How the English Language Enlarges Its Vocabulary
ⅠIntroduction
It is well known that vocabulary plays a very important role in language study because it is the essence of a language. Without vocabulary, there would be no sentence, no text and no language. Therefore, in order to master a language well, it is necessary for language learners to learn vocabulary well. But in fact, it seems very difficult for most of them to do the job well. They are always troubled in the memory and comprehension of vocabulary.
This paper is trying to put the focus on how English language enlarges its vocabulary. In the first part, the author will start with the introduction of word and its features as well as the reason why language learners should attach importance to vocabulary and its enlargement. In the next part, the author will introduce several ways by which English language enlarges its vocabulary. It involves the following three aspects: 1.compounding 2.derivation 3.lexical change proper (which includes ①invention ②blending ③abbreviation ④acronym ⑤back-formation ⑥analogical creation ⑦borrowing).Finally, there will be a conclusion of the paper.
1.1 Word and Its Features
Word is a unit of expression that has universal intuitive recognized by native-speakers, whether it is expressed in spoken or written forms.
Generally speaking, there are three senses of “word”
(1)A physically definable unit
(2)The common factor underlying a set of forms
(3)A grammatical unit
In addition to the three senses of “word” mentioned above, Which are helpful in defining “word” in spite of their inadequacies to account for all the language data, there are other factors which help us to identify words.
1) Stability
Words are the most stable of all linguistic units, in respect of their internal structure, that is, the constituent parts of a complex word have little potential for rearrangement, compared with the relative positional mobility of the constituents of sentences in the hierarchy.
2) Relative uninterrruptibility
By uninterruptibility, we mean new elements are not to be inserted into a word even when there are several parts in a word.
3) A minimum free form
This was first suggested by Leonard Bloomfield. He advocated treating sentence as “the maximum free form” and word “the minimum free form”, the latter being the smallest unit that can constitute, by itself, a complete utterance.
1.2 Purpose of the Study
First, vocabulary is the basic thing to learn English. We all know that vocabulary is the essence of language learning, without vocabulary, there will be no language. Learning vocabulary well becomes the most important thing to language learners. But many of them get in trouble when they try to comprehend and remember the words.
Second, vocabulary can help us do well in English level tests like CET-4, CET-6, TEM-4, TEM-8, GRE , TOFFEL and so on.
Generally speaking, vocabulary has become one of the vital standards in English study. For example, with the reference of syllabus for TEM Four and Eight, English majors are required to master 5000~6000 words for TEM Four and 9000~12000 words for TEM Eight. Though vocabulary plays a core role in learning a foreign language, it seems that it has been one of the principal obstacles to most people for a long time, because the required vocabulary is so large.
Ⅱ The Ways English Language Enlarges Its Vocabulary
There are some basic things to know before we go ahead with this part.
1. Words can be classified as closed-class words and open-class words. The distinction of grammatical words and lexical words leads to the distinction of “closed-class” words and “open-class” words.
A word that belongs to the CLOSED-CLASS is one whose membership is fixed or limited. New members are not regularly added. Therefore, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc. are all closed items.
The OPEN-CLASS is one whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited. With the emergence of new ideas, inventions, etc. new expressions are continually and constantly being added to the lexicon. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and many adverbs are all open-class items.
2. Morpheme is the immediate concern of a branch of linguistics called morphology, which studies the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed.
Morphemes can be sub-classified into free morpheme and bound morpheme
in terms of their capacity of occurring alone. Those which may occur alone, are FREE MORPHEMES，that is, those which may constitute words by themselves. For example, dog, nation and close are free morphemes. In other words, all monomorphemic words are free morphemes. And polymorphemic words which consist wholly of free morphemes are called COMPOUNDS, such as paymaster, moonwalk, babysit and sunflower.
In contrast,-s in dogs,-al in national, and dis- in disclose, cannot occur alone. They must appear with at least another morpheme, and are called BOUND MORPHEMES. Thus, the word distempered has three morphemes, namely, dis-, temper, and –ed, of which temper is a free morpheme, dis- and –ed are two bound morphemes.
Basically, there are three major ways to enlarge vocabulary:
2.1 Compound
The term COMPOUND covers a wide range of different relations between lexical words. On the whole, it refers to those words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme, or the way to join two separate words to produce a single form, such as ice-cream, cloakroom, etc.
