ENGLISH HOMONYMS AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING THEM IN VIETNAMSE HIGH SCHOOLS

HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ENGLISH HOMONYMS AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING THEM IN VIETNAMSE HIGH SCHOOLS SUBJECT SEMANTICS (FINAL ASSIGNMENT) LECTURER Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm LEARNER Nguyễn Thị Anh Thoa GROUP K18 English C HANOI – June, 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART I INTRODUCTION 1 1 Rationale 1 2 The Scope, Objectives, Significance, Methods and Design of the Study 2 1 The scope of the s.

HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

ENGLISH HOMONYMS AND SOME IMPLICATIONS

FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING THEM IN

VIETNAMSE HIGH SCHOOLS

SUBJECT: SEMANTICS (FINAL ASSIGNMENT)

LEARNER : Nguyễn Thị Anh Thoa GROUP : K18 English C

HANOI – June, 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

2 The Scope, Objectives, Significance, Methods and Design of the

Study

2.1 The scope of the study 2.2 Objectives of the study 2.3 Significance of the study 2.4 Methods of the study 2.5 Design of the study

1

1 1 1 2 2

CHAPTER 1 : AN OVERVIEW OF ENGLISH HOMONYMS 3

1 Definition

2 Characteristics of English homonyms

3 Classification of English homonyms

3.1 Classification1

3.2 Classification 2

3.3 Classification3

3.4 Classification 4

4 Sources of English homonyms

5 The distinction between Homonymy and Polysemy

5.1 Polysemy

5.2 The distinction between Homonymy and Polysemy

3 3 4 4 5 5 7 7 10 10 10

CHAPTER 2-Some difficulties perceived by high school students when

studying English homonyms and some implications for teaching and

learning them

12

REFERENCES

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale:

English has become an international language It is of great importance to master English to be more sucessful in our jobs However, it is not easy to learn English especially English words A larger number of words, despite their sameness in spelling and pronouncing, turn out out to be distintive ones This causes obstacles to Vietnamese students of English in comprehending and using English homonyms

“ Thus homonyms are a source of ambiguity”

(Nguyen Hoa An Introduction to Semantics, p.31)

There are some reasons for me to do this study In the first place, as a teacher of English at a secondary school, I really want to understand more about English words especially English homonyms As a result, I will know more about them and I am able

to explain English homonyms clearly to my students In addition, from my own experience, I have found that students find it difficult to understand English homonyms For example, some words make them confused such as found (past tense of find) and found (to establish an organization or institution) Last but not least, I would like to find some solutions to help my students learn English homonyms better

2 The Scope, Objectives, Significance, Methods and Design of the Study:

2.1 The scope of the study

This study focuses on investigating information relating to English homonyms

2.2 Objectives of the study

This study is carried out with two main purposes:

 To review the information relating to English homonyms

 To find out some difficulties that students usually make when studying English homonyms and suggest some solutions to help them learn homonyms better

2.3 Significance of the study

This study may be of great importance for many foreign language teachers as well as learners of English Its implications and suggestions help students recognize English homonyms and understand the meaning of the sentence better Teachers of Englsih can use these suggestions to make their teaching more effective

2.4 Methods of the study

To complete this study, the researcher has carried out a lot of reading and consulting Firstly, information relating to English homonyms was collected from

books borrowed from the university library, and from some articles available on the Internet In addition, I also asked the students where I have been working about their difficulties in learning English homonyms The combination of information obtained from reading materials and informal interview can help to draw an outline of this study

2.5 Design of the study

The study is organized into three parts:

Part I: Introduction: provides the rationale for the study; its scope, objectives, significance, methods and design

Part II: Development consists of two chapters:

Chapter 1: An overview of English homonyms

Chapter 2: Some difficulties perceived by high school students when using English homonyms and some implications for teaching and learning them

Part III: Conclusion: summerizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and offer some suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: AN OVERVIEW OF ENGLISH HOMONYMS

1 Definition:

Homomyms are words identical in pronunciation and (or) spelling but different

in meaning Most English homonyms are monosyllabic

( Hoang Tat Truong Basic English lexicology, p.69)

E.g:

* fast- fast

* here- hear

Afanasyeva ( 1985:128) defines homonyms as words which are edentical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning E.g.:

