Using English Words
Using English Words examines the impact that the life histories of people have on their vocabulary. Its starting point is the taken-for-granted fact that the vocabulary of English falls into two very different sections. Randolph Quirk mentions this striki
- PDF / 27,595,295 Bytes
- 229 Pages / 454 x 680 pts Page_size
- 26 Downloads / 294 Views
USING ENGLISH WORDS
by
DAVID CORSON The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-7923-3711-9 ISBN 978-94-011-0425-8 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-94-011-0425-8
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1995 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To the Memory of WILLIAM SANDS CORSON
Contents Introduction
1
Chapter 1: The Place of Words in Discourse and in Education Discursive Psychology and the Discursive Mind Words in Education The Sociology of Language Words, the Sociology of Language, and Education Conclusion
16 16 21
Chapter 2: A Multidisciplinary Review: Words, Culture, Education, and Society Insights from the Philosophy of Language Insights from Linguistics and from Studies of Literacy Insights from the Sociology of Language and Education Insights from Psychology and Cognitive Studies of Literacy Insights from Anthropology: Cultural Meaning Systems Insights from Language in Education Insights from Languages other than English Conclusion
23 25 35 41 49 52 55 57
Chapter 3: The Historical Development of the Lexical Bar Before the Renaissance Period The Renaissance Period Into the Early Modem Period The Nineteenth Century A Modem Lexical Bar for English-Speaking Countries Conclusion
59 64 72 74 77 79
Chapter 4: Factors Reinforcing the Bar in the Present Day Morphological and Phonological Factors The Formality and Pseudo-Prestige of G-L Words The Genuine Communicative Value of G-L Words Sociological and Intrapersonal Factors Conclusion
82 86 89 89 95
Chapter 5: The Research Studies Measuring Instruments Research Contexts Research Findings: Passive Vocabulary Research Findings: Active Vocabulary Conclusion
97 105 112 115 124
11 14
11
23
59
81
97
viii
Chapter 6: Using Words in Educational Perfonnance and for Sociocultural Reproduction Knowledge on Display Cultural Meaning Systems and the Lexical Bar High Status Cultural Capital, Formality, and Specialist G-L Words High Status Linguistic Capital and Sociocultural Reproduction Conclusion
126 141 143 148 149
Chapter 7: Morphology and the Mental Lexicon Psycholinguistics and Discursive Psychology Seminal Studies of Morphology and the Mental Lexicon Orthographic Processing: Reading and Writing Phonological Processing: Speaking and Listening Evidence from Languages other than English Semantic Factors in Word Processing Experience in Word Learning and Use: Language Awareness Conclusion
152 153 155 159 162 165 167 168
Chapter 8: Difficulty in Lexical Access: The Lexical Bar The Concrete-Abstract Continuum Low Imagery and Low Frequency Morphological Complexity The Rol
