TOPIC 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY.

ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.

INTRODUCTION

Language has always been an essential and characteristic form of human

communication. A word is not easy to define, though broadly speaking; a word is a
group of letters separated from other words by a space, a punctuation mark or pause, if
spoken. Thus, words are often perceived as containers of meaning and the building
blocks of linguistic communication. The messy nature of lexical meaning can be seen in
phenomena such as homonymy, synonymy, and polysemy, and so too the difficulty in
translating from one language to another. This means that vocabulary is one of the most
challenging aspects of language from the point of view of teaching and learning a
foreign language.

THE WORDS AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN

Probably the most enriching contribution for the definition of word comes from
Semiotics, which studies and analyses sign processes, signification and
communication, signs and symbols.

William Shakeapeare once said: “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” In fact,
according to the linguist Saussure, a linguistic sign have a dual structure: a signifier
and a signified, in other words, a sound image, a shape (the sequence of letters or
phonemes) and a concept (or mental object) that appears on our minds. The linguistic
sign shows two essential features: arbitrariness and linearity of the signifier. It is
arbitrary because we associate a particular form with a specific meaning; there is no
direct relationship between the shape and the concept. For example, there is no reason
why the letters D-O-G -or its sounds- produce exactly the image of the domesticated
animal with fur, four legs and a tail in our minds. It is a result of "convention": speakers
of the same language group have agreed that these letters or sounds evoke a certain
image. There are only two situations in which there is some sort of match between the
image and the concept it is associated with: onomatopoeia sound and interjections. The
second feature, linearity, refers to the fact that we perceive signs, read and hear,
linearly. That is, it takes time to pronounce a word and it takes time to perceive and
understand it.

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TOPIC 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY.
ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.
THE ANALYSIS OF MEANING

Semantics is the branch of Semiotics that studies the meanings in language. Here it is
important to distinguish between semantic meaning (literal) and pragmatic meaning
(contextual).

Semantic features are relevant in order to constitute semantic fields in areas of lexicon
describing aspects of the world by means of word senses with related meanings. Sense
relations, in semantic terms, refer to the meaning of a word in terms of its links with
other words. Among sense relationships, we may emphasise synonymy, hyponymy and
antonymy.

HOMONYMY
A homonym is a group of words that share the same spelling and the same
pronunciation but have different meaning. Homonyms represent different entries in a
dictionary, because, in fact they are different signifieds which share a same form, a
single signifier. For example, this pun contains a pair of homonyms: “War doesn’t
determine who’s right, but who’s left: left (opposite of right) and left (past tense of
leave).

TYPES OF HOMONYMS

Lyon distinguishes different types of homonyms:

 Homophones are words which have the same pronunciation but are spelled
differently, like which and witch. Since pronunciation varies, what may be a
homophone for one speaker may not be for another.

 Hompographs are forms with the same spelling but different pronunciation such
as "bow / bau/ your head" and "tied in a bow/ bou/.

POLYSEMY

But the concept of homonymy is ambiguous, since a meaning is not always easily
delimited and in some cases, it is difficult to distinguish it from other meanings.
Sometimes it is quite difficult to establish the boundaries between a word which has
several meanings, a polysemic word and a homonym. In fact, certain criteria may be

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TOPIC 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY.
ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.
applied in order to know if we are dealing with true homonym or polysemy: if identical
forms have one etymological origin, they are polysemic words, such as mouth (of a
river) and mouth (of an animal).

SYNONYMY

Synonyms are different words which share identical or similar meanings in some or all
senses, that is, various signifiers that have the same signified.

TYPES OF SYNONYMS

English has borrowed terms from other languages or dialects and developed synonyms
via different morphological processes or different metaphors. This may lead us to
conclude that there are very few exact synonyms. To avoid redundancy among
speakers, different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason or some
factors: a dialectal difference as in the case of autumn and fall, a stylistic difference
as we see in child (formal) and kid (informal), a collocation difference, rancid is used
for butter and stale for bread, or a difference of connotation; youth is less pleasant
than youngster. So we can establish a differentiation between absolute synonyms-
quite rare in English- and partial synonyms. For absolute synonymy to exist, words
should be able to substitute for each other in the same context without changing its
meaning.