* bank, n – a shore

* bank, n – an institution for receiving, lending, exchanging and safeguarding money

Mednikova ( 1987: 76) introduces a definition of English homonyms They are two (or more) different linguistic units within one sound and orthographic complex, i.e displaying diversity on the content plane and identity on the expression plane

2 Characteristics of English homonyms:

The first characteristic of English homonyms is the accidentality of their identical formation Despite the fact that English vocabulary is enriched with the attendance of pairs and groups of homonymous words, their identical forms are mostly accidental The majority of homonyms coincided due to phonetic changes which they suffered during their development

If synonyms and antonyms can be regarded as the treasury of the language’s expressive resources, homonyms are of no interest in this respect In terms of metaphoric, groups of synonyms and pairs of antonyms are created with particular purposes whereas homonyms are purposeless because of accidental creation ( O.V Afanasyeva English Lexicology, p 128)

Homonymy is a source of ambiguity This third characteristic leads to confusion and misunderstanding when learning and using English language An illustration for this is the case of full homonyms, which can cause problems for students due to the sameness in spelling and sound For instance, one may come across such a sentence as

“ After a whole morning’s effort, we only found out one pen” It is doubtful whether the word “pen” refers to a writing device or an area for keeping farm animals Apart from this, homophones, such as pair and pear, can cause problems for students of English language when they are writing English as they might not know which spelling is correct In addition to the matter of confusion and misunderstanding, their characteristic

of ambiguity makes them them important resources for popular humour If we take the pun ( a joke based on homonyms), it will become clearer Let us look at one example as follows:

“Waiter!”

“Yes, sir”

“What’s this?”

“It’s bean soup, sir.”

“ Never mind what it has been I want to know what it is now.”

The key to this joke belongs to the pairs of homophones bean ( a kind of seed growing

in long pods, eaten as vegetables) and been ( past participle of to be)

3 Classification of English homonyms:

3.1 Classification 1: According to Understanding English Semantics by Nguyen Hoa,

depending on the notion, homonyms can be classified into absolute homonyms and partial homonyms

3.1.1 Absolute homonyms:

Absolute homonyms should satisfy the following three conditions:

(i) they will be unrelated in meaning;

(ii) all their forms will be identical;

(iii) the identical forms will be grammatically equilvalent

E.g.:

* sole (n): a kind of fish

sole (n): bottom of foot or shoe

 bank (n): a financial institution

bank (n): the bank of the river

3.1.2 Partial homonyms:

Partial homonyms are common

E.g.:

* rose (n): a type of flower

rose (Ved): past tense form of rise

*found (v): set up, establish

found (Ved): past tense form of to find

3.2 Classification 2: According to Understanding English Semantics by Nguyen Hoa,

depending on the samesness of sound and spelling forms, homonyms may be classified into three types as follows

3.2.1 Full homonyms:

Full homonyms are words which are identical in both pronunciation and spelling

E.g.:

* bark: outer covering of a tree

bark: noise made by a dog

3.2.2 Homophones:

Homophones are words which are identical in pronunciation only: air vs heir

3.2.3 Homographs:

Homographs are words which are identical in spelling only

E.g.:

* wind (n): a current of air

wind (v): to empower a clock

3.3 Classification 3: It has been observed that paradigms of some homonyms coincide

completely and of other only partially Professor A.L.Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: full homonyms and partial homonyms (O.V Afanasyeva English Lexicology, p 134-135)

3.3.1.Full lexical homonyms: Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the

same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm

E.g.:

* match,n.- a game, a contest

match, n – a short piece of wood used for producing fire

3.3.2 Partial homonyms: Partial homonyms are subdivided into three sub-groups:

3.3.2.1 Simple lexico- grammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to

the same category of parts of speech Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is not the same from

E g.:

* to bound (v)

bound (v): past tense, past participle of to bind

*to lay(v):

lay (v): past tense of to lie

3.3.2.2 Complex lexico grammatical partial homonyms are words of different

categories of parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms

E g:

*rose(n): a kind of flower

rose (v): past tense of to rise

3.3.2.3 Partial lexical homonyms: are words of the same category of parts of speech

which are identical only in their corresponding forms

E.g:

