inner form of
which becomes clear only if the communicant can relate it to the
original name and accompanying cultural information. There are
several groups of objects with nicknames – analyze them and give more
examples.
1. Historical events: redcoats – is a military garment used widely,
though not exclusively worn, by most regiments of the British Army, Royal
Marines, and some colonial units within the British Empire, from the 17th to
the 20th centuries.
2. Presidents and other famous personalities – Father Abraham, Honest
Abe, Old Abe, Railsplitter – nicknames for Abraham Lincoln; Old Blood
and Guts – Fierce, George S. Patton, General of the US Army, World War II
hero, nicknamed for his tough temper; America's Sweetheart – America's
Favorite, the nickname of the actress Mary Pickford; Birdman of Alcatraz –
the nickname of R. Stroud, the killer who, after spending about half a
century in a prison on the island of Alcatraz, became an authority on the
world in the field of canary diseases.
3. States: Keystone State – nickname of Pennsylvania connected with
the fact that two of the most important historical documents: the US
Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were adopted in
Philadelphia; Show-Me State – the nickname for the state of Missouri, the
residents of which are famous for their distrust; Seward's Folly, Seward's
Icebox – the nicknames of Alaska, bought from Russia in 1867 for $ 7
million at the initiative of W. Seward, US Secretary of State; the purchase
was considered pointless.
4. Cities and rivers: Windy City – the nickname of Chicago, associated
with frequent gale-force winds blowing from the lake Michigan; Big Muddy –
nickname for Missouri;
5. Other culturally significant phenomena: Camelot – nickname of the
White House during the presidency of J.F. Kennedy (Broadway musical
about the knights at the court of King Arthur). The word hinted at the “blue
blood” of the Kennedy couple; Foggy Bottom – nickname of the US State
Department (the swampy area on which the State Department building was
built); Fannie Mae – modified reading of FNMA: Federal National
Mortgage Association).
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10. Find Russian analogues for the following English phraseological
units:
banana oil; there's a black sheep in every flock; two dogs over one bone
seldom agree; when in Rome do as the Romans do; one man no man; like
father, like son; birds of a feather flock together; hawk will not pick out
hawk's eyes; one man's meat is another man's poison.
6. What phenomenon underlies the following linguistic paradoxes?
1. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor
pine in pineapple. And while no one knows what is in a hotdog, you can be
pretty sure it isn't canine.
2. English muffins were not invented in England, nor French fries in
France.
3. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweet breads, which aren't sweet, are
meat.
4. Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig
is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
5. Why do people have noses that ran? Park on driveways and drive on
parkways?
6. How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise
man and a wise guy are opposites?
7. When a house burns up, it burns down.
8. You fill in a form by filling it out.
9. An alarm clock goes off by going on.
10. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up
this essay, I end it?
12. Explain the linguistic and cultural background of the following
communicative failures between British and Americans:
Bee – An 18th century Englishman was puzzled when his American
cousin wrote: “The cellar in our new house was dug by a bee in a single
day”.
Dormitory – An American college teacher was speaking to a British
teacher and remarked that at his college, male and female undergraduates
now sleep in the same dormitory. “Ye gods!” said the Englishman.
304
English muffin – When my English wife first visited an American
drugstore with me, and I ordered breakfast, she was startled to hear the man
behind the counter call out to the kitchen, “Let's have two toasted English”.
Homely – More than one Englishman being entertained in an American
home has startled fellow guests by describing his hostess as “a very homely
lady”.
Mistress – When during WWII the American pilots took over a famous
girls' boarding school, they found next to every bed a button and a notice
saying: “If you want a mistress during the night, ring the bell”.
Mr – Americans going for medical treatment in Britain have sometimes
drawn back when they found the practitioner described as “Mr. So-and-so”
and said they wanted to see a qualified doctor.
Pants – I heard an American student at Cambridge University telling
some English friends how he climbed over a locked gate to get into a
laboratory building and tore his pants, and one of them asked, “But how
could you tear your pants without tearing your trousers?”
Queer – Soon after arriving in England ... I was told one day, in a
friendly tone, “You're looking a bit queer today, lad.” I said apologetically,
“Oh, really? Perhaps it's this suit”.
