LEXIS AND SEMANTICS

(ENGL219)

Dr William Feng

Office: FG328
TEl.: 2766 4383
E-mail: [Link]@[Link]
1. Sooooooo good to see you again!
2. Looking back: gratitude and
apologies!
3. Looking forward: determined to
improve!
Passion, knowledge, friendship, co-construction
 What do we learn?
Singapore—Singapura—Lion city
Etymology ( 詞源學 )

Merlion Mermaid + lion

Word formation: Blending

Lexicology

What is the relation between the

word “merlion” and the real thing?

Naming, or reference

Semantics
 INTRODUCTION
This course is about the meaning of words and

texts.
What does it mean to know "the meaning of a

word"?
All meanings are made within context.
 Albert Einstein is clever vs. The monkey is clever.

 The door is open.

Meanings are functions of lanugage in use.

Meaning is not all literal. E.g. he is a chicken; I am

AIMS OF THE COURSE
To know the most ESSENTIAL concepts of lexicology,
semantics and pragmatics.
• To use them for critical interpretation and
analysis
To have a pleasant time.
Clarity of Instruction and Assessment
Theories and concepts in bullet points
Clear structure of every lecture
Summary
Connect with daily life
Connect with what you have learned previously
Highest possible grades
Learning outcomes
Application

Explanation

Framework

Phenomenon Applicatio
n
Critical
thinking
Analytical
skill
Knowledg
 WHAT DO WE COVER
Etymology (where do words come from)
Lexis
Morphology (word structure and word formation)

Lexical semantics (word meaning)

ENGL219
Pragmatics (meaning in context)

Multimodal semantics (meaning without words)

Semantics
Cognitive semantics (metaphor and meaning)

Discourse semantics (meaning of texts)

Corpus approach to meaning analysis

 ASSESSMENT
No. Task Weighting
1 Mid-term quiz (in class) 35%
2 Group presentation (15 mins 25%
each group)
3 Written report (500 words 25%
each)
4 Participation and in-class tasks 15%
1. LEXICOLOGY
Behind Every Word is a Story
Titanic

Chaos Gaia Titan Zeus

Where do words come from?

The history of English the Language
The stories of words from Greek mythology
How words are formed
A word has an internal structure.

The internal structure of words How words are formed

How words get their meanings
Meaning (semantics)

World Word

What is the nature of the bridge?

How is it built? Architect of Meaning
What are words used in daily
life
What does “yes” and “no”
• Albert Einstein is clever. mean?
• The Monkey is clever. • When a diplomat says yes he
• What does clever mean? means perhaps; when he says
• Einstein is as clever as a
monkey.
perhaps he means no; when
he says no he is no diplomat.
• When A Lady Says No, She
Means Perhaps. When She
Says Perhaps, She Means Yes.
What can words do? (Speech Act Theory)
How to imply? (Conversational Implicature)

How to be humorous? (Theories of Humor)

How texts communicate meanings
DISCOURSE semantics
How clauses are combined?
How is meaning organized in moving images?
How discourse is used to express stance,
opinions, and how it reflects bias?
How
Can wenon-linguistic signs
express meaning without language?
Attitude:
construct Emotion:
meaning Event:

How to systematically describe the visual

semantics? Connection with ENGL401
How metaphors construct
meanings (connection with ENGL
353)
metaphor

Life,
Life, Journey,
love,
love, rose,
time
time thief

What is the essence of metaphor?

How do metaphors work?
What are the functions of metaphor?
 Tentative Weekly Schedule
Weeks Topics Remarks

1 Introduction + history of English

2 No class on Monday; Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

3 Word structure and word formation Knowledge based

4-5 Semantics: word meaning and meaning relations

6-7 Figurative meaning and metaphor (no class Oct, 1, 2)

8 In-class quiz

9-10 Conceptual metaphor analysis

11-12 Discourse semantics: meaning of texts Analysis based

13 Student Presentation
WEEK 1
WHERE DO WORDS COME
FROM
Languages in the world
The history of English language
LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD

Tower of Babel

God said : “They are one people and have one language, and
nothing will be withheld from them which they purpose to do."
"Come, let us go down and confound their speech (Genesis).
About 6800 languages in the world
Sino-Tibetan Family, Indo-European Family
In Papua New Guinea there are less than 5.5 million
citizens and about 830 languages.
A total of 46 languages have just a single speaker.
English::Germanic::Indo-European
English
Germanic

Indo-European
English is the official language of
___?__ nations.

about

45
English is spoken by how many
people?

more than

450
million
THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

parallels the history

of the English
people and the
British Islands.
 The Roman Conquest

The invasion of Julius Caesar, 55 B.C

(Cleopatra ，埃及豔後）
The conquest of the Emperor Claudius,
A.D. 43
300 years since then (Gladiator, 角鬥士）
The Latin Language in
Britain
The official language
Confined to the upper classes, inhabitants in cities and
towns, and artisan class
Celtic language was not replaced
Declined after A.D. 410
In the middle of the fifth
century
• Tribes of Germanic
invaders -- Angles, Saxons,
and Jutes -- brought their
languages across the
English Channel to the
British Isles.
By the ninth century

• Anglo-Saxon (a
dialect spoken in
Southern England) had
become standard
English.
• This language is now
called Old English or
Anglo Saxon
origin of English, from 5th centuray
Old English Literature
Beowulf
w3000 lines
wOld English
wThe folk epic
wThe heroic adventure of
Beowulf
wThe times of Germanic Tribes
The names
‘England’ and ‘English’

