Sense relations and its importance in language teaching

I Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of languages and International studies POST GRADUATE STUDIES ((( Semantics assignment Sense relations and its importance in language teaching Lecturer Dr Ha Cam Tam Student Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc Date of birth 13121985 Group K17C Hanoi, June – 2010 1 Introduction From the inward looking (internalist, cognitivist, metalistic, or psychologistic) approach, which posist an extra level between word and world the level of metal representation, as prese.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,

HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-♣♣♣ -Semantics assignment

Sense relations and its importance

in language teaching

Lecturer: Dr Ha Cam Tam Student: Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc Date of birth: 13/12/1985

Group: K17C

Hanoi, June – 2010

1 Introduction

From the "inward-looking" (internalist, cognitivist, metalistic, or

psychologistic) approach, which posist an extra level between word and

world: the level of metal representation, as presented in the following

digagram:

MIND/THOUGHT

As can be seen from the diagram, meaning involves a set of three terms: (a) A word = a linguistic term; (b) The referent = the thing referred to; (c) The reference = the individual's concept of the thing referred to

As regards word meanings, two questions must be addressed: "How are the meanings of words in a language inter-related?" and "How are the

meanings of words represented in the mind? In answering the first question,

we must look at diffrernt sense relations, i.e, the types of relationships

between words such as synonymy, antonymy, and entailment In this

assignment, an analysis of different types of sense relations will be conducted, data is collected from both English and Vietnamese language

2 Sense relations between words

2.1 Homonyms

Homonyms are words identical in pronunciation and/or spelling but different in meaning

Homophones

Homophone are words identical in pronunciation only

Examples

Homographs

A homograph is a word with the same written form (spelling) as another word, i.e., different in pronunciation and meaning Homographs belong to the same grammatical category or to different grammatical categories

Example:

Tear - tear

Wind - wind

Full homonyms

Full homonyms are words identical in both pronunciation and spelling Example: fast (v) - fast (adj)

Homographs and homophones can cause lexical ambiguity:

a She cannot bear children

b The nut is on the table

c The coach was here

Homonymy vs polysemy

We need a number of criteria to distinguish homonyms and polysemy

a Semantic criterion

If there is a logical relationship btween the meanings of a word, this word is a polysemantics word:

"head" - part of the body

- person

- leader, etc

On the contrary, if there is no logical relationship between the meanings

of a word, this word is actually not one word but one of the homophyms - full homoyms

b Derivatinal criterion:

When one or more meanings of a "word" can form its/ their own

dervatives, we have homonyms:

Air - aircraft, airport, airline

Air (suggestive appearance)

c Synonymy-based criterion:

When the synomyms of two or more words have nothig in common, then the words are homonyms:

Bay - gulf

Bay - barking

d Combinability criterion:

When tw or more meanins of a word have different combining ability or different paradigms, we have homonyms:

Game - two games

Game (hunted animal) - no plurlal form

2.2 Synomyms

Synomyms are phontically and morphologically different words

belonging to same part of speech, posessing similar denotation but differing in connotation, combinability etc

'to help, to aid, to assist"

Usually, in suh a synomymousgroup, there is a synonymic dominant which is the most general, newtral wods The synomic dominant here is "to help"

Basing on the similarity, syomyms are classified into: semantic

synomyms (synomyms differing in shades of meaning), e.g: nice, petty, good-loking, beautiful, handsome; stylistic synomyms (synonyms differing in

stylistic aspects), e.g., father, dad, daddy; semantico-stylistic synomyms

(synomyms differing in both shades of meaning and stylistic aspects), eg.g house - shack - slum - pad; phraseological synonyms (synomyms differing in their collocations), e.g do - make, say- speak, language- tongue; and terrtorial synonyms (synoyms that belong to different countries/ regions), e.g autumn - fall

2.3 Antonyms

Antonyms are words of opposite meaning and the same part of speech:

