ADMISSION, ADMITTANCE

ADMISSION, for being allowed to enter (usually a place), is the commonly used word, and it has today almost entirely displaced ADMITTANCE, which is now restricted to a few idiomatic uses, e.g. “No admittance except on business".

(Collins V. H. The Choice of Words. A Book of Synonyms with Explanations)

When the selection of the dictionary entries, the contents and structure of the entries, their order of arrangement etc. are decided upon, the lexicographer is to settle upon this or that structure of the dictionary.

In spite of the great variety of linguistic dictionaries their composition has many features in common. Nearly all of them may be roughly divided into three unequal parts.

Apart from the dictionary proper, that make up the bulk of the wordbook, every reference book contains some separate sections which are to help the user in handling it — an Introduction and Guide to the use’ of the dictionary. This prefatory matter usually explains all the peculiarities of the word-book, it also contains a key to pronunciation, the list of abbreviations used and the like.

It is very important that the user of a dictionary should read this prefatory matter for this will enable him to know what is to be found in the word-book and what is not, will help him locate words quickly and easily, and derive the full amount of information the dictionary affords.

Appended to the dictionary proper there is some supplementary material valuable for language learners and language teachers. This material may be divided into one of linguistic nature, pertaining to vocabulary, its development and use, and the other pertaining to matters distinctly encyclopaedic. In explanatory dictionaries the appendixes

of the first kind usually include addenda or/and various word-lists: geographical names, foreign words and expressions, forenames, etc., record new meanings of words already entered and words that have come into existence since the compilation of the word-book. The educational material may include a list of colleges and universities, special signs and symbols used in various branches of science, tables of weights and measures, etc.

In translation dictionaries supplementary material is in some respects different from that in explanatory dictionaries, e.g. the Russian-English dictionary referred to above does not only include a list of geographical names, standard abbreviations pertaining to the public, political, economic and industrial life, but also contains the rules of English and Russian pronunciation as well as brief outlines of English and Russian grammar.

LEARNER'S DICTIONARIES AND SOME PROBLEMS

OF THEIR COMPILATION

Nowadays practical and theoretical learner’s lexicography is given great attention to, especially in our country. Lexicographers, linguists and methods specialists discuss such problems as the classification of learner’s dictionaries,¹ the scope of the. word-list for learners at different stages of advancement, the principles of word selection, etc.

In the broad sense of the word the term learner’s dictionaries might be applied to any word-book designed as an aid to various users, both native and foreign, studying a language from various angles. Thus, we might refer to this group of word-books such reference books as Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon by H. Sweet, the numerous school-level or college-level dictionaries for native speakers, the numerous spelling-books, etc. By tradition the term is confined to dictionaries specially compiled to meet the demands of the learners for whom English is not their mother tongue. It is in this sense that we shall use the term further on.

These dictionaries differ essentially from ordinary academic dictionaries, on the one hand, and from word-books compiled specially for English and American schoolchildren and college students, on the other hand.

Though foreign language learners and children speaking the same language as their mother tongue have both imperfect command of English, it is obvious that the needs and problems of the two groups of dictionary users are altogether different. A foreign adult student of

¹ See, e.g., the discussion “What should a learner’s dictionary be like?” on the pages of the magazine «Русский язык за рубежом», also «Вопросы учебной лексикографии» под ред. П. Н. Денисова и Л. А. Новикова, М., 1969.

English even at a moderately advanced stage of learning will have pitfalls and needs of his own: among the other things he may have difficulties with the use of the most “simple” words (such as play, wipe), he may not know the names for commonest things in everyday life (such as oatmeal, towel, rug) and he will experience in this or that degree interference of his mother tongue.

On the one hand, we have users who for the most part have command of the language, who have fluent speech habits, since this language is their mother tongue; they need guidance as to which of the usage they come across is correct. On the other hand, we have users that have a limited vocabulary and no speech habits or very weak ones and who have stable speech habits in another language which is their native tongue and these native speech habits interfere with the foreign ones. That is why these users must be given thorough instruction in how the words are to be used and this instruction must be given against the background of the learners’ native language.

That is why the word-lists and the sort of directions for use for the benefit of the foreign adult learners of English must differ very widely (if not fundamentally) from those given to English or American schoolchildren.

Hence the word-books of this group are characterised by the following features:

1) by their strictly limited word-list, the selection of which is based on carefully thought over scientific principles;

2) the great attention given to the functioning of lexical units in speech;

3) a strong prescriptive, normative character;

4) by their compilation with the native linguistic background in view.

Learner’s dictionaries may be classified in accordance with different principles, the main of which are: 1) the scope of the word-list and 2) the nature of the information afforded.

From the point of view of the scope (volume) of the word-list they fall into two groups. Those of the first group contain all lexical units that the prospective user may need, in the second group only the most essential and important words are selected. To the first group we can refer A. S. Hornby’s Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (50,000 lexical units) and M. West’s International Reader’s Dictionary (about 24,000 units); to the second group — A Grammar of English Words by H. Palmer (1,000 words), and The English-Russian Learner’s Dictionary by S. K. Folomkina and H. M. Weiser (3,500 units).

As to the information afforded by learner’s dictionaries lexicographers and methodologists seem to have agreed that there should be a whole series of them. There must be a group of dictionaries presenting different aspects of the vocabulary: showing mainly the semantic structure of words (explanatory), presenting the syntagmatic relations between words (dictionaries of collocations), providing information: about the word’s structure (derivational), supplying synonymous and antonymous words, etc.

