Автор: Пользователь скрыл имя, 23 Октября 2013 в 22:44, реферат
While studying foreign languages students usually face a problem of understanding the meaning of the word. We all know a saying “one word – one meaning” and we also know that it can’t be used to characterize the lexical system of the English language. In order to help students to be word-conscious the course of lexicology was included to the curriculum for the English sections of all linguistic departments.
Lexicology (of Greek origin: lexis “word” + logos “learning”) is a brunch of linguistics concerned with words. It is a study of words.
Faculty of World Trade and Economy
«Elevation, degradation, specialization, generalization»
Student Lofitskaya U.V.
While studying foreign languages students usually face a problem of understanding the meaning of the word. We all know a saying “one word – one meaning” and we also know that it can’t be used to characterize the lexical system of the English language. In order to help students to be word-conscious the course of lexicology was included to the curriculum for the English sections of all linguistic departments.
Lexicology (of Greek origin: lexis “word” + logos “learning”) is a brunch of linguistics concerned with words. It is a study of words.
The reason of these difficulties is a great English history. English lexical system has been changing through the history of the country: contact with Roman civilization, the invasion of the Angles, Saxons and Judes into Britain, the process of converting English people to Christianity, the Norman Conquest, Renaissance, etc. It shows that the meaning of a word changes in the course of time.
Semantic changes have been classified by different scientists. But the most complete classification was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul in his work Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte (Principles of the History of Language) in 1880. It is based on the logical principle. In this classification there are:
Ullmann dintinguishes between
Nature of semantic change:
Consequences of semantic change
In my paper I am going to talk about specialization, degradation, elevation and degradation and to find out which classification describes these phenomena more accurate.
Semantic change, also known as semantic shift or semantic progression describes the evolution of word usage — usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. In diachronic (or historical) linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations which can be added, removed, or altered over time.
There are three main causes of semantic changes:
e.g. car which goes back to Latin carfus which meant ‘a four wheeled (vehicle) wagon’, despite the fact that there is lack of resemblance.
It often happens in the history of a language that a word which originally had a wider meaning begins to be used in a narrow sense. This process can be also called Registration of Meaning or Narrowing of Meaning.
There are four ways of specialization of meaning in modern English:
e.g. a word box has a general meaning ‘a container for keeping things in it’. It is specialized in its meaning when used in jurisprudence ( a witness box), in theatre (proscenium box), in politics ( ballot box ), in professional slang (eternity box = coffin), etc.
The difference between these meanings can be distinguished with the help of the context only.
Absolute synonyms are synonyms which have exactly the same meaning and belong to the same style, e.g. homeland, motherland.
But two or more words of this kind are not needed in a language. So, one of them ought to specialize in order to remain in the language.
e.g. the English verb to starve was specialized in its meaning after the Scandinavian word die was borrowed into English. The verb to die became a general verb as there already were the noun death and the adjective dead which began with the same consonant ‘d’. And the verb to starve began to be used in the meaning ‘to die from hunger’.
e.g. the Tower originally meant ‘a fortress and palace’, later – ‘ prison’, and now it means ‘ museum’; Oxford – a university town in England (it was built near the place where oxen could ford the river).
e.g. Mail originally meant ‘a bag’. It was used in the combination ‘a mail of letters’. The phrase of letters was omitted and the noun mail got the meaning of the post.
There is also another process which is very similar to the process of ellipsis, when lexical meaning of a word changes under the influence of a set expression as a phraseological unit. Standing out against a background of this unit the word takes some traces of the phraseological meaning of this word combination.
e.g. the word brick gets meaning ‘tactless’ under the influence of expression to drop a brick which means ‘to say or do something tactless’.
Such changes in meaning are not usually registered
by dictionaries as their connection with those phraseological units
is very strict and the actualization of this meaning occurs in a rather
narrow context. Anyway, there is no doubt that changes of this kind
are rather regular.
Generalization or widening or extension of meaning is a process contrary to specialization. In such cases the meaning of a word becomes more general in the course of time. It means that initially the word had only one lexical meaning and was used in a narrow sense but then got wider sense and more than one lexical meaning. Due to it such words usually become more frequently used.
e.g. the word wretch originally meant ‘exile’ and now this word can be used to characterize ‘any miserable or vile person’; the word ready used to mean ‘prepared for a ride’ but then it got a wider meaning ‘ready for anything’.
Generalization of the meaning of a word usually occurs when a new denotation appears or due to the changes in understanding of an object, action or phenomenon that already exists. The set of semes changes, the denotational meaning covers a wide range of referents.
e.g. the verb to bootleg which used to describe an illegal import of alcohol into the United States of America at the time of the prohibition law extended its meaning from ‘to sell alcoholic drinks illegally’ to a wider one ‘to sell anything illegally’.
In this case semantic change occurs under the influence of the extra-linguistic causes reflecting changes in business. However, there can be linguistic causes of semantic changes as well.
e.g. As a result of a conflict between words season and spring, which used to be synonyms, had led to the widening of the meaning of the word season from ‘a part of the year between winter and summer’ to ‘any part of the year’.
All auxiliary verbs are cases of generalization of their lexical meaning because they developed a grammatical meaning. Such verbs as have, be, do, shall, will are devoid of their lexical meaning when they are used as auxiliary verbs which they have when used as modal verbs or notional verbs.
e.g. I have always wanted to spend my money on charity and I have an enormous pile of documents to be signed. In the first sentence the verb have has the meaning possess. In the second sentence it does not have lexical meaning as it is used to form Present Perfect Tense.
Elevation of meaning or amelioration is one of the gradual secondary ways of semantic changes. It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course of time. In addition to that, a word rises in status.
e.g. Word nice originally meant ‘foolish’. Then it got meaning ‘good/fine’. At Shakespeare's times the word actor used to mean ‘rogue/vagabond’. Nowadays, this word has elevated its lexical meaning and means ‘a person who performs a play oк a film’.
Degradation of meaning or pejoration is a process contrary to the elevation of meaning. It is a transfer of meaning when it becomes worse in the course of time. Decorous words acquire negative or even indecent meaning. It is usually used to talk about common people.
e.g. the word idiot had a meaning ‘a private person’ but then got a negative meaning and now it means ‘a stupid person or someone who has done something stupid/someone who is mentally ill’ . The word ‘vulgar’ used to mean ‘common/ordinary’. Now it means ‘coarse/indecent’.
In conclusion, having taken everything into consideration, I incline towards Herman Paul’s point of view. This research has helped me to understand the semantic structure of English words at the present stage of their development. This development is always a source of quantitative and qualitative development of the vocabulary. The constant development of trade, intercultural communication, technology, medicine, etc. usually brings new notions into our life. But languages do not have words to name them. And here we have two options: either to create new words or to use the vocabulary which already exists to name them. But the process of creating new words will be too tiring and will complicate language studies for both native speakers and foreigners. So, it often happens nowadays that new meanings are acquired by old words. Thus we can say that the phenomena I was talking about can be the ways of semantic changes.
Dictionaries:
Internet sources:
Introduction 2
Semantic Changes and their Causes 4
Specialization of Meaning 5
Generalization of Meaning 7
Elevation of meaning 9
Degradation of meaning 10
Conclusion 11
List of literature 12
Contents 13
Информация о работе Elevation, degradation, specialization, generalization