词汇学总结

Ⅰ。What is lexicology?The study of words/lexical components of a language.

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of the vocabulary of a given language. It deals with words, their origin, development, structure, formation, meaning and usage.

Generally speaking, linguistics can be defined as the scientific study of language. To be more exact, linguistics studies the general principles upon which languages are constructed and operate as systems of human communication Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

the definition of a word comprises the following points:A minimal free form of a language A sound unity A unit of meaning A form that can function alone in a sentence

A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound, meaning and syntactic function

What is vocabulary①The total number of the words in a language. ②All the words used in a particular historical period③.All the words of a given dialect, a given book, a given discipline and the words possessed by an individual person.

①．5 basic features of the basic word stock All national character 全民性 Stability 稳定性 Productivity 能产性 Polysemy 多义性 Collocability 搭配能力强

Non-basic vocabulary includes the following:

Terminology 专业术语technical terms （formal）

Jargon 行话specialized vocabulary in certain professions

Slang 俚语substandard words often used in informal occasions (colloquial)

Argot 隐语words used by sub-cultured groups (informal)

Dialectal words 方言词only by speakers of the dialect (informal)

Archaisms 古语词words no longer in common use or restricted (formal)

Neologisms 新词语newly created words with new meaning (formal)②Content words/Notional words/full words/lexical words

Constitute the main body of the English vocabulary, numerous and the number is ever growing

Functional words/ Grammatical wordsConstitute a very small number of the vocabulary; stable

③Native words / Angle-Saxon words Native words are not native in fact but words brought to Britain in the fifth century by the German tribes: the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, thus known as Anglo-Saxon words.Native words are small in number, but form the mainstream of the basic word stock. What is true of the basic word stock is also true of the native words. Besides they are also (1) neutral in style, (2) frequent in use.

Borrowed words/ loan words / borrowings Denizens 同化词Aliens 非同化词

Translation-loans 译借词Semantic loans 语义借词

Ⅱ。/General Characteristics

1 Receptivity, adaptability and heterogeneity感受性 适应性异质性

2 Simplicity of inflection:简单变形Old English is a synthetic language人工语言

Modern English is an analytic language分析性语言

3 Relatively fixed word-order相对固定的词序

Foreign Elements in the English Vocabulary The major contributors to English are Latin, Greek, French and Scandinavian.

Growth of Contemporary English Vocabulary

Marked progress of science and technology

Socio-economic, political and cultural changes

The Influence of other cultures and languages

Modes of Vocabulary Development

CreationThe formation of new words by using the existing materials.

Semantic changeAn old form takes on a new meaning

Borrowing:Borrowed words constitute six to seven percent of all new words.