* to hang ( hung, hung), v

to hang (hanged, hanged),v

*to can (canned, cannes)

can (could)

3.4. Classification 4: Homonyms can be approached from a different point of view

and classified into lexical and grammatical homonyms

3.4.1 Lexical homonyms: are words of the same part of speech but of quite different

meanings so that there is no semantic relation between then

E.g.:

* match (n) – match (n)

* peace (n)- piece (n)

3.4.2 Grammatical homonyms: are words of different parts of speech.

E.g.:

* work (n) - to work (n)

* love (n) – to love (n) Each of the classification come froms a starting point of view Though they tried

to arranged homonyms into specific and sufficient groups, I am of the opinion that the classifying English homonyms into such three types as homoyms proper, homophones and homographs is widely shared by scholars The classification by Professor A.I Smirnishy comes into details in accord with the paradigms of words

4 Sources of English homonyms:

The issue of the formation of the Englishhomonyms has been resolved in some ways In

a quantity of larger dictionaries published both in Britain and the U S.A such as The Oxford English Dictionary ( Oxford University Press, 1933) and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary ( Merriam- Webster Inc, 1981), the matter was more or less mentioned As part of my study, I followed the standpoint as given by Afanasyeva (1985: 130-133) According to him, English homonymous words are formed from four sources: phonetic changes, borrowing, word- building and split of polysemy

4.1 Phonetic changes:

This is one source of homonyms in which words undergo in the course of their historical development As a result of such changes, two or more words formerly pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms

For instance, in Old English the verb to knead had the form cnedan, and the verb to

need had the form neodan The noun work and the verb to work also had different

forms in Old English wyrkean and weork respectively

4.2 Borrowing:

A borrowed word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing Adaptation is essentially a learned or literary process; it consists in adapting a foreign word to the analogies of the language

In the group of homonyms rite (n), to write (v)and right (adj), the second and third

words are of native origin where as rite is borrowed from Latin ritus In the pair peace (n) and piece (n), the first originates from Old French ( from Gaulish) pettia, and the second from Old French pais.

4.3 Word- building:

Word- building also contributes significantly to the growth of English homonyms The most important type in this respect is conversion It consists in making a new word from existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one despite some association with it It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its new category as a part of speech Homonyms of this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech, are termed lexico- grammatical homonyms For example, comb (n) and to comb (v), pale(adj) and pale (v), love and to love (v), etc were formed in terms of conversion

Shortening is a further type of word- building which increase the number of homonyms Shortenings (or contracted or curtailed words) are produced in two different ways The first way is to make a new word from a syllable of the original word The second one is

to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group For instance, fan (n) in sense of “ an enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer, etc.” is shortening from fanatic Its homonym is a latin- borrowing fan (an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air)

Sound- imitation (onomatopocia) is the third type of word- formation in which word are made by imitating different kinds of sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimate objects Word made by sound imitation can form pairs of homonyms with other words An example of this is bang(n) meaning “ a loud, sudden, explosive noise” and bang (n) meaning “ a fringe of hair combed over the forehead”

4.4 Split polysemy:

The above- described sources of homonyms share one important feature in which homonyms from two or more different words and their similarity is purely accidental The fourth one differs from them Two or more homonyms can originate from diferrent meanings of the same word when, for some reasons, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts

The below group of words is taken as an example

board, n.- a long and thin piece of timber

board, n – daily meals, especially as provided for pay, e.g room amd board,n – an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity,

e.g a board of directors

Although their meanings are not associated with one another, most larger dictionaries still enter a meaning of board ( a table) that once held them together It developed from the meaning “ a piece of timber” by transference based on contiguity ( association of an object and the material from which it is made) The meanings “meals” and ‘an official group of persons” developed from the meaning “table”, also by transference based on contiguity Meals are easily associated with a table on which they are served, and an official group of people in authority are also likely to discuss their business round a table

5 The distinction between Homonymy and Polysemy

5.1 Polysemy

5.1.1 Definition:

Polysemy refers to a word that has two or more similar or related meanings

5.1.2 Examples : Example 1:

+ The house is at the foot of the mountain.

+ One of his shoes felt too tight for his foot