ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute OBJECTIVES You will understand: 1. A variety of other word building processes used in all languages, with examples of the processes in English. You will be able to: 1. Integrate your understanding of these word building processes into your classroom teaching.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute INTRODUCTION In modules and we looked at using derivational and inflectional morphemes together to form new words. These are all word building or word formation processes. In this module we are going to look at several other word formation processes and ask you to think about how to apply your understanding of these processes to your teaching.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute BORROWING One of the primary word building processes used by a language is borrowing. Every language borrows words from other languages. This borrowing occurs for a number of reasons: there is a lot of interaction among people of the different language groups one language is more widely spoken than the another in specific areas of communication such as business, science and technology one language has a more precise or more commonly known word for a concept speakers of one language invented something that is then introduced into other language groups

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute Usually, when borrowed words are taken into a new language their pronunciation changes to better fit the pronunciation system of the language doing the borrowing. The borrowed words are also subjected to the processes of affixation used in the borrowing language, including both derivational and inflectional affixation. One of the reasons the total number of words in English is so high is because of the number of borrowed words. English has been subjected to the influence many languages and many speakers of other languages. The rate of borrowing in the English language just keeps increasing as more and more people use English as their second language.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute A. Using an English-English dictionary (either in print or online) look up the origins of the following borrowed words: sovereign cigargung-ho confetti skunkmaudlin robot muffinorange sauna avocadobandana iceberg molassesshampoo

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute COINAGE Speakers of a language build new words by simply making them up, or, to use the technical word, by coining them. New words are necessary for new situations, concepts and/or objects. When native speakers coin a new word, they do so by activating the phonological, grammatical and morphological rules of their language. In other words, the new words ‘fit’ the system of the language into which they are introduced. For example, the word ‘bmiztr’ would not fit into the English language, because it does not fit our sound system! We most often see new words being coined in the marketing of new products. Product manufacturers want to name their products with new words that project a certain image, be it sexiness, sleekness, trendiness and so on. They coin new words that they think capture the particular image they want to market.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute 2. COINAGE Take a look through some magazines. Find a word either for the product or on the packaging that has been coined. What is the new word? What is the meaning of the new word? Do you like the image of the word? Do you like the sound of the new word? In your opinion, is this a good word for the English language?

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute EPONYMS Eponyms are new words that are the name of the person who is associated with the meaning of the word. This is usually product, but it can also be a concept. Here are some examples of eponyms. ‘Tupperware’ is named after the chemist who invented it. ‘Boycott’ is the name of a real person who was so offensive he was rejected and isolated by those around him. We can say someone is ‘a complete Madonna’ if this person has the characteristics of the celebrity Madonna.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute 3. EPONYMS Look up the following eponyms in the dictionary to find out who the people were who served as the origin of the words. Braille Ferris Wheel Gore-Tex Colt Revolver Blanket Bloomer Diesel engine

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute CONVERSION In conversion, we take an existing word and use it in a different word class. For example, older conversions are taking the noun ‘saw’ (a tool for cutting wood) and making it into a verb (the action of cutting wood with a saw). We have also taken the noun ‘bag’ and turned it into a verb (the action of putting something in a bag. As a final example, we have taken the preposition ‘up’ and turned it into a verb (to up the price).

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute 4. CONVERSION Think of a word that you use or have heard recently that has undergone a conversion. For the word you think of, what was its original word class? What is its new word class? Provide an example sentence.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute SHIFTS With shifts, the speakers of a language keep an existing word the same, but change its meaning over time. For example, the word ‘gay’ used to mean ‘happy’ but now means ‘homosexual’. The word ‘lewd’ used to mean ‘ignorant’ and the word ‘minister’ used to mean servant. A recent shift is the expression ‘shut up’ which used to mean stop talking. It is now an exclamation of impressed surprise. It is interesting to note that shifts in word meaning may occur in one dialect of a language but not another. An example of this is the word ‘corn’. The word originally meant ‘grain’. This meaning was retained in British English, but shifted to mean one specific kind of grain in North American English.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute 5. SHIFTS Think of a word that you use or have heard recently that has undergone a shift. For the word you find, what was its original meaning? What is its new meaning? Provide an example sentence.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute COLLOCATIONS AND COMPOUNDING You may have already been introduced to the ideas of collocations and compounding. We can build new words by combining one or more word together. We can look at these combinations of words as being very loosely associated or very tightly associated, with different degrees of association in the middle. Researchers argue about when a combination of words is a collocation (two or more words that commonly occur together such as ‘ladies and gentlemen’), idiom (two or more words that take on a meaning different from the sum of the component words, for example ‘off her rocker’), phrasal verb (a verb plus one or more prepositions that take on a meaning different from the sum of the component word, for example ‘step up’) or compound (two words that are combined together to create a new word, for example ‘blackboard’). Rather than getting caught up in this unproductive argument, the best way to look at combinations of words is as a continuum. One end of the continuum has the combination of words being loosely associated (collocations) and the other end tightly associated (compounds). Idioms and phrasal verbs would fall somewhere in the middle.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute OTHER WORD FORMATION PROCESSES Here are some other word formation processes: Clipping: We shorten longer words to make them easier to say, for example, ‘dormitory’ becomes ‘dorm’ and ‘influenza’ becomes ‘flu’. Initialization: We take the first letter of each word, and pronounce them together, for example, FBI, CIA, and CD. Acronyms: We take the first letter of each word and make the initial letters into a new word, for RAM, UNICEF, and NAFTA. Blends: We take parts of two longer words and put them together to create a new word, for example ‘brunch’ and ‘infotainment’. Reduplication: We double up a word or a close approximation of a word in order to make the meaning of the original word stronger. For example a ‘teeny tiny baby’ or a ‘very very tiny baby’ are two reduplications that emphasize how small the baby is.

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute 6. OTHER WORD FORMATION PROCESSES A. What do the acronyms ‘radar’ and ‘laser’ mean? B. What two words were used to form each of the following blends? What do the new blended words mean? blog, affluenza, webinar, glocalisation C. What do the following reduplications mean? ‘He’s a man’s man’ and ‘She is an actor’s actor.’

ACE TESOL Diploma Program – London Language Institute Complete Question 7 in your Task Journal. Task Journals can be submitted via to (preferred) or printed and handed in.