2. Lexis Flashcards
What is Lexis?
Lexis refers to individual words or sets of words which have a specific meaning.
What is denotative meaning (denotation)?
The meaning that describes the thing or idea behind the vocabulary item, e.g. a tree is a large plant with a wooden trunk, branches ande leaves.
What is figurative meaning?
A imaginative meaning that comes from, but is different from, a word’s denotative meaning. e. g. ‘the tree of life’ or ‘family tree’.
Where does the meaning of a vocabulary item can come from?
- From the context in which it is used.
- From its form, e.g. from prefixes, suffixes or compounds.
What is a compound noun?
A noun made from two or more separate words. They have a different meaning form the individual words they are made up of.
Give examples of words that regularly occur together.
- Collocations.
- Fixed expressions.
- Idioms.
What is a collocation?
Words which are regularly used together.
What are the two types of collocations?
- Grammatical collocations.
- When certain words collocate with particular prepositions, e.g. depend on, good at.
- When a verb collocates with a particular noun, e.g. do the shopping, make a plan.
- Lexical collocations.
- When two content words are regularly used together, e.g. the wrong way not the incorrect way.
What are idioms?
Fixed expressions which meaning is usually different from the combination of the meaning of the individual words they contain, e.g. a penny for your thoughts, cry over spilt milk.
What’s a chunk?
Chunks refers to language that occurs in (semi-)fixed units and that we usaually learn as one piece, e.g. have a good trip, I’d like to…, how about…
What are synonyms?
Words with the same or similar meaning.
What are antonyms?
Words with the opposite meaning.
What is a lexical set?
A group of words that belong to the same topic area, e.g. family, furniture, food.
What is a word family?
A group of words that come form the same base word.
What are homophones?
Words with the same pronunciation but a different meaning, e.g. know-no, there-theire.
What are homonyms?
Words with the same spelling and pronunciation but with different meaning, e.g. river bank, a bank
How do we call fixed expressions which meaning is usually different from the combination of the meaning of the individual words they contain, e.g. a penny for your thoughts, cry over spilt milk.
They are called idioms.
How do we call the language that occurs in (semi-)fixed units and that we usually learn as one piece, e.g. have a good trip, I’d like to…, how about…
They are called chunks.
How do we call a group of words that belong to the same topic area, e.g. family, furniture, food.
It is called lexical set.
How do we call words with the same spelling and pronunciation but with different meaning, e.g. river bank, a bank
They are called homonyms.
What it takes to fully understand a word.
- What part of speech it is.
- How it is pronounced.
- How it is spelled
- All the meanings it can have.
How can learners meet the same word again and again in order to become a part of their productive vocabulary.
- Texts.
- Vocabulary extension activities
- Relationships in meaning (synonyms, word families).
- How they can be built. (affixation, compounds).
Why it is important to highlight chunks to students?
Do we have to pre-teach all the difficult words of a text or recording?
No, it depends on the tasks that go with the texts or recording.
Also, we should not teach more than seven or eitght words at any one time.
