"There are five questions that linguists (and learners) need to ask about any word. These are:
1 What does the word mean?
2 What words does it associate with?
3 What meanings does it associate with?
4 What grammatical functions does it associate with?
5 What positions in the text does the word favour? "
Michael Hoey
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/MED- ... a-word.htm
But do students and teachers ask all those questions when confronted with learning or teaching a new word? If not, why not?
What's in a word
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Later, in the same article, Hoey expands these five to include the following nine questions.
What else is in a word?
All of this suggests that to know a word is to know a great deal more than its meaning. I would suggest that to know a word such as consequence is, at the very least, to know the answers to the following nine questions about the word:
1 What does consequence mean? (meaning)
2 How is consequence used grammatically? (grammar)
3 How is consequence pronounced? (pronunciation)
4 Are there restrictions on the use of consequence? (context and genre)
5 What are the collocations of consequence? (collocation)
6 What idioms and semi-fixed expressions does consequence appear in? (idiom)
7 What meanings does consequence associate with? (semantic association)
8 What grammatical constructions does consequence like to appear in or with? (colligation)
9 What positions in a text does consequence like to appear in? (textual colligation)
Perhaps the best thing a teacher can do is teach students how to use these new corpus based dictionaries. So, before you can ask it, Metal, I'll ask you. How do we do that?
What else is in a word?
All of this suggests that to know a word is to know a great deal more than its meaning. I would suggest that to know a word such as consequence is, at the very least, to know the answers to the following nine questions about the word:
1 What does consequence mean? (meaning)
2 How is consequence used grammatically? (grammar)
3 How is consequence pronounced? (pronunciation)
4 Are there restrictions on the use of consequence? (context and genre)
5 What are the collocations of consequence? (collocation)
6 What idioms and semi-fixed expressions does consequence appear in? (idiom)
7 What meanings does consequence associate with? (semantic association)
8 What grammatical constructions does consequence like to appear in or with? (colligation)
9 What positions in a text does consequence like to appear in? (textual colligation)
Perhaps the best thing a teacher can do is teach students how to use these new corpus based dictionaries. So, before you can ask it, Metal, I'll ask you. How do we do that?
I would think that most teachers also need to learn how to use such dictionaries, wouldn't you?Perhaps the best thing a teacher can do is teach students how to use these new corpus based dictionaries.
Use the tips from this site:So, before you can ask it, Metal, I'll ask you. How do we do that?
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/MED- ... -cover.htm