Saloon – As H. Allen Smith observed in Smith's London Journal, “It is
possible to be arrested in England for driving while drunk in a saloon”.
Wash up – Philip French recalled in a New Statesman article that he
once suggested to his American hostess that he help her wash up, and was
met with a startled look.
Yankee – a visitor from, Louisiana or Georgia may be irritated to hear
himself described as Yankee.
13. Comment on the meanings of set expressions, containing proper
names. Can you explain the reason for such naming?
Jolly Roger, Sir Roger de Coverly, a Roland for an Oliver, Merry
Andrew, Aunt Edna, Aunt Sally, Aunt Tabby, Jack Canuck, Jack Tar, John
Q, Johnny Raw.
14. Find in the dictionary the equivalents of the following English
idioms:
A black hen lays a white egg.
A fly in the ointment.
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As the old cock crow, so does the young.
Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow.
Curses like chicken come home to roost.
Crows do not pick crow’s eyes.
Like a bear garden.
Take a bear by the tooth.
Cry wolf.
Keep the wolf from the door.
When the fox preaches, then beware your geese.
15. Fill in the blanks in similes showing characteristics of creatures
and special qualities of things and used in everyday talks.
As … as a monkey As … as partridge
As … as a lark As … as rain
As … as a flounder As … as clockwork
As … as a berry As … as grapes
As … as a bone As … as water
16. Fill in the blanks in general colloquial expressions and explain
the meaning.
To … Abraham To discover a mare’s …
To have a … in one’s bonnet To show the white …
To burn a … at both ends To … the dust
To show a clean pair of … To ride the … horse
To keep one’s … dry To draw the … bow
17. Consult a dictionary, containing cultural information, to find
out the meaning of these set expressions with days.
Admission Day Black Monday
Apple and candle night Blue Monday
Arbor Day Boxing Day
Ash Wednesday Cake Day
Bank Holiday Collop Monday
D-Day Gaudy Day
Dog Days Groundhog Day
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GLOSSARY
of Lexicological and Lexicographical Terms
Absolute equivalents – equivalents which coincide fully both in their
denotational and connotational meanings.
Acronymy (graphical abbreviation) – the formation of a word from
the initial letters of a word combination, for example, BBC – the British
Broadcasting Corporation.
Adjectivation – the formation of adjectives.
Adverbalization – the formation of adverbs.
Affix – a bound morpheme that modifies the meaning and / or syntactic
category of the stem in some way.
Affix principle – the principle of the segmentation of the word into its
constituent morphemes, which is based on the identification of an
affixational morpheme within a set of words.
Affixation – the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to
different types of bases; it includes suffixation and prefixation.
Allomorphs (morpheme variants) – the representations of the given
morpheme that manifest alteration.
Alphabetical type of macrostructure – the arrangement of words in a
dictionary when the words are organized in accordance with the alphabetical
position of each letter.
Amelioration of meaning – the improvement of the connotational
component of meaning in the course of time.
American English – the variety of the English language spoken in the
USA.
American shortenings – shortened words which were produced on
American soil, but may be used in other variants of English as well, for
example, dorm – dormitory.
Analogical type of macrostructure – the mixture of both ideographical
and alphabetical types of word arrangement in a dictionary.
Antonyms – words grouped together on the basis of the semantic
relations of opposition; they belonged to one part of speech sharing certain
common semantic characteristics.
Applied Lexicology – the area of Lexicology which covers
terminology, lexicography, translation, linguodidactics and pragmatics of
speech, etc.
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Assimilation of borrowings – a partial or total confrontation to the
phonetical, graphical and morphological standards of the English language
and its semantic system.
Australian English – the variety of the English language used in
Australia; it is similar to British English, but it also borrows from American
English.
Back-formation – the formation of a new word by subtracting a real or
supposed suffix from the existing words, for example, butler → to buttle.
Barbarisms → Unassimilated borrowings.
Basic meaning of the word→ Central meaning of the word.
Bilingual dictionary – a dictionary which explains words by giving
their equivalents in another language.
Bilingualized dictionary – a dictionary which provides a translation for
each meaning of the headword, yet does not translate any of the other parts
of the entry making the user to think in English wherever possible.
Blending – the formation of a new word by combining parts of two
words, for example, smog – sm(oke) and (f)og.
