1. The object of Lexicology. General, special, historical, descriptive; sociolinguistics.

Lexicology – is the branch of linguistic dealing with vocabulary of the language and the properties of words or main units of the language. General lexicology studies linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages, general studying of words and voc. irrespective of specific features of any part of language. Special linguistic – devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the given language. Historical linguistic - studies the evolution of any vocabulary as well as single elements, discusses the origin of words. Descriptive linguistic – deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development, studies the function of words and their specific features as characteristic inherent in the system. Socio- linguistics – a branch of ling. dealing with casual relations between the way the language develops and the fact of social life. Every new phenomenon in human society finds reflection in a vocabulary.

2. The connection of lexicology with phonetics, stylistics, grammar.

Phonetics. On acoustic level words consist of phonemes and these phonemes participate in the significations. They have no meaning but their function is to build up morphemes, which served to distinguish between meanings. Stylistics studies many problems treated in lexicology: these are the problem of meaning, synonyms, differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication. Grammar. It attends to establish rules for the correct use of the language in society. Every word alongside with the lex. meaning has some grammatical meaning.

3. The Structural Aspects of the word.

The word is a unit of speech, which serves the purposes of human communication materially representing the group of sounds possessing a meaning susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity. So it can be defined as: a unity of communication; it can be perceived as the total of sounds; structurally it possess some functions.

There is external (morphological) and internal (the meaning - semantic) structure of the word.

4. A brief Account of the main characteristics of a word.

1. The distinguishing between external (morphological) and internal (the meaning - semantic) structure of the word.

2. Unity. The word has external and internal unity. Formal unity is sometimes inaccurately interpreted as indivisibility of the word. But we can divide it into morphemes but their components are linked together. We can compare words to groups whose components have a certain structural freedom. (E.g.: bluebell (type of flower) – blue bell (colour and object)) If it is word we can change the whole of it, phrase – all components.

3. Susceptibility to grammatical employment. Words can be used in different grammatical forms and thus they realize the interrelations.

5. The main problems of Lexicology

Word building. It’s connected with word structure and process of coining new words. Semantics. It’s the study of meaning. 2 approach of studying this problem: syntagmatic (the word is studied in its liner relationships with neighboring words.), paradigmatics (word is studied in its relationships with other words in voc. system; with the synonymy, antonymy and different stylistic characteristics.). E.g.: girl – bird, chick, colee, damsel .

Phraseology. The branch of lex. specializing in word groups which are characterized by stability of structure and transferred meaning. E.g.: To be at a loss.

The study of voc. as a system.

2 approaches: synchronically (at a given stage of development), diachronically (in the contents of the process through it grew, developed, acquired in modern form.).

6. Formal and Informal style.

The style can be divided into 2: formal and informal, depending on the situations. The situations can be formal (professional communication, reception, lecture, talk to a teacher or manager), informal (talk to friends, relatives, an intimate letter).

Informal vocabulary is used in two-way everyday conversation, when you are at home, or feeling like home. The choice of words in each particular situation is determined not only by formal or informal situation but also by the speaker education, cultural background, age group, his occupation and regional characteristics. That’s why the inf. Words are subdivided into 3 subgroups: colloquialisms, slang, and dialect words.

Formal words. They are divided into 3 groups: learned words, professional words, obsolete and archaic words.

6. Colloquial speech. The main features and characteristics.

1. They are the least exclusive (90% of people use them every day). Their sphere of communication is wide.

2. They are subdivided: literary coll. (used by educated people, printer pages: pall, chum – friend; bite, snake – meal), familiar (used by the young and semi-educated, it is more emotional and free: ta-ta – good bye; doc – doctor), low (“speech of persons who may only be described as uncultivated” – G.P.Kropp. These are words of illiterate language.).

6. Definition of slang. Main features.

It is informal non-standard voc., usually intelligible only to people from a particular region or social group such as doctors, sailors.

The main features:

1. It is a lang. of coll. style considered as below the level of standard educational speech and consisting either of new words or of current wards employed in some special sense.

2. Slang is metaphor.

3. Each slang metaphor is ruted in a joke with cinical colouring.

4. The circle of users is narrower than that of coll. words It’s mainly used by the young and uneducated.

5. Slang is subject to rapid change. So it is short-lived.

6. Dialect and variant. The main features of dialect words.

Dialect – is a variety of language, which prevails in a districts with local peculiarities of voc., pronunciation, phrase.