Another grouping of dictionaries reflects the practice of teaching different aspects of speech. The word-books having as their goal the ability to read scientific and technical literature in a foreign language will need a vast word-list ensuring adequate comprehension of written speech. Teaching oral speech habits requires a dictionary that contains a selected list of active words explained from the point of view of their use.

Since learners of different linguistic background will have different pitfalls in mastering the same language, will need different directions for use, different restrictive remarks, each pair of languages requires its own dictionaries, dictionaries based on a contrastive study of the learner’s native tongue and the language to be learned.¹

In this connection it must be said that Hornby’s dictionary, with all its merits and advantages, has an essential demerit — it does not take into account the user’s linguistic background, so it cannot foresee and prevent the possible language problems of this or that national group of English learners.

Not long ago Soviet lexicographers came to the opinion that separate reference books are called for teachers and learners. As far as dictionaries of English go, perhaps the first attempts at producing dictionaries for teachers are the reference books Adjectival Collocations and Verbal Collocations.

Those are the main types of dictionaries considered necessary to ensure the process of foreign language teaching. As to the present state of learner’s lexicography, it may be characterised as just coming into being, as the already existing dictionaries are few in number and they do not make a system, rather some separate links of a system.

As to the information they provide they may be divided into two groups: those giving equal attention to the word’s semantic characteristics and the way it is used in speech (these may be called learner’s dictionaries proper) and those concentrating on detailed treatment of the word’s lexical and grammatical valency (dictionaries of collocations).

To learner’s dictionaries proper issued in English-speaking countries we may refer, for example, The Progressive English Dictionary and An English Reader’s Dictionary by A. S. Hornby and E. С Parnwell designed for beginners, as well as Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by A. S. Hornby and The New Horizon Ladder Dictionary of the English Language by J. R. Shaw with J. Shaw for more advanced students.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by A. Hornby has achieved international recognition as a most valuable practical reference book to English as a foreign language. It contains 50,000 units and is compiled on the basis of COD to meet the needs of advanced foreign learners of English and language teachers. It aims among other things at giving detailed information about the grammatical and partly lexical valency of words.

¹ We are now speaking about the nature of information, not the language it is couched in. Thus we may imagine several Anglo-Russian dictionaries, each designed for a separate group of learners with a different linguistic background.

The New Horizon Ladder Dictionary includes 5000 of the most frequently used words in written English. It is called Ladder Dictionary because the words are divided in it into five levels or ladder rungs of approximately 1000 each, according to the frequency of their use (a figure in brackets attached to each word shows to which thousand the word belongs).

Compiled in our country is the English-Russian Dictionary of Most Commonly Used Words prepared by V. D. Arakin, H. M. Weiser and S. K. Folomkina under Prof. I. V. Rakhmanov’s direction. This is a vocabulary minimum of 3250 words, typical word-groups and phraseological units selected for active mastery in Soviet secondary school.

The Learner’s English-Russian Dictionary by S. Folomkina and H. Weiser does not, strictly speaking, belong to the group of dictionaries under consideration, as it is designed for use by English-speaking students of the Russian language, but is helpful as well when learning English. It contains about 3500 words.

The word-books given above differ in many respects: they are either monolingual or polylingual, they provide different information, they differ in the kind of the intended user (learners of the English language who have reached different stages in the course of their studies, adults or children of different linguistic background — English-speaking learners of Russian) and in aim (an aid to oral speech — the development of reading and writing skills) and in other features. However these dictionaries have some traits in common that distinguish them from the word-books considered in the preceding sections. They all aim at teaching how to speak, write, etc., while the tendency in modern English lexicography is not to prescribe as to usage, but to record what is actually used by speakers.

Dictionaries of collocation contain words which freely combine with the given head-word. The few reference books of this kind known to us belong to the pen of foreign compilers. For example, A. Reum’s Dictionary of English Style is designed for the Germans, Kenkyusha’s New Dictionary of English Collocations is intended for the Japanese, Adjectival Collocations in Modern English by T. S. Gorelik and Verbal Collocations in Modern English by R. Ginzburg, S. Khidekel, E. Mednikova and A. Sankin are designed for Russian school teachers and students of English.

Each of the two dictionaries of collocations prepared by Soviet linguists presents the collocability of 375 words that are used in Soviet school text-books. The presentation of the word’s grammatical and lexical valency is based on identical principles.

Compilers of learner’s dictionaries have to tackle the same cardinal problems as those of ordinary explanatory and translation dictionaries, but they often solve them in their own way, besides they have some specific policies to settle on to meet the needs of language learners to whom the book will be addressed.

The common purpose of learner’s dictionaries is to give information on what is currently accepted usage, besides most compilers seek to choose

the lexical units that foreign learners of English are likely to need. Therefore not only are obsolete, archaic and dialectal words excluded, but” also technical and scientific terms, substandard words and phrases, etc. Colloquial and slang words as well as foreign words of common occurrence in English are included only if they are of the sort likely to be met by students either in reading or in conversation. Moreover some of the common words may be omitted if they are not often encountered in books, newspapers, etc. or heard over the radio and in conversation.

Space is further saved by omitting certain derivatives and compounds the meaning of which can be easily inferred.

Alternative spellings and pronunciations are avoided, only the more accepted forms are listed.

Various criteria have been employed in choosing words for learner’s dictionaries. In the first place the selection of words is based on the frequency principle.

Frequency value, an important characteristic of lexical units, is closely connected with their other properties. That is why the word-counts enable the compiler to choose the most important, the most frequently used words.