Example: long-short

Love-hate Selfish-unselfish Usually, ajectives denoting qualities, verbs denoting actions or state and abstract nouns have antonyms Many words, especially concrete nouns have

no antonyms

2.4 Hyponomy

Hyponomy is a relation of inclusion For example: animal -dog "dog"

is hyponym of "animal", "animal" is hypernym or superordinate of "dog"

Seen extensionally, the set of objects denoted by the superordinate term includes the set of objects denoted by the hyponym—i.e the set of animals includes the set of dogs (the correct term—again from set theory—is that the

set of dogs is a sub-set of the set of animals Looking at meanings

intensionally, however, might lead us to conclude that the meaning of ‘dog’ is somehow richer and more complex than the meaning of ‘animal’, or even that

the meaning of ‘dog’ somehow includes the meaning of ‘animal’

2.5 Meronymy

Meronymy describes a kind of part-whole relationship, and like

hyponomy it is a relation of inclusion For example, ‘leaf’, ‘bark’ and ‘branch’ are meronyms of ‘tree’, because they are parts of a tree There are parallels between meronymy and hyponymy, although they are not the same—a poodle

is a type of dog and a cheetah is a kind of cat, but a leaf is not type of tree and

a clutch is not a type of car

3 Sense relations between sentences

3.1 Entailment

Entaiment can be illustrated by the following two sentences with

sentence A entailing sentence B

A: He killed the banker

B: the banker died

In terms of truth value, the following relationships exist between these two sentences if A is true, B is necessarily true If A is false, B could be either true or false If B is false, A is necessarily false

3.2 Presupposition

In the following pair of sentences, sentence A presupposes sentence B A: My elder sister is a nurse

B: I have an elder sister

We can see that presupposition is similar to entailment in that when A is true, B is true in both cases However, there is an important difference

between them Unlike entailment, presupposition is nor vulnerable to

negation That is to say when A is false, B is still true

3.3 Implication

Example: A: Few students can pass the examination

B: Some students can pass the examination

In a broader sense, both entailment and presupposition belong to the relation of implication because a conclusion, that is sentence B can be drawn from sentence A However, their difference from implication is that the former

is vulnerable to conjunction That is to say, if sentence A is put together with

the negative form of it entailed or presupposed sentence B, then the result will

be ridiculous

For example: The banker is dead but he killed the banker

I don’t have an elder sister but my elder sister is a nurse

However, as implication is concerned, we can sfely say:

Few students can pass the examination or maybe none at all can Therefore, in the relation of implication when there is no contradiction with the hypothesized proposition in the context both sentence B and A can be true

3 Application of sense relation in teaching reading skill

A majority of reading conprehension questions are based on the

understanding of words and sentences (IELTS, TOEFL, PET, FCE, CAE, etc.),

In order to answrer a question, students should first make sense of the

question, then locate the corresponding informatin in the original text and finally choose the matching anser The process of performing these taks is just like indentifying the sense relations between the question original message and the right answer Therefore, when teaching reading skill, teacher should highlight the importance and usefulness of sense relation in reading

comprehension Following are example of the apllication of sense relation in answering reading comprehension questions

3.1 Synonymy

Ex1 Brazil has becoe one of the developing world's great sucesses at reducing population growth but more by accident than design

Q: Accordngto the passage, Brazil has cut back its population than design

A: by chance

In this example, the phrase "cut back" is synomymous with the word

"reduce" and the answer "by chance" is synomymuos with "by accident" Therefore, if students can understand the meaning of these words and phrases, they will find no difficulties in answering the question

3.2 Peraphrase and mutual entailment

Both synonym and paraphrase refer to the sameness or close similarity

of meaning but the former is between words while the latter proositions

Paraphrase can also be regarded as a relation of mutual entailment

Ex2 Faces, like fingerprint, are unique

Q: By using the example of fingerprints, the author tells us

that

A: People differ from each other in facial features

Here the proposition people differ from each other in facial features paraphrases the proposition faces are unique Therefor, it should be the right answer

3.3 Antonymy

Ex3 In the olddays, children were familiar with birth and death as part of life This is perhaps the first generation of American youngster who have never been close by during the birth of a baby and have never experienced the death

of a family member

Q: The elders of comtemporaru Americans _

A: Usually witnessed the birth of death of a family member.

