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LECTURE I

Lexicology as a Branch of Linguistics

The scope of lexicology and the key notions of the word studies

1. Links with other branches of linguistics

2. The theoretical and practical value of lexicology

3. Methods of lexicological research

1. The scope of lexicolgy

The word “Lexicology” comes from two Greek roots: lexis - “word” and logos -

“learning”. It is a branch of linguistics that deals with the vocabulary

of a language and the properties of words.

The basic task of this discipline is a systematic description of the

vocabulary of a language from the point of view of its origin, development

and current use.

The field of lexicology has been under discussion. The most disputable

points are: 1)the problem of the word and 2) distinguishing lexicology

as a separate science. Repesentatives of various linguistic schools treated these problems from different angles and often came to different conclusions.

Thus American descriptivists did not treat the word as the main unit

of the language, while many other scholars including former Soviet or present

Russian scholars consider it the basic unit of the language.

Some foreign scholars such as Ul. Weinrech, Aidan Cahill, M. Halliday,

D. Crystal and others did not distinguish lexicology

as a separate linguistic discipline and it was in the works

of Russian scholars (V.V.Vinogradov,G.O.Vinokur, L.V. Scherba,

A.I. Smirnitsky,O.S. Akhmanova etc.) that the theory of this science was

worked out.Today this branch of linguistics is a very important one and many

of its aspects are under research.

Considering lexicology scholars traditionally speak about general, special,

historical and descriptive, comparative and contrastive, applied and functional

lexicology.

General lexicology is the study of words and vocabulary, irrespective

of the specific features of any particular language. It deals with language

universals which are linguistic phenomena and features common to all languages.

It means that general lexicology forms a part of general linguistics.

In contrast to general lexicology, special lexicology devotes its attention

to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of

a given language. Special lexicology is based on the principles of general

lexicology and uses its terms and notions.

Speaking about historical and descriptive lexicology, we should speak about

two main approaches to the study of language material,which are

the synchronic and the diachronic approach. The term diachronic (that originates from

Greek dia - “through” and chronos- “time”) means “historical” and the term

synchronic (Greek syn –“together”) –present. The distinction between

a synchronic and a diachronic approach was suggested and developed by

the Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). He insisted on

the necessity of separate studies and supposed that synchronic linguistics

is concerned with systems and diachronic linguistics with single units.

Historical lexicology uses the diachronic approach and discusses the evolution

of any vocabulary, the history of various words and their change in the coarse of language

development. It takes into consideration both linguistic and extra-linguistic

forces that modify their structure, meaning and usage.

.

Descriptive lexicology (which takes the synchronic approach) deals

with the vocabulary of a particular language at a certain stage of its development.

It is interested in words as morpohological and semantical structures, investigating

the interdependence between these two aspects.

The distinction between these two different ways is methodological.

It is used for the research purpose and in real language these two aspects are

inseparable, because actually every linguistic structure and system exists in a state

of constant development.

M.V. Solovieva gives the following example to illustrate the possibilities of two

approaches to the language studies. If we take the word “beggar”, synchronically

we can say that this noun is a derivative from the verb “to beg” by

means of the suffix –ar-. But diachronically it is obvious that the noun was

borrowed from French and the verb “to beg” appeared as the result of back

derivation.

Within the scope of lexicology are also comparative and contrastive lexicology.

The former studies closely related languages from the point of view of their

typological identity or differentiation. The latter aims at establishing similarity

and difference between both related and unrelated languages. Applied lexicology

covers terminology, lexicography, translation linguodidactics and pragmatics

of speech. Functional lexicology describes the words from the point of view of

their ability to provide and support meaningful communication.

The key notions of lexicology are the word, vocabulary, phraseological unit,

meaning, semasiology and onomasiology, lexical system.

The term vocabulary is used to denote the system formed by all the words

and phraseological units of the language.

The term word is used to denote a very complicated notion, which is defined

in many ways. Traditionally the word denotes the basic unit of

a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with

a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical

employment. If we try to explain it, we can say that any word consists of sounds,

is used in some characteristic grammatical functions and has a special meaning

of its own. Thus a word therefore is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical

and phonological unit.

The phraseological unit is a group of words, characterized by a completely

or partially transferred meaning.

The term meaning is also very dubious. According to F. de Soaussure,