However many methodologists and compilers of learner’s dictionaries have a tendency to exaggerate the significance of the frequency criterion. The research done in different countries (in our country and in France, for example) has shown that the frequency tables, helpful ‘as they are in the compilation of a vocabulary minimum, do not in themselves present the vocabulary minimum. While it is indisputable that every high-frequency word is useful, it is not every useful word that is frequent (e.g. carrots, fork, stamp, etc.). Consequently frequency cannot be the only point to be considered in selecting items for learner’s dictionaries as well as for other teaching materials. It must be complemented by some other principles, such as the words’ collocability, stylistic reference, derivational ability, semantic structure, etc.¹

The order of arrangement of meanings followed in learner’s dictionaries is usually empiric, that is beginning with the main meaning to minor ones. Besides the following principles of arrangement are considered proper for language learners: literal uses before figurative, general uses before special, common uses before rare and easily understandable uses before difficult. Each of these principles is subject to the limitation “other things being equal” and all are subject to the principle that that arrangement is best for any word which helps the learners most.

E.g. in Hornby’s entry for commit the first meaning is ‘perform’ (a crime, foolish act, etc.) and its primary meaning ‘entrust’ is given as its second meaning.

¹ In the dictionary under Prof. I. V. Rakhmanov’s direction the choice of words is based upon three main principles: 1) combinability, 2) lack of stylistic limitations, 3) semantic value, and four additional principles: 1) word-building ability, 2) polysemy, 3) syntactical valency, 4) frequency.

But this is not always the case. For instance, the first meaning of the word revolution given by Hornby is ‘act of revolving or journeying round’ and not ‘complete change, great reversal of conditions, esp. in methods of government’, which is more common nowadays. Thus the compilers preserve the historical order of meanings in this case.

In monolingual learner’s dictionaries the same types of definitions are used, as in ordinary monolingual explanatory word-books, but their proportion is different. Encyclopaedic definitions are usually used more rarely, the role of descriptive definitions is much greater.

Compare, for instance, the definition for coal taken from the Ladder Dictionary with that from COD given above.¹

coal n. a black, hard substance that burns and gives off heat.

It would be wrong to think however that the definitions in learner’s dictionaries are always less complete than in the dictionaries designed for native users. More often than not these definitions are not so condensed in form and they are more complete in content, because the compilers have to make up for the user’s possible inadequacy in command of the language and lack of knowledge of some realia.

Compare, for example the two entries for prep given below:

COD II² (abbr prep) preparation of lessons as part of school routine;

OALD [U]³ (colloq abbr prep) (time given to) preparing lessons or writing exercises, after normal school hours (esp at GB public or grammar schools): two hours’ prep; do one’s French prep;

In learner’s dictionaries cross-references are for the most part reduced to a minimum.

Compilers of learner’s dictionaries attach great importance to the language in which the definition is couched, the goal being to word them in the simplest terms that are consistent with accuracy. Some compilers see to it that the definitions are couched in language which is commoner and more familiar to the language learner than the words defined.

Some lexicographers select a special defining vocabulary held to be the commonest words in English or those first learnt by foreigners. For example, in the International Reader’s Dictionary the word-list of 24,000 items is defined within a vocabulary of 1490 words selected by M. West.

In some learner’s dictionaries pictorial material is widely used as a means of semantisation of the words listed. Pictures cannot only define the meanings of such nouns as dike, portico, domes, columns, brushes, etc., but sometimes also of adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

E.g. in Hornby’s dictionary, the definitions of the adjective concentrated, the verb clasp and the adverb abreast are illustrated with the pictures of concentrated circles, clasped hands, and boys walking three abreast.

¹ See ‘Fundamentals of English Lexicography’, § 9, p. 220.

² The parallel bars in COD = not US.

³ U = uncountable

§ 18. Setting of the Entry

The structure and content of the entry in learner’s dictionaries also have some peculiar features. Chief among these is marked attention to the ways words are used in speech, e.g. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary points out which nouns, and in which of their meanings, can be used with the indefinite articles (the symbols [C] and [U] stand for “countable” and “uncountable"). It also indicates the patterns in which verbs can be used. They are presented with the help of the abbreviation VP and the number of the pattern preceding the definition of each meaning. All the patterns are listed in A Summary of the Verb Patterns. The dictionary also gives information of a more detailed character about the lexical valency of words. Sets of words with which the head-word may combine as well as illustrative examples taken from everyday language are given, e.g.

ar·rive /э'raiv/ vi [VP2A, С, ЗА] 1 reach a place, esp the end of a journey: ~ home, ~ at aport, ~ in harbour. 2. come: At last the day ~ d. Her baby ~d (= was born) yesterday. 3. [VP3A] ~ at, reach (a decision, a price, the age of 40, manhood, etc) 4 [VP2A] establish one’s position or reputation: The flood of fan mail proved he'd ~d.

Each dictionary has its own specific features. For instance, in the Learner’s English-Russian Dictionary there is no indication of the patterns the English word is used in. Designed for English learners of Russian the dictionary provides Russian equivalents for all meanings with the stress indicated in each word and translation of all examples, indicates the types of conjugation of Russian verbs. See the entry from the dictionary given below:

arrive [э'raiv] приезжать (64),¹ perf приéхать (71); the delegation will ~ on Wednesday делегация приедет в среду; what time do we ~? в котором часу мы приедем?... when I ~d home they were already there когда я приёхал(а) домой, они уже были там.

In dictionaries of collocations the setting of the entry assumes a different shape. See, for example, the entry for arrive taken from the Verbal Collocations:

arrive [э'raiv] I² [come to a place]; ~ at some time (unexpectedly, early, late, safely, next week, at last, etc.) приезжать, прибывать в какое-л. время; the train (the steamer, the plane, etc.) has~ d поезд (пароход и т. д.) прибыл, пришел; your friend (his son etc.) has ~d твой друг (его сын и т. д.) приехал /прибыл/; a parcel has ~d посылка пришла;

¹ The numbers in brackets indicate the number of the table presenting the type of conjugation of the Russian verb.