In compounds, the two lexical morphemes can be of different word classes. For example,
a) noun compounds
day+break→daybreak(N+V)
wind+mill→windmill(N+N)
b) verb compounds
brain+wash→brainwash(N+V)
c) adjective compounds
man+eating→maneating(N+V-ing)
heart+felt→heartfelt(N+V-ed)
duty+free→dutyfree(N+Adj)
d) preposition compounds
in+to→into
through+out→throughout
2.2 Derivation
Different from compounds, DERIVATION shows the relation between roots affixes.
For example,
Un+conscious→unconscious
Nation+al→national
National+ize→nationalize
Nationalize+ation→nationalization
In contrast with inflections, derivations can make the word class of the original
word either changed or unchanged. Forms derived from derivation are relatively large and potentially open. Take the prefix pre- for example, one can easily list hundreds of words from any dictionary, such as preamble, pre-arrange, precaution, precede, precedent, precept, precinct, precognition, precondition, precursor,…the same is true for the words with the same suffix ending, such as –able in readable, valuable, acceptable, distinguishable, malleable, justifiable, salable, teachable, unanswerable, and so on.
2.3 Lexical Change Proper
Changes in lexicon strike our eyes most quickly and easily. Terms such as
Nuke, transistor, ALGOL (althrithmic language), loxygen (liquid oxygen),
Anacom (analogic computer), AIDS…in science and technology, videotape,
refrigerator, deep freezer, coke, Pepsi,…in our economic life, NATO, OPEC,
Cold war, hot line,…in politics , space war, grunt, H-bomb, guided missile,
Supersonic jet…in military affairs, and counter culture, hippies, Chairperson,
acid rock, teenybopper, uppers, downers…in the cultural field, have all come
into appearance in the past decades. Even in education, one can find new
expressions in circulation such as underachiever, open classroom, TA,
grade-point average, CAI, pass-fall grading and others. We may look at the
lexical level directly. New words or expressions are created through the following
processes, apart from compound and derivation we discussed above.
2.3.1 Invention
Since economic activities are the most important and dynamic in human life,
many new lexical items come directly from the consumed items, their producers or their brand names, such as Kodak, Coke, nylon, Xeros Frigidaire, granola, and others to cope with the invention of new entities.
2.3.2 Blending’
BLENDING is a relatively complex form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word, or by joining the initial parts of the two words. They can be exemplified by the following two sets of examples respectively.
ⅰ. joining the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word
smoke+fog→smog
mean + stingy → mingy
news + broadcast →newscast
Boat+hotel→boatel
ⅱ. joining the initial parts of the two words
psychological + warfare→psywar
biographical + picture→biopic
Teleprinter+exchange→telex
Modulator+demodulator→modem
Insulating+lacquer→insulac
Blending can also occur at a high cognitive level. From the similarity in the two expressions—she was on the verge of a crackup and she was on the verge of breakdown, the confusion of crackup and breakdown leads to the coining of crackdown. The same is true of riffle (ripple+shuffle), stample (trample+stamp on), spinwheels (pinwheel+spin), and rampacious (rampageous+rapacious). This sort of blending is labeled specially as FUSION.
2.3.3 Abbreviation
A Great number of English words have undergone the process of ABBRECIATION in their etymological history. It is also called CLIPPING, that is, a new word (as shown followed) is created by,
◆cutting the final part (or with a slight variation)
Advertisement →ad
Bicycle →bike
Brassiere→bra
Condominium→condo
Delicatessen→deli
fanatic→fan
mathematics→math
television→telly
◆cutting the initial part
Aeroplane→plane
Helicopter→copter
Caravan→van
Omnibus→bus
Telephone→phone
◆cutting both the initial and final parts accordingly
Influenza→flu
Refrigerator→fridge
Detective→tec
It is observed that English speakers tend to use abbreviations for each others’ names, such as Bob for Robert, Ed for Edward, Liz for Elizabeth, Mike for Michael, etc. Abbreviation is also popular in educational domain, such as chem. for chemistry, exam for examination, gym for gymnasium, lab for laboratory, math for mathematics, etc.
2.3.4 Acronym
Acronym is made up from the first letters of the name of an organization, which has a heavily modified headword. For example,
EEC European Economic Community
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
PLO Palestine Liberation Organization
UNESCO United Nations Education Science and Culture Organization
WTO World Trade Organization
WB World Bank
This process is also widely used in shorting extremely long words of word groups in science, technology and other special fields.