Anglo, Anglia
Angles—Engle
1000, Englaland(land of the Angles)
England
English
 Today
• One fifth of the Anglo-
Saxon
English words we
use derive from
this Anglo-Saxon
English.
 But in the eleventh century

• The Norman Conquest

(1066) of Britain
brought foreign rulers
whose native language
was
–French.
middle English
starts
William the conqueror
 For more than three hundred
years,
• French was the official
language of England.
• French was the language of
the court.
• English was spoken only by
peasants.
• For example, consider the
words “pig” and “pork.”
Middle English Literature

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-

1400)
the Canterbury Tales
The first man who writes
in English
Pilgrim: 朝聖
Half of our English vocabulary is

• of French and
Romance origins.
 1500, Modern English
• English/Wessex again
became the language
of the English upper
class.
• The new standard was
a London dialect since
London was now the
capital city.
• The Renainssance
 William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 我想將你比作迷人的夏日，
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 但汝卻更顯可愛和溫存：
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 狂野之風摧殘著五月蓓蕾的柔媚，
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 也一天天消逝著夏日的歸期：
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 蒼天的明眸偶然瀉出璀璨，
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 卻難以輝映他暗淡的容顏；
And every fair from fair sometime declines, 一切明媚的色彩漸已消褪，
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd; 過程是如此蒼白；
然而你卻如永恆之夏，
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 所有的美好永遠也不會改變；
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; 就連死神也不敢對你囂張，
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, 因你將永生於不朽的詩篇：
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: 只要世人一息尚存，
你將和這詩篇永駐人間。
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
 Three periods of English:
1. Old English or Anglo-Saxon: 5th century
to 11th century.
2. Middle English 11th to 15th century.
3. Modern English 16th century to today.

 An Englishman of 1300 wouldn’t have

understood the English of 500; nor would
he understand the English we speak today.
 Here’s an example of changes in
English pronunciation:
• The word name
• In Old English was pronounced
nämä (the a as in fäther)
• In Middle English was pronounced
näme (fäther) + (sofa)
In Modern English, is pronounced
nām
niht (night) : hit (old English)
 Summary
Indo- West Prehistoric Middle Modern
Germanic Old English
European Germanic English English English

400s 1066 1500

Norman conquest
Vocabulary Sources of the
English Language: Etymology
Words come from all over!

Etymo in Greek means

“roots”!
 bread, good, shower,
home, stones,
From Anglo-Saxon fox
English
 priest, bishop, anthem, candle,
From Latinepistle, hymn
Christianity
From Latin and Greek during
the Renaissance and after

Words for science,

invention, and
technology: conifer,
cyclamen, helium,
halogen, intravenous,
isotope, metronome,
polymer, telephone
 Do you know how many English
words are from Chinese

Feng Shui, 風水 Coolie, 苦力

Ginsin, 人參 Cumquat, 金橘
kowtou, 叩頭 Ketchup, 茄汁
Kung fu, 功夫 Bok choy, 白菜
Lychee, 荔枝 Oolong, 烏龍茶
Mahjong, 麻將 Pinyin, 拼音
Mu shu, 木須肉 Wushu, 武術
Tai Chi, 太極 Chow mein, 炒麵
Tou fu, 豆腐 Dim Sum, 點心
Typhoon, 颱風 Wonton, 雲吞
Words Originating From Greek Myth
ology
Atlas (condemned to carry the heavens upon his shoulders) > atlas (book of maps)
Ceres (goddess of agriculture) > cereal (food made from grains)
Clotho (the Fate who spun the thread of life) > cloth (material made by weaving)
Cronos (keeper of time) > chronology (events in order of time)
Erôs (god of love and sexual desire) > erotic (sexual in nature)
Fortuna (goddess of luck) > fortune (chance or luck)
Hypnos (god of sleep) > hypnosis (a sleep-like state of consciousness)
Hêlios (god of the sun and guardian of oaths) > heliotrope (plant that turns towards the sun)
Khaos (the nothingness from which all sprang) > chaos (confusion, disorder)
Mars (god of war) > martial (relating to or about war)
Mercury (messenger to the gods) > mercurial (fast or changing)
Muses (goddesses of music) > musical (of or like music)
Narcissus (a very vain god who fell in love with his own reflection) > narcissism (extreme love of self)
Ôkeanos (God of the river Oceanus, the source of all the Earth's fresh-water) > ocean (large body of
water)
Typhon (father of all monsters) > typhoon (huge rotating tropical storm)
Vulcan (god of fire) > volcano (opening in the earth through which lava erupts)
Zephyrus (god of the west wind) > zephyr (gentle west wind)
Chaos—Gaia—Titan—Zeus—Hades—Poseidon
Words Originating From Greek Mytholo
gy

Aristotle
Greek philosopher (384 BC – 322 BC)
Rhetoric Triangle of persuasion
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

Old English—Middle English—Modern English

Remember the word “Etymology”!

 The End
Hope you enjoyed and I will see you
next week

Word Formation
 Seminar Arrangement
• Next Wednesday, Thursday Groups (Monday is public
holiday)
• Work in groups, check “online etymology dictionary”
or other sources, find the etymology of one word or
phrase/idiom
• Monday group will have this seminar task Sept. 15
• 5-10 minutes each group
• Origin of the word/idiom
• History/anecdotes associated with it
• How is it used today (example from news,
advertisements, and so on)
• This will be the only seminar presentation! 5% of the
grade.
• Consultation any time!