² The black-faced Roman numbers indicate the pattern in which the word can be used.

III. [see I]; ~ with /by/ smth (with a train, with a steamer, by the six o'clock train, by aeroplane, etc.) прибывать чём-л.; ~ on smth (on horseback, on one’s bicycle, etc.) приезжать на чём-л.; ~ at some time (on time, just at the right moment, on Monday, on March 3rd, at six o'clock, before /after/ dark, before /after/ smb, etc.) прибывать когда-л.; ~ somewhere (at a small station, at a village in England, in a city, in London, in harbour, etc.) прибывать куда-л.; 2. [reach, attain]; ~ at smth (at a goal, at perfection, etc.) достигать чего-л.; ~ at smth (at a conclusion, at a correct result, at an opinion, at an understanding, etc.) приходить к чему-л.; ~ at a decision принимать решение.

The supplementary matter in learner’s dictionaries, besides that usually found in general dictionaries, may include other reference material necessary for language learners. For instance, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary includes not only lists of irregular verbs, common abbreviations, geographical names, etc., but also common forenames listed with their pet names, numerical expressions giving help in the reading, speaking and writing of numbers and expressions which contain them, the works of William Shakespeare and even ranks in the Armed Forces of GB and US.

1. The numerous linguistic dictionaries of the English language may be grouped by the following criteria: 1) the nature of their word-list, 2) the information they contain, 3) the language of the explanations, 4) the intended user.

2. The most important problems the lexicographer faces are: 1) the selection of items for inclusion and their arrangement, 2) the setting of the entries, 3) the selection, arrangement and definition of meanings, 4) the illustrative examples to be supplied, and 5) the supplementary material. The choice among the possible solutions depends upon the type to which the dictionary will belong, the aim the compilers pursue, the prospective user of the dictionary, the linguistic conceptions of the dictionary-maker, etc.

3. Designed for foreign learners of English, learner’s dictionaries are characterised by their strictly limited word-list, the great attention given to the functioning of lexical units in speech and their strong perspective orientation.

X. Methods and Procedures of Lexicological Analysis

It is commonly recognised that acquaintance with at least some of the currently used procedures of linguistic investigation is of considerable importance both for language learners and for prospective teachers as it gives them the possibility to observe how linguists obtain answers to certain questions and is of help in the preparation of teaching material. It also helps language learners to become good observers of how language works and this is the only lasting way to become better users of language.

The process of scientific investigation may be subdivided into several stages. Observation is an early and basic, phase of all modern scientific investigation, including linguistic, and is the centre of what is called the inductive method of inquiry.

The cardinal role of all inductive procedures is that statements of fact must be based on observation, not on unsupported authority, logical conclusions or personal preferences. Besides, linguists as a rule largely confine themselves to making factual statements, i.e. statements capable of objective verification. In other words a linguist assumes that a question cannot be answered unless there are procedures by which reliable and verifiable answers can be obtained.

The next stage after observation is classification or orderly arrangement of the data obtained through observation. For example, it is observed that in English nouns the suffixal morpheme -er is added to verbal stems (speak + -er, writ(e) + -er, etc.), noun stem’s (village + -er, London + -er, etc.), and that -er also occurs in non-derived words such as mother, father, etc. Accordingly all the nouns in -er may be classified into two types — derived and simple words and the derived words may be subdivided into two groups according to their stems. It should be pointed out that at this stage the application of different methods of analysis is common practice.¹

The following stage is usually that of generalisation, i.e. the collection of data and their orderly arrangement must eventually lead to the formulation of< a generalisation or hypothesis, rule, or law.

In our case we can formulate a rule that derived nouns in -er may have either verbal or noun stems. The suffix -er in combination with adjectival or adverbial stems cannot form nouns (cf. (to) dig — digger but big — bigger).

Moreover, the difference in the meaning of the suffixal nouns observed by the linguist allows him to infer that if -er is added to verbal stems, the nouns thus formed denote an active doer — teacher, learner, etc., whereas when the suffix -er is combined with noun-stems the words denote residents of a place or profession (e.g. villager, Londoner).

¹ See ‘Word-Structure’, §§ 7-9, pp. 96 — 102; ‘Word-Formation’, § 9, p. 119. 234

One of the fundamental tests of the validity of a generalisation is whether or not the generalisation is useful in making reliable predictions. For example, proceeding from the observation and generalisation discussed above we may ‘predict’ with a considerable degree of certainty that if a new word with a suffix -er appears in modern English and the suffix is added to a verbal stem, the word is a noun denoting an active doer (cf., e.g., the new words of the type (moon-)crawler, (moon-)walker (lunar-)rouer which appeared when the Soviet moon car was launched.¹ Moreover we may predict if we make use of statistical analysis that such words are more likely to be coined than the other types of nouns with the -er suffix.

Any linguistic generalisation is to be followed by the verifуing process. Stated, simply, the linguist is required, as are other scientists, to seek verification of the generalisations that are the result of his inquiries. Here too, various procedures of linguistic analysis are commonly applied.

It may be inferred from the above that acquaintance with at least some of the methods of lexicological investigation, is essential for classification, generalisation and above all for the verification of the hypothesis resulting from initial observation. We may also assume that application of various methods of analysis should be an essential part of the learning process and consequently of teacher’s training.