HYPONYMY

Related somewhat to synonymy, we have to talk about hyponomy, a relation of

inclusion. A general term (hypernym) covers terms that are more specific ( its
hyponyms). For example, food is a hypernym of meat, and meat is a hyponym of food.

ANTONYMY

“Some have been thought to be brave because they were afraid to run away”. This
quote by the English churchman and historian Thomas Fuller exemplifies what

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TOPIC 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY.
ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.
antonym is, that is, the relationship of oppositeness of meaning. They are only different
in relation to one semantic feature, usually one that has strong social significance.

TYPES OF ANTONOMYS

Linguists identify three types of antonym:

 Gradable antonyms, which permit the expression of degree: big, small. Such
pairs often occur in binomial phrases: hot and cold, high and low. As they are
gradable, they can be intensified by adverbs: very hot, quite big.

 Complementaries antonyms, which are mutually exclusive such as dead or

alive, male or female.

 Converse or relational antonyms, which express reciprocity, that is, they are
mutually dependent: borrow - lend, buy - sell, wife - husband.

FALSE FRIENDS

To understand the concept of false friends, it is important to review its relationship to the
concept of cognates and false cognates.

COGNATES AND FALSE COGNATES

Cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. They may appear in the
same language, such as shirt and skirt in English, or across languages, like brother and
German Bruder. Cognates need not have the same meaning: dish in English and Tisch
"table" in German, because languages develop separately, eventually becoming false
friends.

False cognates are a pair of words in the same or different languages that are similar
in form and meaning but have different roots according to linguistic examination, for
example, the English much and the Spanish mucho.

FALSE FRIENDS ANS FALSE COGNATES

The term false cognate is sometime misused to describe false friends, which are pairs
of words in two languages that look or sound similar but differ in meaning. While false
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TOPIC 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY.
ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.
cognates mean roughly the same thing in two languages, false friends have different
meanings. In fact, a pair of false friends many be true cognates. A false friend can also
happen when two speakers speak different varieties of the same language. Speakers of
British English and American English sometimes have this problem, which was referred
to in George Bernard Shaw's statement "England and America are two countries
divided by a common language". For example, in the UK you may pay a bill (compte)
with a check ( txec) whereas in the US you may pay a check ( compte) with a bill
(bitllet). Comedy sometimes includes puns on false friends.

FALSE FRIENDS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND SPANISH/CATALAN

Examples of false friends between English and Spanish/Catalan are frequent. The Latin
and French borrowings in English are mainly responsible for many cases of
misunderstanding. Some of the ones students are most likely to come across are:
library, actually, exciting and eventually, embarrassed among many others.

Both false friends and false cognates can cause difficulty for students learning a foreign
language, due to linguistic interference. There is actually no ideal methodology for
dealing with false friends, but using them in context and making students figure out the
meaning of the new words or making lists can help them to memorize these words.
Visual images and jokes can also be very helpful in illustrating the true meaning of
these words. A fill-in-the-blank activity is a good way to quiz students.

LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Language is a dynamic system in which all its components are in continuous
development, but the level of language which is most subject to change is that of
vocabulary and meaning.

The motivations for lexical creativity are usually due to conceptual motivations, such
as expressing a concept or idea that has not been expressed yet, but pragmatic and
social factors also play an important role. So, lexical creativity is the potential of
language to form new words through the different linguistic resources available such as:

 Word formation processes:

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TOPIC 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY.
ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.
o Affixation is one of the most common methods in word formation by
adding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation) or the end
(suffixation) of words, like unhappy and happiness.

o Compounding is a device of language to form new words by putting

together old words, like earthquake or intake. Compounds words can be
classified in: endocentric compounds with restrictive meaning, such as
doghouse, a kind of house and exocentric compounds, where the
meaning cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts, so it
is idiomatic, such as white-collar, which neither a kind of collar nor a white
thing, but it refers to administrative employees.

