Lexical-semantic field of the concept “sport” in English and Ukrainian

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CONTENTS

1. Introduction …………………………………………………………...….. 3

2.      Theoretical part:

2.1. Semantics..……………………………………………………..…... 5

2.2. Lexical field theory …………………………………………..…..... 6

2.3. Idiom. Collocation ……………………………………………….... 7

2.4. Contrastive Analysis …………………………………………….. 8

3. Practical part:

3.1. General sport:

3.1.1. Idioms………………………………………………….….... 11

3.1.2. Collocations……………….………………………………... 15

3. 2. American football:

3.2.1 Idioms……………………………………………………….. 17

3.2.2. Collocations……………………………………………….... 18

3.3. Track and Field, Horse Racing:

3.3.1 Idioms……………………………………………………….. 19

4. Conclusions……………………………………………………………….. 22

5. References……………………………………………………………….... 24

1. INTRODUCTION

The course paper is dedicated to the research of lexico-semantic field of the concept “sport”, i.e. idiomatic and stable expressions concerning the subject "sport" in the English language.

The overall aim of the course paper is to identify the essence of the lexico-semantic field and its possible components considering the concept “sport”.

The objectives of my course research are:

      to study the essence of the notion “lexico-semantic field”;

      to classify the main types of verbal representation of the lexico-semantic fields in the English language;

      to define the elements of lexico-semantic fields of the concept “sport” their structures and meanings;

The methods of research are: the overall selection (used in gathering the research material), componential analysis (used in considering the semantic nature of researched units), and method of dictionary definitions.

Phraseological units and collocations and other stable expressions concerning the subject "sport" have been researched in the course paper in order to demonstrate their specific national coloring, since they reflect the culture, traditions and national character in the English language. Many kinds of sports have originated in Great Britain and the USA and are peculiarly British or American, therefore, they are the fundamental for new idiomatic expressions and collocations. It is of great interest to analyze the lexico-semantic field within the theme “sport” and its different verbal representation in a language.

The structure of the presented course paper is the following:

The introduction which justifies the aim of the course paper, its structure and the reason of the chosen topic;

The theoretical part which is dedicated to identifying the essence of the lexico-semantic field (semantics, lexical field theory, idioms and collocations) and contrastive analysis;

The practical part which is focused on the different kinds of sport (general sport, as well as American football, horse-racing or objects that belong to sport – track and field). Within these topics, the main idioms and collocations have been selected and their meaning in Ukrainian including the illustration material;

The conclusions which summarize the research results given in the practical part of the presented course paper.

The list of references presents the alphabetical order of the sources that were used in the research.

2. THEORETICAL PART

2.1. Semantics.

Semantics (from Greek "σημαντικός" - semantikos) is the study of meaning, usually in language. The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation. This problem of understanding has been the subject of many formal inquiries, over a long period of time, most notably in the field of formal semantics. In linguistics, it is the study of interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts. Within this view, sounds, facial expressions, body language, proxemics have semantic (meaningful) content, and each has several branches of study. In written language, such things as paragraph structure and punctuation have semantic content; in other forms of language, there is other semantic content [8, 205 ].

The formal study of semantics intersects with many other fields of inquiry, including proxemics, lexicology, syntax, pragmatics, etymology and others, although semantics is a well-defined field in its own right, often with synthetic properties. In philosophy of language, semantics and reference are related fields. Further related fields include philology, communication, and semiotics. The formal study of semantics is therefore complex [1, 53].

Semantics is sometimes contrasted with syntax, the study of the symbols of a language (without reference to their meaning), and pragmatics, the study of the relationships between the symbols of a language, their meaning, and the users of the language [5, 35 ].

In international scientific vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology.

The discipline of Semantics is distinct from A. Korzybski's General Semantics, which is a system for looking at the semantic reactions of the whole human organism in its environment to some event, symbolic or otherwise.

2.2. Lexical field theory

Lexical field theory (also semantic field theory) predominantly semantic theory of the German structuralist school (structuralism) according to which a word does not exist in isolation in the consciousness of the speaker/ hearer, but always forms a structured set of elements together with other conceptually related words that have a reciprocal influence on each other. Lexical field theory, first associated primarily with J. Trier, reflects the general linguistic tendency to move from an isolating, atomistic, discrete view to a holistic, systematic approach. Both F. de Saussure’s concept of ‘system’ and the influences of Gestalt psychology as well as E. Cassirer’s theory of cognition have influenced the development of lexical field theory [3, 326].

The following premises are fundamental to Trier’s lexical field theory:

(a) The meaning of an individual word is dependent upon the meaning of the rest of the words of the same lexical or conceptual field.

(b) An individual lexical field is constructed like a mosaic with no gaps; the whole set of all lexical fields of a language reflects a self-contained picture of reality.