The metho_ds and procedures briefly discussed below are as follows: 1. Contrastive analysis, 2. Statistical methods of analysis. 3. Immediate Constituents analysis, 4 Distributional analysis and co-occurrence, 5. Transformational analysis, 6. Componental analysis, 7. Method of semantic differential.²

All methods of linguistic analysis are traditionally subdivided into formalised and non-formalised procedures.

It is common knowledge that formalised methods of analysis proved to be in many cases inapplicable to natural languages and did not yield the desired results, nevertheless if not theoretical tenets at least some procedures of these methods of analysis have been used by linguists of different schools of thought and have become part of modern linguists’ equipment.

Naturally, the selection of this or that particular procedure largely depends on the goal set before the investigator.

If, e.g., the linguist wishes to find out the derivational structure of the lexical unit he is likely to make use of the 1С analysis and/or the transformational analysis.³ If the semantic structure of two correlated words is compared, componental analysis will probably be applied.

Some of the methods of lexicological analysis are of primary importance for teachers of English and are widely used in the preparation of

¹ See C. Barnhart, op. cit.

² Method of contextual analysis suggested by Prof. N. N. Amosova is not discussed here because there is a monograph devoted to this procedure. See N. N. Amosova. English Contextology, L., 1968.

³ See ‘Word-Structure’, § 6, p. 95;.Word-Formation’, § 30, p. 146.

teaching material, some are of lesser importance. The comparative value of individual methods for practicing teachers and also the interconnecttion of some of the procedures determined the order of their presentation. The first method discussed here is that of contrastive analysis as we consider it indispensable in teaching English as a foreign language. This is followed by a brief survey of statistical methods of analysis as quantitative evaluation is usually an essential part of any linguistic procedure. The so-called formalised methods of analysis — the IC analysis, distributional and transformational procedures precede the componental analysis not because of their greater value in terms of teaching English, but because componental analysis may be combined with distributional and/or transformational procedures, hence the necessity of introducing both procedures before we start the discussion of the componental analysis.

Contrastive linguistics as a systematic branch of linguistic science is of fairly,

recent date though it is not the idea which is new but rather the systematisation and the underlying principles. It is common knowledge that comparison is the basic principle in comparative philology. However the aims and methods of comparative philology differ considerably from those of contrastive linguistics. The comparativist compares languages in order to trace their philogenic relationships. The material he draws for comparison consists mainly of individual sounds, sound combinations and words, the aim is to establish family relationship. The term used to describe this field of investigation is historical linguistics or diachronic linguistics.

Comparison is also applied in typological classification and analysis. This comparison classifies languages by types rather than origins and relationships. One of the purposes of typological comparison is to arrive at language universals — those elements and processes despite their surface diversity that all language have in common.

Contrastive linguistics attempts to find out similarities and differences in both philogenically related and non-related languages.

It is now universally recognised that contrastive linguistics is a field of particular interest to teachers of foreign languages.¹

In fact contrastive analysis grew as the result of the practical demands of language teaching methodology where it was empirically shown that the errors which are made recurrently by foreign language students can be often traced back to the differences in structure between the target language and the language of the learner. This naturally implies the necessity of a detailed comparison of the structure of a native and a target language which has been named contrastive analysis.

¹ Contrastive analysis is becoming nowadays one of the fundamental requirements in teaching foreign languages in general. See, e. g., Proceedings of the Warsaw Session of the General Assembly of the International Association of Russian Teachers held in August 1976.

It is common knowledge that one of the major problems in the learning of the second language is the interference caused by the difference between the mother tongue of the learner and the target language. All the problems of foreign language teaching will certainly not be solved by contrastive linguistics alone. There is no doubt, however, that contrastive analysis has a part to play in evaluation of errors, in predicting typical errors and thus must be seen in connection with overall endeavours to rationalise and intensify foreign language teaching.

Linguistic scholars working in the field of applied linguistics assume that the most effective teaching materials are those that are based upon a scientific description of the language to be learned carefully compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learner.¹

They proceed from the assumption that the categories, elements, etc. on the semantic as well as on the syntactic and other levels are valid for both languages, i.e. are adopted from a possibly universal inventory. For example, linking verbs can be found in English, in French, in Russian, etc. Linking verbs having the meaning of ‘change’, ‘become’ are differently represented in each of the languages. In English, e.g., become, come, fall, get, grow, run, turn, wax, in German — werden, in French — devenir, in Russian — становиться.

The task set before the linguist is to find out which semantic and syntactic features characterise 1. the English set of verbs (cf. grow thin, get angry, fall ill, turn traitor, run dry, wax eloquent), 2. the French (Russian, German, etc.) set of verbs, 3. how the two sets compare. Cf., e.g., the English word-groups grow thin, get angry, fall ill and the Russian verbs похудеть, рассердиться, заболеть.

Contrastive analysis can be carried out at three linguistic levels: phonology, grammar (morphology and syntax) and lexis (vocabulary). In what follows we shall try to give a brief survey of contrastive analysis mainly at the level of lexis.

Contrastive analysis is applied to reveal the features of sameness and difference in the lexical meaning and the semantic structure of correlated words in different languages.

It is commonly assumed by non-linguists that all languages have vocabulary systems in which the words themselves differ in sound-form but refer to reality in the same way. From this assumption it follows that for every word in the mother tongue there is an exact equivalent in the foreign language. It is a belief which is reinforced by the small bilingual dictionaries where single word translations are often offered. Language learning however cannot be just a matter of learning to substitute a new set of labels for the familiar ones of the mother tongue.