Variant – is original variety possessing a literary form.

In G.B there are 2 variants: Scottish, Irish. There are 5 dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group has 4 or 5dialects.

Cockney – Southern dialect (London). It exists in 2 levels: as spoken by educated and uneducated people. Features of Cockney dialect

1. Interchange between [W] and [V]: [vel] – [wel] – well

2. The voiceless and voiced dental spirants: [O] – [f] fing – thing; [ ] – [v] faver – father.

3. Interchange of the aspirated and non-aspirated initial sounds: heart – ‘eart.

4. Substitution of diphthongs: day- [dai], way – [wai].

Features: 1. Dialect peculiarities especially those of voc are constantly being incorporated into coll. speech. From these levels they can come into common stock. E.g.: car, tram ,trolley – used to be dialect words.

2. Using dialect words is the bright, expressive means.

6. Learned words.

1. They are associated with printed pages.

2. Sphere of usage; they are used by educated and highly educated people.

3. They are subdivided into:

• Scientific prose – identified by their dry flavour: comprise, compile, homogeneous.

• Officialese – words of the official, bueurocratic language. They should be avoided in speech: to assist – to help, to proceed – to go, approximately – about.

• Literary words – described as refined, they are used in descriptive passages of fiction. They are represented by the words of Roman languages and though fully adopted to English phonetic system still sound foreign: solitude, sentiment, fascination, cordial, allusive.

• Modes of poetic diction – they are lofty, high-flown, archaic, coloured, used only in poetry: alas, constancy – верность, duth – do.

6. Archaisms, obsolete words and historisms, their general characteristics.

Obsolete words – are no longer in use, especially out of use for at least a century. Archaic words – are current in earlier times, but rare in present usage. Historisms – are words denoting objects and phenomena, which are thing of the past and no longer exist.

Features:

1. They stand close to the learned words (modes of poetic dictions)

2. Archaisms are associated with printed pages.

3. They are moribund, are out of circulation, rejected by living lang. and are not used in conversational situations.

4. They are met in historical novels and poetry. They are used to create a particular period of time.

5. Sometimes archaic words may undergo a sudden reveal: kin used to be archaic word.

E.g.: thou – you, thy – your, nay –no, aye- yes.

6. Professional terminology. Features of term. Problems in terminology.

Terminology is the set of technical words used in a particular subject such as physics, art, lang. study. Terminological system embraces many of specialized fields such as scientific, professional or treat areas. Every field of modern activity has its specialized vocabulary.

Term is a word or word group, which is specially used by a particular brunch of science, technology, trade, arts to convey a concept, which is specific to this particular activity.

Features of term:

1. Terms are deprived of emotional colouring.

2. They are not for general use, they are used by narrow circle of people.

3. Sometimes they may obtain more generalized meaning (electricity)

4. Terms can be polysemantic and can have synonyms.

5. Terms can be simple containing word or complex: electromotive force.

6. The origin of number of terms is Latin: index, metaphor, Present Indefinite.

7. They are built up according to the rules of word building.

8. Terms are borrowed from other languages.

Problems of terminology.

1. Whether term loses its terminological status when it comes into common usage or not. Most scholars think that it’s quite natural that a great number of terms pass into general usage. E.g.: measles, electricity.

2. Synonymy and polisemy in terminology. Some scholars consider the term to have no synonyms and to be monosemantic. It sounds reasonable but in reality terms do possess synonyms and many terms are polysemantic. E.g.: to dress-перевязывать рану (medical), готовить землю к посеву (agricultural), выстраивать в шеренгу (military).

6. Basic vocabulary words, their main features.

Basic voc. – a central group, a basic core of the language. It doesn’t include all words but only that part which comprises lexical foundation of the language.

Main features:

1. B.V is the central group of the vocabulary, its living core. They show a great stability, undergo changes but slowly. They denote objects and phenomena of everyday importance.

2. Stylistically these words are neutral, that is they are used in all kinds of situations both formal and informal. They are used by everybody every day.

3. These are words without which no human communication would be possible.

4. Basic vocabulary words have no connotations. Their meaning is board and directly conveys the concept without supplying any additional information.