(c) If a single word undergoes a change in meaning, then the whole structure of the lexical field changes. Consequently, the isolated historical study of words can be superseded by the study of lexical fields. In addition to this paradigmatic concept, a syntagmatic concept of field was developed very early on by V. Porzig (inherent semantic relation). Multiple criticism has led to differentiations and modifications of lexical field theory. A more detailed formulation of the terminology and subject matter brought about the development of componential analysis, which on the one hand made the semantic analysis of individual lexemes more systematic and on the other hand also brought syntagmatic aspects into consideration. Both the troublesome problem of selecting a criterion for determining whether or not a particular element belongs to a lexical field and the problem of differentiation, i.e. whether a particular element occupies its own position in the lexical field, have in the meantime been brought closer to a solution by introducing the concept of semantic relations for structuring the lexical field [3, 328].

2.3. Idiom. Collocation

An idiom (Latin: idioma, “special property”, f. Greek: ἰδίωμα - idiōma, “special feature, special phrasing”, f. Greek: ἴδιος - idios, “one’s own”) is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made [7, 495].

In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of speech contradicting the principle of compositionality; yet the matter remains debated. John Saeed defines an “idiom” as words collocated that became affixed to each other until metamorphosing into a fossilised term. This collocation – words commonly used in a group – redefines each component word in the word-group and becomes an idiomatic expression. The words develop a specialized meaning as an entity, as an idiom. Moreover, an idiom is an expression, word, or phrase whose sense means something different from what the words literally imply. When a speaker uses an idiom, the listener might mistake its actual meaning, if he or she has not heard this figure of speech before. Idioms usually do not translate well; in some cases, when an idiom is translated into another language, either its meaning is changed or it becomes meaningless.

If you look up the word idiom in the Webster’s dictionary, you may come across the following definition: “Idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent element as kick the bucket, hang one's head etc., or from the general grammatical rules of language, as the table round for the round table, and which is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics”. This definition seems a bit dry and doesn't really tell anything about the function of idioms in English language.

English is a language particularly rich in idioms - those modes of expression peculiar to a language (or dialect) which frequently defy logical and grammatical rules. Without idioms English would lose much of its variety and humor both in speech and writing [9, 93].

Collocation is defined as a sequence of words or terms which co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. The term is often used in the same sense as linguistic government.

Collocation comprises the restrictions on how words can be used together, for example which prepositions are used with particular verbs, or which verbs and nouns are used together.

Collocations are examples of lexical units. Collocations should not be confused with idioms although both are similar in that there is a degree of meaning present in the collocation or idiom that is not entirely compositional. With idioms, the meaning is completely non-compositional whereas collocations exist on a cline veering towards mostly compositionality.

If the expression is heard often, transmitting itself memetically, the words become “glued” together in our minds. “Crystal clear”, “middle management”, “nuclear family”, and “cosmetic surgery” are examples of collocated pairs of words. Some words are often found together because they make up a compound noun, for example “riding boots” or “motor cyclist”.

Collocations can be in a syntactic relation (such as verb-object: “make” and “decision”), lexical relation (such as antonymy), or they can be in no linguistically defined relation. Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent use of a language: a grammatically correct sentence will stand out as “awkward” if collocational preferences are violated. This makes collocation an interesting area for language teaching [2, 61-74].

2.4. Contrastive Analysis

Contrastive Analysis is a systematic study of a pair of languages with a view to identify their structural differences and similarities. It is not concerned with classification, and, as the term contrastive implies, is more interested in differences between languages than in their likenesses [4, 2].

Contrastive analysis is the main method of contrastive linguistics which is one of the youngest branches of linguistics [11, 3]. It appeared in the 1950s-60s. The very idea of comparative study of languages was not quite novel, common and divergent features of different languages had been investigated before, but only in the middle of the 20th century their systematic description was provided [12, 5].

Contrastive linguistics attempts to find out similarities and differences in both philogenically related and non-related languages at all levels of their structure. As a rule, it entails a synchronic approach to the study of languages without reference to their origins.

Contrastive linguistics originated in the field of applied linguistics since it was assumed that the most effective teaching materials were based upon a scientific description of the target language carefully compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learner.

Contrastive analysis is mainly concerned with two languages (related or non-related): NL “native language” and FL “foreign language” in the case of language learners, SL “source language” and TL “target language” in the case of translation, or simply L1 and L2 [4, 2].

Contrastive analysis involves two steps (or procedures): description and comparison. First, there is the stage of description when each of the two languages is described on the appropriate level. The two descriptions need to be “parallel”. The minimum requirement of “parallel description” is that the data from the two languages (L1 and L2) should be described through the same model of description [4, 30].

The second stage is the juxtaposition of descriptions for comparison. Here we encounter the issue of criteria for comparison, or the tertium comparationis (TC), the common platform that guarantees the comparability between languages. In all contrastive studies the fundamental methodological question is how to establish the tertium comparationis (TC). When a language L1 is studied, then another language L2 is necessary to formulate the results of the investigation of L1. L1 is object-language, and L2 is termed as “metalanguage”. In contrastive analysis, there are two object-languages (L1 and L2), consequently one more language is used as metalanguage (e.g., Latin) [10, 7]. Very often one of the contrasted languages (L1) is used as tertium comparationis to measure the characteristics of correspondences in L2. There also exists an opinion that the best basis for comparison (TC) of the elements in different languages is their meaning.

