Exploratory task 1.17

Give the shades of meaning to the words in the “constellation” of “suffering in the body”

Stiff (neck)	Pain	Ache
	Suffering in the body
Sting	Sore	Agony

Cobweb represents one's individual associations in mental lexicon in the form of a mind-map. E.g. given below is one’s individual association with the word “mail”.

Fast	Hope	Armour	Black	Vandals
Email	Send	Knight		Security
Snail mail		Mail	Mailbox	Empty
Slow	Receive	Subscription	Letters
Reliable	Impatience	Expensive	Newspapers	Magazines

Exploratory task 1.18

Make up your own “cobweb” association with the word

House

When people are speaking or writing, their choice of words is influenced by the situation they are in. A variety of the language in a communicative situation is called a language style. It may be appropriate to use an informal style with close friends, a neutral style with business acquaintances, a formal style with an employer. Often in communication it is necessary to select specific vocabulary that helps convey the message in the best way. People switch the vocabulary use when they talk to different specialists or non-specialists, to adults or children, to indifferent or sensitive people. The selection of vocabulary for the purpose of achieving the best communicative result is called language register.

Exploratory task 1.19 Find the way of saying the same things to small children

Adult technical register	Child’s register
They are excavating the ruins now
She is undergoing the appendectomy
Dissolve the powder in the water and shake the solution
Turn off all electronic appliances before boarding
Season lightly and simmer for five minutes
No sweat without sweat
Click the mouse and drag the icon into the game area

(Adapted from Harmer, J. and R. Rossner. 1991. More than Words. Book 1. Longman. P. 21-22)

Ample mental lexicon is an important condition for achieving lexical competence. Lexical competence is an essential part of the communicative competence as a whole. In order to be “the master of the word” one has to know how to express the denoted meaning. It is necessary to develop an individual system of verbal associations and to build a semantic field of the words related in a certain meaning (field of “food”, “health”, “job” etc.). It is necessary to know the social conventions (rules and limitations) of using the word and the stylistic colouring. Grammar usage of the word is essential as well as possible collocations. Finally, it necessary to comprehend the “referred connotative meaning” of the word, i.e. to understand what the word means “here and now” in the situation. Sometimes even the knowledge of metaphors and idioms is not enough for there is a lot of individual meaning that is put into words in the process of communication. The acquisition of these components is incremental, i.e. step-by-step. (After Schmitt, M. Tracking the incremental acquisition of second language vocabulary. A Longitudinal Study. Language Learning. Vol. 48. No. 2. June 1998).

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