Aids acquired immune deficiency syndrome
EEG electroencephalogram
Rader radio detecting and ranging
MANIAC mathematical analyzer numerical integrator and computer
COBOL common business oriented language
WASP white Anglo-Saxon protestant
VAT value added tax
2.3.5 Back-formation
Back-formation refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from a longer form already in the Language. Take televise for example, the word television predated the occurrence of the word televise. The first part of the word televise was pulled out and analyzed as a root, even though no such root occurs elsewhere in the English language. For more examples,
Gangling →gangle
Editor →edit
Peddler →peddle
Hawker →hawk
Enthusiasm →enthuse
Laser →lase
Calmative →calm
Free association →free-associate
Instead of taking out part of a word as a root, back-formation allows us to take a word of a given category and form a new homophonous word of a different category, such as the noun form whitewash that becomes the verb form whitewash.
However, some people would rather treat this process as class shift.
2.3.6 Analogical creation
The principle of ANALOGICAL CREATION can account for the co-existence of two forms, regular and irregular, in the conjugation of some English verbs. For instance, people know quite well that the past tense suffix for English verb should be –ed, and they tend to apply it to all verbs. As a result, we have both the old forms and the new forms for many English verbs.
Old → new
Work wrought worked
Beseech besought beseeched
Slay slew slayed
Analogical creation is to be distinguished from overgeneralization, the latter being regarded as a mistake in the use of language.
2.3.7 Borrowing
English in its development has managed to widen her vocabulary by BORROWING words from other languages. Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Arabic and other languages have all played an active role in this process. Throughout its history, The English language has adopted a vast number of words from various sources.
Greek: flokati, apocynthion, obstetrics, epilepsy, electricity,…
Latin: canter, tumor, alias, injunction, alibi, affidavit, subpoena,…
French: mortage, aprčs-ski, extrabrdinaire, bidonville, entail,…
Spanish: macho, flotilla, grandee, junta, sieta, renegade,…
Italian: autostrada, cica,…
German: gemutlich, rankfurter, hamburger, delicatessen, thick-milk,…
Chinese: taji, chow mien, wok, kung-fu.
Japanese: jodo
Borrowing can be done directly or indirectly. For instance, the word feast was borrowed directly from the middle French festa, and the word algebra was borrowed indirectly from Arabic through Spanish. Many English words of Greek origin are borrowed via Latin or French.
There are several types of processes with regard to borrowing.
1.Loanwords: the borrowing of LOANWORDS is a process in which both form and meaning are borrowed with only a slight adaptation, in some cases, to the phonological system of the new language that they enter. For instance, English borrowed au pair, encore, coup d etat and others from French, al fresco (in the open air) from Italian, tea from Chinese, sputnik from Russian and moccasin (a type of shoe) from an American Indian language.
2. Loanblend: LOANBLENGING is a process in which part of the form is native and part is borrowed, but the meaning is fully borrowed. In English, the first parts of the words coconut and Chinatown came from Spanish and Chinese respectively, but the second parts are of the English origin.
3. Loanshift: LOANSHIFT is a process in which the meaning is borrowed, but the form is native. Bridge is an English word, but when it refers to a type of card game, the meaning was borrowed from the Italian ponte. The English word artificial satellite is also a case of loan shift to counteract the Russian sputnik.
4. Loan translation: LOAN TRANSLATION is a special type of borrowing , in which morpheme or word is translated in the equivalent morpheme or word in another language. For instance, the English word almighty is a literal translation from the Latin ominipotens. This is also called CALQUE, which may be a word ,a phrase ,or even a short sentence. The English expression free verse was translated from latin’s verse libre. Black humour is a loan translation from French humour noir, so is found object from French object trouve.
III Conclusion
This paper focuses on how the English language enlarges its vocabulary and aims to help the language learners do a better job in language learning. On the basis of the comparative experiment and the theories of lexical fields, the ways mentioned above have proved to be productive and promising for vocabulary learning. Through these ways, learners can effectively memorize and comprehend the exact words, which is very important and meaningful to language learners. Though it is not easy for most English learners to habituate themselves to these ways now, yet it is just a matter of time and mostly of attitude.
The argument, which comes from authentic practice and authorized theories, is logical and reasonable. Yet, more researches are necessary to better the real application of these ways. The task is tough, but the prospect is bright.
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