Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Subject matter. Links with other branches. Problems

Lexicology is a science about words. It studies the vocabulary of the language which consists of words and word combinations. The subject matter of lexicology is separate words, their morphological and semantic structure, and the vocabulary of the language, which includes words, word combinations, their origin, developement and current use.

Lexicology has lots of connections with other branches which also have word as a central unit. If lexicology studies the meaning of the word, Grammar studies grammatical problems. Both study roots, morphemes, affixes. But, unlike grammar, lexicological function is to name objects.Word is the smallest part of the sentence, and the sentence in its turn is the smallest communicative unit. Also it lexicology has connections with Phoenetics. If we change the stress, we change the meaning of the word and even part of the speech: rEcord – recOrd, cOment – comEnt; blackboard – black board, blackbird – black bird. Also it has some links with Stylistics. One of the problems of lexicology is stylistic characteristics. Stylistics studies different stylistic styles. The reflection of the style is in the text. E.g. bookish style we often can find in classical fiction or textbooks; collocations – in speech. And the last connection is with Social Lingusitics (Cultural Studies): language is a part of the culture, it’s a reflection of the mentality of people. There are some specific word combinations and associations in every language. E.g. professions: kindness is associated with social workers.

There are some special Problems in lexicoogy: word formation and word combination. Phraseology (science about phrases) studies it. When we start studying a new language, we try to know all the words and their meaning. And especially collocations that are unique in every language: wash hair – мыть голову, wash head – “намылить шею“. Specific feature of English is the Polysemy and Homonymy. Why? 1) It has a great number of mono-syllabic words; 2) Its analytical character. Word order is also very important. Lexicology studies words. A word has a meaning and a form. The approaches to find the meaning of the word are the following: 1) Syntagmatic – surrounding, neighbouring words help to deduce the meaning; 2) Paradigmatic – with the help of synonyms and antonyms. Word formation: 1) Compounding (Composition) – joining of several stems; 2) Convertion – one part of speech into another; 3) Affixation. One more problem – Stylistic characteristics.

2. General lexicology studies general rules of lexicology, irrespectively of other more specific problems. Special lexicology studies one specific language, description of its vocabulary, vocabulary units, the main units of the language. But every special lexiclology is based on principles of general lexicology, a general theory of vocabulary.

Historical lexicology studies the development of the words (vocabulary) – Diachronic approach. Modern lexicology (descriptive) studies the words and their development at the given stage – Synchronic approach. Dia – through, syn – together, chronos – tome. Contrastive (comparative) lexicology compares mother tongue with other languages.

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