In this case, the expressions the elder and comtemporaty are antonyms

of the words children and old Thus, we know the elders of the comtemporary Americans refer to the children in the old days At the same time, according to the context witnessed the birth and death of a family member paraphrases were familiar with birth and death as part of life

3.4 Hyponymy

EX4 But we can easily tell the good guys from the bad guys because the two types differ in appearance as well as in actions

Q: According to the passage, it is possible for us to tell one tyoe of person from another because _

A: people differ in their behavioural and physical characteristics

As mentioned above, hyponymy betwee lexical items is a regular source for entailment between sentences Here actions and appearance are hyponyms

of behavioural and physical characteristics so the two types differ in

apprearance as well as in actions entails people differ in their behavioural and physical characteristics

3.5 Homonymy

Ex5 people will be alert and receptive if they are faced with information that gets them to think about things they are interested in And someone with ahistory of doing more than less will go into old age more cognitively sound than someone who has not had an active mind

Q: People who are cognitively healthy are those _

A: Whose minds are alert and receptive

The key word in this example is "sound" which is polysemous Usually, students are just familiar with its noun and verb meanings However, it can also be used as ajective and adverb, meaning "healthy", "dependable",

"thorough", etc So if students can understand the different meanings of the word, the answer will be very simple

3.6 Presupposition

Ex 6 In my fridgeless Fifties childhood, I was fed well and healthy

Q: The statement "In myfridgeless Fifties childhood, I was fed well and healthily" suggests that _

A: there was no fridge in the author’s home in the 1950s

This is a typical example of presupposition relation Here the statement

in the original passage presupposes the answer

3.7 Implication

Ex7 Too much exposure to X rays can cause skin burns, cancer or other damage to the body

Q: It is implied but not directly stated in the passage that A: The patient can be exposed to a slight amount of radiation safely Here the implication of the original message is that some exposure to X rays can not cause skin burns, cancer or other damage to the body, and the answer just paraphrases it

4 Conclusion

In reading skill, guessing the meaning of words in its context is an effective way to understand the whole text and learn new word However, sometimes it is difficult or even impossible to guess the meaning of a word

only from the context Therefore, other methods should be employed Sense relations play an important role in reading comprehension It allows better understanding of sentences and texts

Moreover, when answering reading comprehesion question, sense relations are even more important In order to answer the questions,

praphrasing is an essential skill In order to paraphrase sentence, it is

necessary to have good knowledge of senses relations As can be seen, a thought can be expressed in numerous sentences It is necessary that teachers highlight the importance and usefulness of sense relations to students

Sense relations are also valuable in building up students’ vocabulary They help stimulate a systematic approach to facts concerning vocabulary With good knowledge of sense relatiopsn, students will effectively selecting, grouping and analyzing new words New words are better retained in students’ memory when compared and constrasted with previously learnt elements and patterns

Last but not least, students can also improve their reproductive skills (speaking and writing) with knowledge of sense relations Students can

express more ideas within a limited vocabulary, thus making them more

confident in contact with foreigners

References

Austin, J.L 1962 How to do Things with Words Oxford: Oxford University Press Fishman, J 1971 Advances in Sociology of Language I The Hague: Mouton

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan, R 1985 Language, Context and Text: Aspect of Language In Socio-semantic Perspective Victoria: Deakin University Press Sinclair, J.Mch and Coulthard, R.M 1975 Towards Analysis of Discourse: The English Used By Teachers and Pupils Oxford: Oxford University Press Eggins, S 1994 An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics London: Pinter

Publishers

Bloor, T and Bloor, M 1995 The Functional Analysis of English, A

Hallidayan Approach London: Longmans