 Conversion by which there is a word class change, like forming the verb to
green from the existing adjective.
 Blending forms new words by joining parts of two or more older words. The first
part item loses part of the end and the second a part at the beginning. This
resourece is very popular in journalism, advertising and technical fiels. For
instance, brunch comes from breakfast and lunch.
o Acronyms and abbreviations consist of a number of first letters.
Acronyms are pronounced as words, like laser (light amplified by
stimulated emission of radiation), whereas abbreviations are read as a
series of letters, such as USA.
o Clippings are words formed form other words by dropping one or more
syllables, like ad from advertisement.
 New words can also be created by changing the meaning of existing forms.
Figurative language refers to words that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings
of the component words. This language is widely used in literature and humour.
o Metaphor is an expression which describes a person or object by
referring to something that is considered to possess similar
characteristics, that is, an analogy between two objects or ideas.
Shakespeare is known for his use of figurative language, such as this
metaphor in the play Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo compares Juliet to
the sun: "[...] It is the east, and Juliet is the sun”.
o Metonymy refers to a thing by naming part of something associated with
it, such as the law ( the police).

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ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.
o Personification refers to expressions which attribute human qualities to
inanimate objects, like The idea grabbed me.
 Back-formation removes seeming affixes from existing words, like forming edit
from editor.
 New words may enter a language to describe new things. A lot of neologisms
appear in technical fields such as chemistry, medicine or physic, like nuclear.
 A language can also borrow words from other languages by means of loans and
calques, like cliché from French.
 Recently, new words come from slang. This language is informal and highly
idiomatic. Slang varieties of language are characterized by their dynamism and
immediacy, so, slang words have a very short life and are used by people who
work in a particular area or who have a common interest. Slang is full of
euphemisms, metaphorical expressions and synonyms, such as copper, bobby
and slop to refer to policeman.

CONCLUSION

Vocabulary is one of the major components of the language, since without words we
cannot communicate. Words, as linguistic signs, have different meaning in a language
and establish relationships of sameness and oppositeness, among others. Precisely,
these relations such as homonymy, synonymy and antonym show some difficulties for
languages learners. False friends are also a big challenge to language learning and
teaching, due to language interferences.

So, one of the main tasks of a teacher, then, is to help students to develop a sufficiently
large vocabulary as well as to provide enough resources to face and use these new
words. At elementary levels, first it is primordial to teach basic opposites with
illustrations or relating these new items to learners' personal experience, like making
students decide which opposite they prefer: hot or cold, fish or meat. At intermediate
and advanced levels, exercises such playing vocabulary games and crosswords are
great activities to make students remember new words. As most new words are
forgotten easily, it is important to revise and manipulate the new words in different ways,
like associating a false friend to an action by physically acting out the word (TPR) or
guessing meaning from context. Also, we can take advantage of transition times, for
example, changing the greeting every day: instead of having a nice day, say “Have a

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ANTONYMY. FLASE FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY.
wonderful day!” Another technique which is very useful and increase communicative
competence is collaboratively work, for instance, making up a story by punning or
finding out jokes with different homonyms. An excellent way for advanced learners to
increase not only their vocabulary but also the English culture is to read an English-
language newspaper. Students are attracted by the headlines, which are brief and
stunning and include lots of puns, like “Muslims Prey in America” (it is supposed to be
pray).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

- BAUER, L: English Word-Formation. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

- CRUSE, A.: Lexical Semantics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986.

- GREENBAUM, S.: The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford, OUP, 1996.

- PALMER, F.: Semantics: A New Outline. New York, Cambridge University Press,
1981.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonymy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonymy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonym

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cognate