How do we make lexical choices?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:56 am

If you wanted to express the meaning "a person whose sex is male and whose age is between 13 and 15 years", which of the following would you choose?

boy, kid, teenager, youth, child, young man, schoolboy, adolescent, man.

What would be your criteria in making that choice?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:05 pm

It would depend upon the frame of which it was an ongoing part (maybe that is a fancy way of saying "(situation of) context", but I'm into frames at the moment and want to mention them where I can, in the hope somebody will tell me more about them

).

The main concern is if we are speaking of a single person (who did or will do something that warrants mentioning, and will thus soon be known to both participants in the conversation just as surely as he was unknown to at least one of them beforehand), or talking about a person/people matching your description generally. Let's assume we mean a specific person.

'Kid', 'teenager', 'youth' and 'adolescent' might be objected to out of hand, but we might be forgetting that the pronoun 'he' could follow them soon enough in speech to make the sex of the person clear and no problem. I would say, however, that 'child' and 'man' don't seem to apply to the age range mentioned, and 'adolescent' would not be typical in most conversations.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:25 pm

One important factor you leave out is the individual's maturity. Where I work there are some 16 year olds I'd refer to as "young men/women", others as "boys/girls" or even "kids". It all comes down to how they behave in my classes.

So, once again, it comes down to speaker perception as well as objective facts like physical age.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:49 pm

lolwhites wrote:One important factor you leave out is the individual's maturity. Where I work there are some 16 year olds I'd refer to as "young men/women", others as "boys/girls" or even "kids". It all comes down to how they behave in my classes.

So, once again, it comes down to speaker perception as well as objective facts like physical age.

Excellent point, it didn't occur to me to modify metal's 'man'.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:50 pm

lolwhites wrote:One important factor you leave out is the individual's maturity. Where I work there are some 16 year olds I'd refer to as "young men/women", others as "boys/girls" or even "kids". It all comes down to how they behave in my classes.

So, once again, it comes down to speaker perception as well as objective facts like physical age.

And probably who one is addressing at different times.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 9:33 pm

boy, kid, teenager, youth, child, young man, schoolboy, adolescent, man

You left out: minor, punk, teenybopper, youngster.

Not to mention: brat, child, juvenile, lad, pip-squeek, tyro, whipper-snapper.

I like what you've been doing on this forum, M56. Challenging our traditional ideas is what, ultimately, makes better teachers out of all of us.

Larry Latham

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:19 pm

LarryLatham wrote:
boy, kid, teenager, youth, child, young man, schoolboy, adolescent, man
You left out: minor, punk, teenybopper, youngster. Not to mention: brat, child, juvenile, lad, pip-squeek, tyro, whipper-snapper.

I like what you've been doing on this forum, M56. Challenging our traditional ideas is what, ultimately, makes better teachers out of all of us.

Larry Latham

LOL! Lots to choose from.