2. Lexis

Question 1

What is Lexis?

Answer 1

Lexis refers to individual words or sets of words which have a specific meaning.

Question 2

What is denotative meaning (denotation)?

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

What is figurative meaning?

Answer 3

A imaginative meaning that comes from, but is different from, a word’s denotative meaning. e. g. ‘the tree of life’ or ‘family tree’.

Question 4

Where does the meaning of a vocabulary item can come from?

Answer 4

1. From the context in which it is used.
2. From its form, e.g. from prefixes, suffixes or compounds.

Question 5

What is a compound noun?

Answer 5

A noun made from two or more separate words. They have a different meaning form the individual words they are made up of.

Question 6

Give examples of words that regularly occur together.

Answer 6

• Collocations.
• Fixed expressions.
• Idioms.

Question 7

What is a collocation?

Answer 7

Words which are regularly used together.

Question 8

What are the two types of collocations?

Answer 8

1. 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.
2. Lexical collocations.
   
   • When two content words are regularly used together, e.g. the wrong way not the incorrect way.

Question 9

What are idioms?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

What’s a chunk?

Answer 10

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…

Question 11

What are synonyms?

Answer 11

Words with the same or similar meaning.

Question 12

What are antonyms?

Answer 12

Words with the opposite meaning.

Question 13

What is a lexical set?

Answer 13

A group of words that belong to the same topic area, e.g. family, furniture, food.

Question 14

What is a word family?

Answer 14

A group of words that come form the same base word.

Question 15

What are homophones?

Answer 15

Words with the same pronunciation but a different meaning, e.g. know-no, there-theire.

Question 16

What are homonyms?

Answer 16

Words with the same spelling and pronunciation but with different meaning, e.g. river bank, a bank

Question 17

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.

Answer 17

They are called idioms.

Question 18

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…

Answer 18

They are called chunks.

Question 19

How do we call a group of words that belong to the same topic area, e.g. family, furniture, food.

Answer 19

It is called lexical set.

Question 20

How do we call words with the same spelling and pronunciation but with different meaning, e.g. river bank, a bank

Answer 20

They are called homonyms.

Question 21

What it takes to fully understand a word.

Answer 21

1. What part of speech it is.
2. How it is pronounced.
3. How it is spelled
4. All the meanings it can have.

Question 22

How can learners meet the same word again and again in order to become a part of their productive vocabulary.

Answer 22

1. Texts.
2. Vocabulary extension activities
   
   • Relationships in meaning (synonyms, word families).
   • How they can be built. (affixation, compounds).

Question 23

Why it is important to highlight chunks to students?

Question 24

Do we have to pre-teach all the difficult words of a text or recording?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

What’s a phrasal verb?

Answer 25

A phrasal or multi-word verb is a verb which is made of more than one word (e.g. verb + adverbe particle or preposition) which has a different meaning from each individual word.

e.g. look after - A mother looks after her children.

Question 26

What’s a root word?

Answer 26

A root word or base word is a word from which other words can be made by adding a preffix or suffix.