The first class will be held on 20 January 2022 (Thursday), 16:30 - 18:20 at CPD-3.15.

The term ‘lexicon’ refers to a wordlist or dictionary. It can also mean ‘vocabulary’, which denotes all the words of a language, or ‘one’s vocabulary’, sometimes referred to as ‘the mental lexicon’. How are words represented in our mental lexicon? What counts as a word in English? Are forms like driver’s liability insurance indivisible, or can we identify constituent parts? How do words, or so-called ‘entries’ in the lexicon, relate to other words in meaning? How do speakers access their mental lexicon when they talk? This course will approach some of these questions from a variety of perspectives, including synchronic and diachronic linguistics, psycholinguistics, and lexicography.

 

Lexical semantics, Morphology, Semantics, Pragmatics, Vocabulary, Word learning, Word associations and collocations, The mental lexicon, Word and meaning

 

This course will offer a very broad introduction to the linguistic and lexicographic study of lexical units in English. It will familiarize students with key concepts employed in the subdisciplines of linguistics which are relevant to the analysis and description of such units, as well as the way they are learned and used.

 

The course comprises of lectures and tutorials.

 

Attendance and participation (e.g. group discussions, presentations, tasks)	25%
Quizzes	25%
Essay	50%

 

Suggested readings will be provided throughout the course. Students are expected to source additional readings related to their research topics.