Lexicology as a Branch of Linguistics

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics dealing with a systematic description and study of the vocabulary of the language as regards its origin, development, meaning and current use. The term is composed of 2 words of Greek origin: lexis - word + logos – word’s discourse. So L is a word about words, or the science of a word. L is concerned not only with words because the study of the structure of words implies references to morphemes which make up words.

General L is concerned with specific features of any language and special studies a vocabulary of a given language. Contrastive compares two or more languages and reveals their similarities and disimilarities. Historical deals with evolution, changes in the vocabulary in the course of time. Sinchronic deals with the modern state of lexicology.

L has close ties with other branches of linguistics as they also take into account words in one way or another approaching them from different angles. l and phonetics: phonetics is also concerned with the study of the word, with the sound-form of the word. l and grammar:even isolated words in a dictionary bear a definite relation to the grammatical system of the language because they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico-grammatical characteristics of the word class to which they belong. history of a language:investigates the changes and the development of the vocabulary of a language. l and stylistics:studies many problems treated in l. (problems of meaning, synonymy, differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication and some other issues). sociolinguistics: investigates the social causes of the changes in the vocabulary of a language. The word-stock of a language reacts to changes in social life. The intense development of science and technology, w hich is a social factor, has given birth to a great number of new words: CD-ROM, e-mail, SMS.

Modern English lexicology investigates the problems of word structure and word formation; it also investigates the word structure of English, the classification of vocabulary units, replenishment3 of the vocabulary; the relations between different lexical layers4 of the English vocabulary and some other.

Date: 2016-01-20; view: 1122; Нарушение авторских прав