Firstly, it should be borne in mind that though objective reality exists outside human beings and irrespective of the language they speak every language classifies reality in its own way by means of vocabulary units. In English, e.g., the word foot is used to denote the extremity of the leg. In Russian there is no exact equivalent for foot. The word нога denotes the whole leg including the foot.

¹ See, e. g., Ch. Fries. Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. University of Michigan Press, 1963, p. 9.

Classification of the real world around us provided by the vocabulary units of our mother tongue is learned and assimilated together with our first language. Because we are used to the way in which our own language structures experience we are often inclined to think of this as the only natural way of handling things whereas in fact it is highly arbitrary. One example is provided by the words watch and clock. It would seem natural for Russian speakers to have a single word to refer to all devices that tell us what time it is; yet in English they are divided into two semantic classes depending on whether or not they are customarily portable. We also find it natural that kinship terms should reflect the difference between male and female: brother or sister, father or mother, uncle or aunt, etc. yet in English we fail to make this distinction in the case of cousin (cf. the Russian — двоюродный брат, двоюродная сестра). Contrastive analysis also brings to light what can be labelled problem pairs, i.e. the words that denote two entities in one language and correspond to two different words in another language.

Compare, for example часы in Russian and clock, watch in English, художник in Russian and artist, painter in English.

Each language contains words which cannot be translated directly from this language into another. For example, favourite examples of untranslatable German words are gemütlich (something like ‘easygoing’, ‘humbly pleasant’, ‘informal’) and Schadenfreude (‘pleasure over the fact that someone else has suffered a misfortune’). Traditional examples of untranslatable English words are sophisticated and efficient.

This is not to say that the lack of word-for-word equivalents implies also the lack of what is denoted by these words. If this were true, we would have to conclude that speakers of English never indulge in Shadenfreude and that there are no sophisticated Germans or there is no efficient industry in any country outside England or the USA.

If we abandon the primitive notion of word-for-word equivalence, we can safely assume, firstly, that anything which can be said in one language can be translated more or less accurately into another, secondly, that correlated polysemantic words of different languages are as a rule not co-extensive. Polysemantic words in all languages may denote very different types of objects and yet all the meanings are considered by the native speakers to be obviously logical extensions of the basic meaning. For example, to an Englishman it is self-evident that one should be able to use the word head to denote the following:

whereas in Russian different words have to be used: голова, изголовье, сторона, головка, etc.

The very real danger for the Russian language learner here is that having learned first that head is the English word which denotes a part

of the body he will assume that it can be used in all the cases where the Russian word голова is used in Russian, e.g. голова сахара (‘a loaf of sugar’), городской голова (‘mayor of the city’), он парень с головой (‘he is a bright lad’), в первую голову (‘in the first place’), погрузиться во что-л. с головой (‘to throw oneself into smth.’), etc., but will never think of using the word head in connection with ‘a bed’ or ‘a coin’. Thirdly, the meaning of any word depends to a great extent on the place it occupies in the set of semantically related words: its synonyms, the constituents of the lexical field the word belongs to, other members of the word-family which the word enters, etc.

Thus, e.g., in the English synonymic set brave, courageous, bold, fearless, audacious, valiant, valorous, doughty, undaunted, intrepid each word differs in certain component of meaning from the others, brave usually implies resolution and self-control in meeting without flinching a situation that inspires fear, courageous stresses stout-hearted-ness and firmness of temper, bold implies either a temperamental liking for danger or a willingness to court danger or to dare the unknown, etc. Comparing the corresponding Russian synonymic set храбрый, бесстрашный, смелый, мужественный, отважный, etc. we see that the Russian word смелый, e.g., may be considered as a correlated word to either brave, valiant or valorous and also that no member of the Russian synonymic set can be viewed as an exact equivalent of any single member of the English synonymic set in isolation, although all of them denote ‘having or showing fearlessness in meeting that which is dangerous, difficult, or unknown’. Different aspects of this quality are differently distributed among the words making up the synonymic set. This absence of one-to-one correspondence can be also observed if we compare the constituents of the same lexico-semantic group in different languages. Thus, for example, let us assume that an Englishman has in his vocabulary the following words for evaluating mental aptitude: apt, bright, brilliant, clever, cunning, intelligent, shrewd, sly, dull, stupid, slow, foolish, silly. Each of these words has a definite meaning for him. Therefore each word actually represents a value judgement. As the Englishman sees a display of mental aptitude, he attaches one of these words to the situation and in so doing, he attaches a value judgement. The corresponding Russian semantic field of mental aptitude is different (cf. способный, хитрый, умный, глупый, тупой, etc.), therefore the meaning of each word is slightly different too. What Russian speakers would describe as хитрый might be described by English speakers as either cunning or sly depending on how they evaluate the given situation.

The problem under discussion may be also illustrated by the analysis of the members of correlated word-families, e.g., cf. голова, головка, etc. head, heady, etc. which are differently connected with the main word of the family in each of the two languages and have different denotational and connotational components of meaning. This can be easily observed in words containing diminutive and endearing suffixes, e.g. the English word head, grandfather, girl and others do not possess the connotative component which is part of the meaning of the Russian words головка, головушка, головёнка, дедушка, дедуля, etc.

Thus on the lexical level or to be more exact on the level of the lexical meaning contrastive analysis reveals that correlated polysemantic words are not co-extensive and shows the teacher where to expect an unusual degree of learning difficulty. This analysis may also point out the effective ways of overcoming the anticipated difficulty as it shows which of the new items will require a more extended and careful presentation and practice.

Difference in the lexical meaning (or meanings) of correlated words accounts for the difference of their collocability in different languages. This is of particular importance in developing speech habits as the mastery of collocations is much more important than the knowledge of isolated words.