Pragmatic equivalence can serve as TC for contrastive analysis of such matters as the structure of discourse, stylistic properties, and quantitative aspects of texts. Concerning quantitative contrastive analysis texts may be chosen for comparison only on the grounds that they represent the same register, or the same style, or the same literary genre, or on any grounds which provide the common platform of reference motivating the comparison. Since discourse, both written and oral, is communicative activity, it is constrained by the same basic situational factors, i.e., at least by setting, participants, topic, and purpose. Keeping these factors constant would guarantee the comparability of texts produced in those conditions [6, 138].

The following guiding principles are suggested for contrastive study: 1) analyze the mother tongue and the target language independently and completely, 2) compare the two languages item-wise-item at all levels of their structure, 3) arrive at the categories of: a) similar features, b) partially similar features, and c) dissimilar features - for the target language, 4) arrive at principles of text preparation, test framing, and target language teaching in general.

3. PRACTICAL PART

3.1. GENERAL SPORT

3.1.1. IDIOMS:

3.1.2. COLLOCATIONS:

3. 2. AMERICAN FOOTBALL

3.2.1 IDIOMS:

3.2.2. COLLOCATIONS:

3.3. TRACK AND FIELD, HORSE RACING

3.3.1 IDIOMS:

4. CONCLUSIONS

In this course paper I have researched lexico-semantic field, namely idioms and collocations which belong to the category of sport in the English language.

The phraseology is one of the brightest and effective linguistic means. It studies word-groups consisting of two or more words whose combination is integrated as a unit with a specialized meaning of the whole.
The metaphorical and emotional character of the phraseology makes the speech more figurative and expressive.

Phraseological units perform very specific function – they reflect nation’s traditions, culture. Their primary meaning is often very specific and functions in very narrow meaning; however, over time these phrases acquire new meaning, they denote something that can be used in everyday life. While most sports idioms can still be used when discussing sports, they are even more common in other areas of life, especially the business world.

In this course paper I have attempted to compare how idioms are perceived in the English language and have tried to make a comparison between their primary and secondary meaning. When one attempts to translate these phraseological units from the English language into Ukrainian, they may observe the cases of full correspondence, partial correspondence or lack of correspondence. Some phraseological units exist only in English and they are so called national realia, they denote the objects connected with sports that only exist in Great Britain or the USA, but not so widely spread in other countries, therefore, one cannot find the full equivalent in the source language. The biggest part in English is presented by phraseological units with the lack of correspondence. Phraseological units with full and partial correspondence constitute almost equal parts. Such phraseological units are widely used in many languages and have absolute or near equivalents. For example, in English there exists such phraseological unit as “kick-off”. It cannot have the absolute equivalent in the Ukrainian language because it means to start a football game by kicking the ball to the opposing team. And other phraseological units such as “jump the gun” (“фальшстарт”) have the full correspondents in the source language.

I have researched phraseological units and collocations and other stable expressions belonging to the subject "sport" in order to demonstrate their specific national colouring. They reflect the culture, traditions and national character in the English language. Many kinds of sports have originated in Great Britain and the USA and are peculiarly British or American; therefore, they are the fundamental for new idiomatic expressions and collocations.

5. REFERENCES:

1.      Cruise, Alan. Meaning and Language: An introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics, chapter one, Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics, 2004

2.      Dunning, T.  Accurate methods for the statistics of surprise and coincidence. Computational Linguistics. - MIT Press Cambridge, MA, USA, 1993. - 61-74.

3.      Hadumod Bussman. Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.-London: Routledge, 1999. - p.326-328

4.      James C. Contrastive analysis.- Harlow: Longman, 1998

5.      Kitcher and Salmon. Scientific Explanation. - Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. - p.35

6.      Markkanen R., Steffensen M., Crismore A. Quantitative constractive study of metadiscourse// Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics/ ed. J. Fisiak.- Poznan, 1993. –Vol. 28. – p. 137-152

7.      McArthur T. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. – Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. - p.495–96

8.      Otto Neurath , Rudolf Carnap , Charles F. W. Morris. International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. - Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955. – p.

9.      Saeed, John I. Semantics. 2nd edition. - Oxford: Blackwell, 2003

10. Жлуктенко Ю.О. Контрастивний аналіз як прийом мовного дослідження// Нариси з контрастивної лінгвістики. Збірка наукових праць/Відп. Ред. Ю.О. Жлуктенко.- К.: Наукова думка, 1979.-с.5-11.

11. Кочерган М.П. Контрастивна семантика на порозі нового тисячоліття// проблеми зіставної семантики. Збірник наукових статей. – Л.: КДЛУ, 2001. – с.3-8.

12. Ярцева В.Н. Контрастивна граматика. – М.: Наука, 1981.