Borrowed words – words in the English word-stock which were
borrowed from other languages.
Borrowing – the process of adopting words from other languages and
also the result of this process, the language material itself.
Bound morpheme – a morpheme that must be attached to another
element; it occurs only as a constituent part of a word.
Canadian English – the variety of the English language used in Canada
close to American English.
CD-ROM dictionaries – dictionaries which are usually electronic
versions of the printed reference books supplemented by more visual
information, pronunciation, interactive exercises and games and allowing
the user to carry out searches impossible with the book dictionaries.
Central (basic) meaning of the word – the first and the most frequent
meaning of a polysemantic word; it occurs in various and widely different
contexts.
Classifier → Hyperonym.
Cogniteme – a unit of knowledge functionally significant for describing
a fragment of worldview, a concept or a prototype.
Cognitive linguistics – an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics, in the
framework of which language is viewed as a mechanism for embedding and
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storing of knowledge, and the cognitive processes are investigated on the
basis of linguistic data.
Collocability – the power of a word to appear in various combinations.
Collocation – such a combination of words which conditions the
realization of a certain meaning.
Combinatorial Lexicology – the area of Lexicology which studies
syntagmatic relations between words and their combinatorial profile.
Combined lexical meaning – the inseparable meaning of all
components of the word-group rather than the lexical meaning of its
constituents.
Combining forms − morphemes borrowed namely from Greek or Latin
in which they exist as free forms; they are considered to be bound roots, for
example, the word tele-phone consists of two bound roots.
Common denominator of meaning – the component common to all
members of the semantic field.
Comparative Lexicology – the area of Lexicology which studies
closely related languages from the point of view of relationships between
language families (such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Germanic and Romance
languages, etc.).
Complete segmentability – (живое морфологическое членение слов)
the property of words, the morphemic structure of which is transparent
enough, as their individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word
and can be easily isolated.
Completely assimilated borrowed words – words which follow all
morphological, phonetical and orthographic standards of the English
language, they take part in word-formation, their morphological structure
and motivation is transparent; they are found in all layers of older
borrowings: cheese (L.), husband (Sc.), animal (L.).
Componential analysis (semantic decomposition) – the approach to
the description of meaning of words, which rests upon the thesis that the
sense of every lexeme can be analyzed in terms of a set of more general
sense components or semantic features, some or all of which will be
common to several different lexemes in the vocabulary.
Compound stems – stems that are always binary and semantically
motivated, but unlike the derived stems both Immediate Constituents of
compound stems are stems themselves: match-box (two simple stems),
letter-writer (one simple and one derived stem).
Compounding → Word-composition.
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Compounds proper – compound words that are formed by joining
together bases built on the stems or on the word-forms with or without a
linking element: door-step, street-fighting.
Computational Lexicography – the branch of Lexicography which
deals with the design, compilation, use and evaluation of electronic
dictionaries, which differ in form, content, and functions from conventional
word-books.
Computational Linguistics – the branch of Linguistics in which the
techniques of computer science are applied to the analysis and synthesis of
language and speech.
Concept – is the thought of an object that singles out its essential features.
Conditional segmentability – (условное морфологическое членение
слов) the property of words whose segmentation into the constituent
morphemes is doubtful for semantic reasons.
Connotational aspect of lexical meaning – the part of meaning which
reflects the attitude of the speaker towards what he speaks about;
connotation conveys additional information in the process of
communication.
Context – the minimum stretch of speech necessary and sufficient to
determine which of the possible meanings of a polysemantic word is used.
Context of situation → Extra-linguistic context.
Contextual correspondences – correspondences in target language,
which are used to translate a source language unit in a particular linguistic
and extralinguistic context.
Contiguity of meanings (metonymy) – the semantic process of
associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely
connected with it.
Contradictory antonyms (contradictories) – antonyms which are
mutually opposed and deny one another; they form a privative binary
opposition and are members of two-term sets.
Contraries (gradable antonyms) – antonyms that can be arranged into
a series according to the increasing difference in one of their qualities; the
most distant elements of this series will be classified as contrary notions,
they are polar members of a gradual opposition which may have
intermediate elements.
Contrastive Lexicology – the area of Lexicology which aims at
establishing facts of typological similarities and differences between both
related and unrelated languages.
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