When it comes to English learning, most learners hold the view that the fundamental and crucial factor is the vocabulary. To be sure, vocabulary is associated with listening, reading, speaking, and writing very closely. So it’s of great significance to build up a vocabulary as large as possible. In my opinion, a good knowledge of lexicology, especially morphology and etymology, can help to benefit the learners a lot.
No doubt, increasing quantity of vocabulary means learning more words by heart. However, in the long run, memorizing words by rote always proves fruitless and short-lived. So some approaches must be applied to solve this problem caused by the contrasting difference between the limited capacity of human brain and the vastly large and rich vocabulary of English, which is one of the world’s most developed languages. As far as I am concerned, lexicology is the most helpful tool to turn to.
According to morphology, many words can be separated into smaller yet meaningful units, any of which is called a morpheme. They constitute as structural elements for words. Compared to the extreme numerousness of English words, morphemes have a rather small number, thus easier to be memorized. Generally, they can be divided into two categories: root and affix.
A root is a morpheme that has complete meaning in itself. Usually, many diverse words can be derived from a single root. For example, the root “vis” (when realized into words, it has some alternatives, which are known as allomorphs, e.g., vid, vise, etc.), whose core sense is “see”, forms many seemingly unassociated words: video, evident, provide, visible, revise, supervise, vista, visit, etc. In the same way, the root “arch”, which means “first, rule”, forms these following words: archangel, architect, archaic, monarch, matriarchy, patriarchy, etc. In fact, they all somewhat have associations with the meaning of their roots. However, only having a knowledge of root can’t make one discriminate words from the same root. Some knowledge of affix must be acquired to interpretate a word in a more precise way.
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to another word to modify its meaning or function. For example, in the word “revise”, “re-” is a very common prefix (a prefix is an affix which comes before a word) which means “again”. Thus literally, this word can be interpreted as “to see again”, which its meaning is derived from. Another example is “monarch”, in which “mon-” means “single”. Thus, with the root “arch”, the meaning of this word “a sovereign head of state” can be easily deduced. Thus, lots of words can be separated and memorized according to the morphemes which constitute them. So, with a working knowledge of morphology and a relatively small store of morphemes, acquiring a large vocabulary is possible.
However, not every word can be analyzed in the above way. Words like diesel, boycott, maverick, spartan, etc., denied further structural analysis. For words like these, etymology is the best to turn to for help.
Etymology is the study of the origins and history of the form and meaning of words. From the perspective of etymology, the meanings of many words often relate directly to their origins. For example, diesel, a heavy petroleum fraction used as fuel, is named after Rudolf Diesel, a German engineer. The word boycott, which means “to withdraw from commercial or social relations as a punishment a protest”, comes from the name of Captain Charles C. Boycott, an Irish land agent so treated, in an attempt to get rents reduced. Knowing the origins of words can facilitate the memorization, deepen the understanding of meanings of words and also enrich the learner’s cultural knowledge, because of their rich cultural associations.
Apart from what have been discussed above, there are many other approaches provided by lexicology to memorize a word. For example, words like scuba, snafu, etc., are formed according to acronymy, which is the process of forming words by joining the initial letters of names. The word scuba, which means aqualung, is an acronym from “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”. Similar analysis can be done on the word snafu. In addition to this, some words are formed according to blending, which is the formation of words by combining two words. For example, the word autocide is a blending of automobile and suicide, and the word motel is formed by motor and hotel. There are also many other rules of word formation, such as clipping, compounding, which are not discussed here in detail.
In a word, a good knowledge of lexicology will help learners develop a large vocabulary, give them a deeper understanding of word-meaning, enable them to organize, classify and store words more effectively, and permit them to use words more accurately and appropriately.