Lecture10《英语词汇学》学习课件.pptVIP

Historical reason A word is retained for a name though the meaning has changed because the referent has changed. (e.g. pen ) Increased scientific knowledge and discovery is also an important factor that underlies the change of word meaning. (e.g. atom) Foreign influences : a particularly important cause of change of meaning in words has been the influence of foreign words The native word stool originally meant any kind of seat for one person, and could be used for a king’s seat, it got its present humble(粗陋(cūlòu)) meaning because the French word chair was adopted to denote a more comfortable piece of furniture * 精品PPT Class reason Language records the speech and attitude of different social classes, so different social varieties of language have come into being. The attitude of classes have made inroads into lexical meaning, particularly in the case of elevation and degradation. * 精品PPT Quite a number of words that denote different sorts of working people or their occupations have deteriorated and now have taken on a pejorative sense. E.g. Churl, hussy, wench, villain which were originally neutral in colour have been down-graded as “ill-manned or bad people”. * 精品PPT Psychological reason The associated transfer of meaning and euphemistic use of words, etc. are often due to psychological factors. People change word meaning owing to various psychological motives: love, respect, courtesy, suspicious, pessimism, sarcasm, irony, contempt, hatred, etc. * 精品PPT Psychological reason The fact that some low, humble and despised occupations often take on more appealing names is all due to psychological reasons. Religious influence is another kind of psychological need. * 精品PPT Linguistic factors The internal factors within the language system. One type of such change occurs when a phrase is shortened to one word which retains the meaning of the whole. The influx （涌入） of borrowings has caused some words to change