英语词汇学理据论文

Lexical motivation and implications for language learning and teaching Introduction

Most English words are conventional, arbitrary symbols. There is no connection between the word form and its meaning. Some English words are motivated symbols. What is motivation?

Motivation means relation between the form of the word and the original fact or reality. More specifically, if there is a relationship between phonic (sound) form of a word/lexeme and an object/fact of extra-lingual reality, or between a new word and the original word, we speak of motivated words. There are four principal types of motivation: Onomatopoeic motivated, syntactically motivated, semantically motivated and etymologically motivated.

1)Onomatopoeic motivation means defining the principle of motivation by sound.

The sounds of such words as cuckoo, ding-dong, swish, buzz, seem to be

appropriate to their senses. Some of these onomatopoeic terms have certain

elements in common. For Example, the sounds / sn / may express three types of experiences: "breath-noise (sniff, snuff, snore, snort), "quick separation or

movement" (snip, snap, snatch), and "creeping" (snake, snail, sneak, snoop).

Another interesting feature of onomatopoeic patterns is that they often work by vowel alternation. By substituting one vowel for another one can express different noises: snip - snap, sniff - snuff, flip - flap - flop. It should be noted that many onomatopoeic forms are based on alternations of not vowels but of initial

consonants: higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter, namby-pamby, roly-poly, etc.

2)Syntactic motivation means that by analyzing the formation of the word, one can

gain the meaning of it. Apparently, words which have syntactic motivation are almost derivative or compound words. So, syntactic motivation, namely, the

syntactic relations between the two bases of compounds, account for a large part of self-explaining compounds. A possible sub classification of compound nouns could be made by the part of speech of each base. 'Daydreaming' and 'sightseeing' are compound nouns from 'N+V-ing'. And others such as teacher, worker, leader, and singer, etc --- these derivative words are not non-motivation. They all consist of a verb and –er. These words mean people who do these actions. And from the affix of the derivation words, we can often infer their meaning. Take collapse for example. It is made up of col (which means doing things together) and lapse

(which means falling down), so the word means falling down together. And then we can imagine it into subside or cave in. But we can not take this regulation for granted. Eggplant has no egg in side; pineapple has neither pine nor apple; and there’s no ham in hamburger at all. Some abrogative words have allegoric

significance, so their motivation is unobvious. For example, night-cap means the wine drunk before sleep instead of the cap used for sleep.

3)Semantic motivation means that motivation is based on semantic factors. It is a

kind of mental association. When we speak of the bonnet or the hood of a car, of a coat of paint, or of potatoes cooked in their jackets, these expressions are