Thus, e.g., the English adjective new and the Russian adjective новый when taken in isolation are felt as correlated words as in a number of cases new stands for новый, e.g. новое платье — a new dress, Новый Год — New Year. In collocation with other nouns, however, the Russian adjective cannot be used in the same meaning in which the English word new is currently used. Compare, e.g., new potatoes — молодая картошка, new bread — свежий хлеб, etc.

The lack of co-extension may be observed in collocations made up by words belonging to different parts of speech, e.g. compare word-groups with the verb to fill:

to fill a lamp — заправлять лам- to fill a truck — загружать ма-

ny шину

to fill a pipe — набивать трубку to fill a gap — заполнять пробел

As we see the verb to fill in different collocations corresponds to a number of different verbs in Russian. Conversely one Russian word may correspond to a number of English words.

For instance compare тонкая книга — a thin book тонкая ирония — subtle irony тонкая талия — slim waist

Perhaps the greatest difficulty for the Russian learners of English is the fact that not only notional words but also function words in different languages are polysemantic and not co-extensive. Quite a number of mistakes made by the Russian learners can be accounted for by the divergence in the semantic structure of function words. Compare, for example, the meanings of the Russian preposition до and its equivalents in the English language.

(Он работал) до 5 часов till 5 o'clock

(Это было) до войны before the war

(Он дошел) до угла to the corner

Contrastive analysis on the level of the grammatical meaning reveals that correlated words in different languages may differ in the grammatical component of their meaning.

To take a simple instance Russians are liable to say the * news are good, * the money are on the table, *her hair are black, etc. as the words

новости, деньги, волосы have the grammatical meaning of plurality in the Russian language.

Of particular interest in contrastive analysis are the compulsory grammatical categories which foreign language learners may find in the language they are studying and which are different from or nonexistent in their mother tongue. These are the meanings which the grammar of the language “forces” us to signal whether we want it or not.

One of the compulsory grammatical categories in English is the category of definiteness/indefiniteness. We know that English signals this category by means of the articles. Compare the meaning of the word man in the man is honest and man is honest.

As this category is non-existent in the Russian language it is obvious that Russian learners find it hard to use the articles properly.

Contrastive analysis brings to light the essence of what is usually described as idiomatic English, idiomatic Russian etc., i.e. the peculiar way in which every language combines and structures in lexical units various concepts to denote extra-linguistic reality.

The outstanding Russian linguist acad. L. V. Sčerba repeatedly stressed the fact that it is an error in principle if one supposes that the notional systems of any two languages are identical. Even in those areas where the two cultures overlap and where the material extralinguistic world is identical, the lexical units of the two languages are not different labels appended to identical concepts. In the overwhelming majority of cases the concepts denoted are differently organised by verbal means in the two languages. Different verbal organisation of concepts in different languages may be observed not only in the difference of the semantic structure of correlated words but also in the structural difference of word-groups commonly used to denote identical entities.

For example, a typical Russian word-group used to describe the way somebody performs an action, or the state in which a person finds himself, has the structure that may be represented by the formula adverb followed by a finite form of a verb (or a verb + an adverb), e.g. он крепко спит, он быстро /медленно/ усваивает, etc. In English we can also use structurally similar word-groups and say he smokes a lot, he learnsslowly (fast), etc. The structure of idiomatic English word-groups however is different. The formula of this word-group can be represented as an adjective + deverbal noun, e.g. he is a heavy smoker, a poor learner, e.g. “the Englishman is a slow starter but there is no stronger finisher” (Galsworthy). Another English word-group used in similar cases has the structure verb to be + adjective + the infinitive, e.g. (He) is quick to realise, (He) is slow to cool down, etc. which is practically non-existent in the Russian language. Commonly used English words of the type (he is) an early-riser, a music-lover, etc. have no counterparts in the Russian language and as a rule correspond to phrases of the type (Он) рано встает, (он) очень любит музыку, etc.¹

See ‘Word-Formation’, § 34, p. 151,

Last but not least contrastive analysis deals with the meaning and use of situational verbal units, i.e. words, word-groups, sentences which are commonly used by native speakers in certain situations.

For instance when we answer a telephone call and hear somebody asking for a person whose name we have never heard the usual answer for the Russian speaker would be Вы ошиблись (номером), Вы не туда попали. The Englishman in identical situation is likely to say Wrong number. When somebody apologises for inadvertently pushing you or treading on your foot and says Простите\ (I beg your pardon. Excuse me.) the Russian speaker in reply to the apology would probably say — Ничего, пожалуйста, whereas the verbal reaction of an Englishman would be different — It’s all right. It does not matter. * Nothing or *please in this case cannot be viewed as words correlated with Ничего, Пожалуйста."

To sum up contrastive analysis cannot be overestimated as an indispensable stage in preparation of teaching material, in selecting lexical items to be extensively practiced and in predicting typical errors. It is also of great value for an efficient teacher who knows that to have a native like command of a foreign language, to be able to speak what we call idiomatic English, words, word-groups and whole sentences must be learned within the lexical, grammatical and situational restrictions of the English language.

An important and promising trend in modern linguistics which has been making

progress during the last few decades is the quantitative study of language phenomena and the application of statistical methods in linguistic analysis.

Statistical linguistics is nowadays generally recognised as one of the major branches of linguistics. Statistical inquiries have considerable importance not only because of their precision but also because of their relevance to certain problems of communication engineering and information theory.

Probably one of the most important things for modern linguistics was the realisation of the fact that non-formalised statements are as a matter of fact unverifiable, whereas any scientific method of cognition presupposes verification of the data obtained. The value of statistical methods as a means of verification is beyond dispute.

