词汇学 英语专业期末论文 WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM LEXICOLOGY

Class.4 Sun Ying 120801409

WHAT I HA VE LEARNED FROM LEXICOLOGY

The lexicology class is coming to an end. Through this subject, I have gained some knowledge. There are divided into three aspects as follows.

To begin with, I have learned that only when we know the origin of a word, morphological structure, methods of word-formation and motivation can we understand the word better. I tried to recite the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary when I was a freshman, but I totally gave up two weeks later because I found it is exceedingly tedious for me. In another words, before I took this subject, I had never got a formal learning system of words. With the deep-going of this lesson, I gradually grasped the regularities of some words. Taking ‘anti-’for example, a prefix of affixation which means oppose to something, inducing a series of new words-antibody, antiwar, antiracist and so on. Most impressively, motivation fascinates me. From the conclusion of onomatopoeic motivation, I nearly have a 3D feeling towards the words-the magpies are chattering, the ravens are croaking, the puppies are yelping… Having learned the motivation of some words, I understood the words preliminarily. Grasping the regularities of some words could greatly increase the quantity of my vocabulary!

In the second place, semantic features, change of meaning and semantic classification of words made me understood the words better. I never attached the importance of them, I did not understand different meanings of a word and only memorize it mechanically before. By the instruction of lexicology, I find the change meanings of a word like a little story, for example, albatross originally means a very large white seabird, but the extension meaning is something that hinders or handicaps. The extension meaning from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by a British poet S. T. Coleridge, about an ungrateful old sailor killed a albatross and took it around his neck which became his burden. Making a clearly source meaning of a word can not only help me memorize the word but also broaden my horizon. Therefore, after the class, I have a mind to look up the words of which I confused with the meanings. I saw, I looked up, I understood!

In the third place, I have learned that English idioms could show one’s level of English. After taking this aspect of lexicology, I have a lesson-although I know every word of an idiom, I still do not know the meaning! The idioms have five classifications: idioms verbal in nature, idioms nominal in nature, idioms adjectival in nature, idioms adverbial in nature and proverbs. Through lexicology, I learned the fundamental constitutions of the idioms, so what should I do next is to memorize them with association. To this point, I learned that grasp the regularities is one thing but accumulate the idioms is another thing. The idioms polished by ancestor, so every idiom is the fruit of wisdom. Only when I recite the exactly meanings of idioms can I make sense of them or even express them.

In conclusion, although I learned this class for just one semester, it benefits me a lot. I once thought that an English word is just about roots and affixes. However, through a preliminary study in lexicology for this semester, I have learned a systematic way about mastering the method of learning an English word. By lexicology studying, I found English words are more interesting than I imagined before. In addition, there are also many other words did not written on the book, I should also practice the words because just have a system from class is not enough. I believe that on the basis of the knowledge I have learned from lexicology and look up the hard understood words by the Internet diligently, I could have a better grasp in English in the following study.