REVIEW ARTICLE BRANCH OF SEMANTICS

REVIEW JOURNAL ABOUT BRANCH OF SEMANTICS
Post by : Chumming Gao,  school from Foreign Language, Chungchun university of Science and         Technology, China

Pages : 6

CLASSIFICATIONS OF SEMANTIC FIELD

There are three theories of semantic field, among others :

1.      The vocabulary in a language system is semantically related and builds up a complete lexical system. This system is unsteady and changing constantly.

2. Since the vocabulary of a language is semantically related, we are not supposed to
study the semantic change of individual words in isolation, but to study vocabulary as an integrated system.

3. Since lexemes are interrelated in sense, we can only determine the connotation of a word by analyzing and comparing its semantic relationship with other words. A word is meaningful only in its own semantic field.
Trier’s semantic field is generally considered paradigmatic. It deals with paradigmatic relations between words such as hyponymy, synonymy and antonymy. (Guo, p.51) This study follows this classification.

Paradigmatic relations between words, such as :

A. Hyponymy
Hyponymy is the most common branch of semantic field theory. It contains all objects that belong to the same category.
The most fundamental category is dualistic, for example, paddy field and upland field, autorotation and revolution, etc.
Another category is diversified, for example, navy, marine, air force, etc.
Take the example above for instance, if animals are the superordinate, human being, birds and beasts will be the
hyponyms. On the other hand, if birds and beasts are taken as the superordinate, then birds, fishes, insects and mammals
will be the hyponyms.Hyponymy is featured as being relative. The relativity of this semantic field has two-fold meanings.
For example, a small elephant is much bigger than a big mouse, and a small dog is bigger than a big butterfly.

B. Antonymy
Antonymy is another branch of semantic field which is formed by words with the same roots and range.
Antonymy is usually formed with opposed, inconsistent and opposite meanings and therefore could be divided into three categories as follows:

·         Polar Antonymy

·         Complementary Antonymy

·         Transpositional Antonymy

C. Synonymy
Synonymy refers to the semantic fields which are formed by the words with relatively same meanings so that they could be inter-changed in some degree yet irreplaceable in most cases. Synonymy could be further classified into absolute synonymy and relative synonymy.
For instance, mother tongue and native language, malnutrition and undernourishment, breathed consonant and voiceless consonant, etc. While compared to absolute synonymy, relative synonymies are more affluent. It refers to the synonymies which are formed by words with relatively same meaning yet are different in degrees, emotions, styles and collocations. Thus, in reference to what Zhang yunfei (2004) made in her book An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology, relative synoynym could be further classified into such categories as following.

·         Synonymy with Different Degrees

·         Synonymy with Different Emotions

·         Synonymy with Different Styles

·         Synonymy with Different Collocations

THE APPLICATION OF SEMANTIC FIELD THEORY TO VOCABULARY LEARNING

A. The Application of Hyponymy
Semantic fields are obviously hierarchical. They could be observed from the top to the bottom. The higher level of a semantic field is more general, the lower level is more specific.
For example: The hierarchy of semantic field is based on the systematization of objective substances. Meanwhile, it also reflects the
consequences of the cognition of human being towards nature. Obviously, hierarchy is mostly seen in hyponymy.

B. The Application of Antonymy
Generally, antonyms are used to indicate contrast and highlight the features of objects. Successful writers even use antonymy in the titles of their writings. Jane Austen is particularly fond of adopting this technique in her novels, such as Sense and Sensability, Pride and Prejudice. Antonymy helps form a sharp contrast and makes the works fascinating so that readers could continue reading with great interest.Meanwhile, antonymy is often used to explain lexical meanings. Some words are difficult to explain directly, however, it will be easier to paraphrase using its antonym. For example, muscular, disgraceful, mediocre, and impoverishment might be unfamiliar to most students and make it difficult to explain in English, yet we can use not weak, not honored, not outstanding, and enrichment to directly explain them. Also, antonymy could be used to enlarge the vocabulary through covering pairs of semantically opposed antonyms.
For example, when learning about employer, trainer and sender, we can simultaneously memorize employee, trainee and recipient.G. Leech (1981) recognizes seven types of meaning in his Semantics. One is collocative meaning referring to what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word.

C. The Application of Synonymy
Seeing from a historical perspective, any language is always changing as time passes. Among all the changes of a language, the change of vocabulary is spectacular. It does not only indicate the vanishing of old words and the emergenceof new words, but also could represent the change of the lexical meaning.
For example, when learning about the word raise, we can list rise and arise as well. The three words share basic same meaning yet they are slightly different in grammar usage. Through this way, English learners could memorize both the spellings and specific usage of similar yet different words.
So the conclusion is, Vocabulary is one of the important elements in a language. English language is no exception. The efficiency of vocabulary learning greatly determines the success of language learning. English words are over a million in number and they constitute the core of language learning. The size of one’s vocabulary directly affects the development of his/her linguistic competence. Therefore, the first task of vocabulary instruction is to enlarge learners’ vocabulary. (Guo, 2010) Thus lots of vocabulary learning strategies have been recommended. However, the most systematic and scientific strategy should be the one based on semantic field theory.
This paper studies English vocabulary learning based on semantic field theory. In introduction, the paper presents the
significance of the study and the theoretical review of semantic field. Words do not stand alone, rather, they form
numerous dependently interrelated networks, either superordinate-hyponym, or antonymous, or synonymous, etc.

In conclusion, the paper only covers three major semantic relations, hyponymy, antonymy and synonymy. As for other semantic relations like polysemy, homonymy, taxonymy, partonymy, they do play vital roles in semantic field study as well as in vocabulary learning and teaching.

EVALUATION

 

This article it's good for a student who want to learn about semantics. But, this article so long there are several sentence that not too important to written. Maybe it more better to the reader summarize this article to be short.