Though statistical linguistics has a wide field of application here we shall discuss mainly the statistical approach to vocabulary.

Statistical approach proved essential in the selection of vocabulary items of a foreign language for teaching purposes.

It is common knowledge that very few people know more than 10% of the words of their mother tongue. It follows that if we do not wish to waste time on committing to memory vocabulary items which are never likely to be useful to the learner, we have to select only lexical units that are commonly used by native speakers. Out of about 500,000 words listed in the OED the “passive” vocabulary of an educated Englishman comprises no more than 30,000 words and of these 4,000 — 5,000

are presumed to be amply sufficient for the daily needs of an average member of the English speech community. Thus it is evident that the problem of selection of teaching vocabulary is of vital importance.¹ It is also evident that by far the most reliable single criterion is that of frequency as presumably the most useful items are those that occur most frequently in our language use.

As far back as 1927, recognising the need for information on word frequency for sound teaching materials, Ed. L. Thorndike brought out a list of the 10,000 words occurring most frequently in a corpus of five million running words from forty-one different sources. In 1944 the extension was brought to 30,000 words.²

Statistical techniques have been successfully applied in the analysis of various linguistic phenomena: different structural types of words, affixes, the vocabularies of great writers and poets and even in the study of some problems of historical lexicology.

Statistical regularities however can be observed only if the phenomena under analysis are sufficiently numerous and their occurrence very frequent. Thus the first requirement of any statistic investigation is the evaluation of the size of the sample necessary for the analysis.

To illustrate this statement we may consider the frequency of word occurrences.

It is common knowledge that a comparatively small group of words makes up the bulk of any text.³ It was found that approximately 1,300 — 1,500 most frequent words make up 85% of all words occurring in the text. If, however, we analyse a sample of 60 words it is hard to predict the number of occurrences of most frequent words. As the sample is so small it may contain comparatively very few or very many of such words. The size of the sample sufficient for the reliable information as to the frequency of the items under analysis is determined by mathematical statistics by means of certain formulas.

It goes without saying that to be useful in teaching statistics should deal with meanings as well as sound-forms as not all word-meanings are equally frequent. Besides, the number of meanings exceeds by far the number of words. The total number of different meanings recorded and illustrated in OED for the first 500 words of the Thorndike Word List is 14,070, for the first thousand it is nearly 25,000. Naturally not all the meanings should be included in the list of the first two thousand most commonly used words. Statistical analysis of meaning frequencies resulted in the compilation of A General Service List of English Words with Semantic Frequencies. The semantic count is a count of the frequency of the occurrence of the various senses of 2,000 most frequent words as found in a study of five million running words. The semantic count is based on the differentiation of the meanings in the OED and the

’ ¹ See ‘Various Aspects...’, § 14, p. 197; ‘Fundamentals of English Lexicography, § 6, p. 216.

² The Teacher’s Word Book of 30,000 Words by Edward L. Thorndike and Irvin Lorge. N. Y., 1963. See also M. West. A General Service List of English Words. L., 1959, pp. V-VI.

³ See ‘Various Aspects...’, § 14, p. 197.

frequencies are expressed as percentage, so that the teacher and textbook writer may find it easier to understand and use the list. An example will make the procedure clear.

It can be easily observed from the semantic count above that the meaning ‘part of a house’ (sitting room, drawing room, etc.) makes up 83% of all occurrences of the word room and should be included in the list of meanings to be learned by the beginners, whereas the meaning ’suite, lodgings’ is not essential and makes up only 2% of all occurrences of this word.

Statistical methods have been also applied to various theoretical problems of meaning. An interesting attempt was made by G. K. Zipf to study the relation between polysemy and word frequency by statistical methods. Having discovered that there is a direct relationship between the number of different meanings of a word and its relative frequency of occurrence, Zipf proceeded to find a mathematical formula for this correlation. He came to the conclusion that different meanings of a word will tend to be equal to the square root of its relative frequency (with the possible exception of the few dozen most frequent words). This was summed up in the following formula where m stands for the number of meanings, F for relative frequency — tn — F¹/₂. This formula is known as Zipf’s law.

Though numerous corrections to this law have been suggested, still there is no reason to doubt the principle itself, namely, that the more frequent a word is, the more meanings it is likely to have.

One of the most promising trends in statistical enquiries is the analysis of collocability of words. It is observed that words are joined together according to certain rules. The linguistic structure of any string of words may be described as a network of grammatical and lexical restrictions.¹

The set of lexical restrictions is very complex. On the standard probability scale the set of (im)possibilities of combination of lexical units range from zero (impossibility) to unit (certainty).

Of considerable significance in this respect is the fact that high frequency value of individual lexical items does not forecast high frequency of the word-group formed by these items. Thus, e.g., the adjective able and the noun man are both included in the list of 2,000 most frequent words, the word-group an able man, however, is very rarely used.

¹ Set ‘Word-Groups and Phraseological Units’, §§ 1, 2, pp. 64,66, 244

The importance of frequency analysis of word-groups is indisputable as in speech we actually deal not with isolated words but with word-groups. Recently attempts have been made to elucidate this problem in different languages both on the level of theoretical and applied lexicology and lexicography.

It should be pointed out, however, that the statistical study of vocabulary has some inherent limitations.

Firstly, statistical approach is purely quantitative, whereas most linguistic problems are essentially qualitative. To put it in simplar terms quantitative research implies that one knows what to count and this knowledge is reached only through a long period of qualitative research carried on upon the basis of certain theoretical assumptions.

Поиск по сайту: