Homework #4/ESC 757: Language and Linguistics, Fall 2013
Name: Geomari Fernandez
Due: November 6th
Please type your responses to the following questions using a 12 pt. font. Submit your assignment
on Blackboard and bring a hardcopy to class on the due date.
Topic: Semantic Concepts
1. Provide four examples of each of these semantic relationships:
Homonym pairs
Homophone
Homograph pairs
(with definitions)
pairs
(with definitions)
Heteronyms
(with definitions)
stalk (noun, of a
plant) vs.
stalk (verb, to follow)
wood/would
bow (of a ship)
bow (and arrow)
desert (to abandon) vs.
desert (arid region)
bear (v. to hold up)
vs.
bear (n. animal)
1. Bear / bare
Bass (type of fish)
Conduct (behavior)
Plant (n. of the
kingdom plantae)
Vs.
Plant (v. to put set in
the ground)
2. sea / see
Beat (v. to strike)
Vs.
Beat (n. sound made
by drums)
3. made / maid
Light (n. radiant
energy)
Vs.
Light (adj. of little
weight).
4. buy / by / bye
Bass (lowest adult male
voice).
Accent (to show stress on
a syllable)
Accent (the distinctive
sound of a group of people
in a region).
Bat (animal)
Bat (instrument to play
baseball)
Fine (superior quality)
Fine (to reduce the size or
proportions)
Conduct (manage/carry
on)
Object (anything tangible)
Object (to express
disapproval)
Appropriate (to take
possession of)
Appropriate (fitting or
suitable for a particular
person, thing, etc.)
Record (the act of
recording)
Record (recorded
document / public
statement/ go on record)
Synonym pairs
warm/tepid
Antonyms pairs
hot/cold
1. happy / content
1. big / small
2. honest / sincere
2. ugly / beautiful
3. outgoing / sociable
3. wet / dry
4. rich / wealthy
4. up / down
Polysemes
mouth (of a river)
Capitonyms
polish (verb)
mouth (of a cave)
Polish (adj.)
man (humankind)
man (males in general)
up (many different
meanings (please see
last page)
Door (to cross over to
other lands )
Door (to cross over to a
new life)
Wood (a piece of tree)
Wood (a large area with
many trees)
1.Turkey / turkey
2. China / china
3. March / march
4. Titanic / titanic
2. Choose one of the semantic concepts from the top row (homonyms, homophones,
homograph, or heteronyms) and discuss one idea for teaching it to a group of ELLs. (one
paragraph).
The activity I planned is to teach the students about antonyms. This activity is designed for early
learners of English; Ideally High school students in the 9th or 10th grade, but students that have
been in the country for about a year and a half or two. First, I would create a list of 5 words in
construction paper (sort of like big signs). Each word will be written in a different color of
construction paper. Then, I would create another separate list of two antonyms per word (the ones
I previously wrote down in signs; this activity is calculated around the premise that I will have 15
students in the classroom). This list of words will be color-coded with the 5 words chosen at the
beginning (as a hint), but the students will not be informed of this. For example the word big will be
written in green construction paper and the two antonyms that can follow will be written in green
construction paper as well. At this point, I will have the students stand up. The ones that have the
major 5 words will stand in different corners of the classroom. Then, the students with the
respective antonyms will stand in two single rows facing each other holding their signs. I will stand
in the middle for directions of the activity and will ask the students to find their pair antonym. Once
the groups have formed with the antonyms, each group will select a speaker and he/she can
explain their answers.
3. Design an activity for ELLs using one of the pedagogical strategies below:
1. Semantic mapping
2. Word hierarchies (ordering sets of words from least to greatest)
e.g. hut > house > mansion
3. Semantic feature analysis
In this activity, I chose to do Semantic mapping. The chart goes as follows:
Describe your activity briefly in about a page. 1. State for which level and age your activity
is for, 2. State the learning objective(s), 3. Have students create something visual (e.g.
drawings, diagrams, etc.) as part of the activity, and 4. Include some way for students to
interact with the words in context by reading and writing them in full sentences.
This activity will be done with students in the high school level, students around 15 to 16
years old. The purpose of this activity is to teach about healthy choices of drinks to the students
while introducing vocabulary, semantic mapping and categorization. I visualize bringing to this
activity a sample of each beverage (even if they are in empty containers): a cup of coffee, a cup of
chocolate, a bottle of water, a bottle of soda and a cup of tea. I will place them on the teacher’s
desk in front of the classroom forming a line facing the students. I will ask the students what those
objects had in common. After finding commonalities, I will ask the student if they think there is a
difference.
Then I will introduce the students to the semantic mapping, a way to group and categorize
these beverages. Some students may come up with the caffeinated and decaffeinated hyponyms
to group the similar items. Some students, however, may use hyponyms such as high in sugar and
low in sugar or hot and cold or pre-packed and freshly brewed. Regardless of how the student
names the hyponym, the idea is for the student to understand semantic mapping. After the
mapping has been created collectively, I will introduce the concept of semantic mapping and will
give more examples. I will then give the students other concepts to create semantic mapping on
their own and present them to the class. For example, I will tell them to do a semantic mapping
with the superordirate item food and create two or more hyponyms with their respective cohyponyms. The student will then be asked to share their semantic mapping with the class and the
teacher will call on one-two students to share their mapping by creating the diagram on the board.
After this activity, I will ask the students to pick a superordirate item from a passage of the
book we are reading in class. The purpose is for the students to create a semantic mapping. Then,
the student has to explain in one paragraph how the superordirate item is related to the hyponyms
and how the hyponyms are relate to the co-hyponyms.
4. Metaphors in popular culture
Read NY Times Learning Network article with ideas for teaching metaphors:
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/figuratively-speaking-exploringhow-metaphors-make-meaning/
Briefly discuss an idea for teaching metaphors that you got from reading the
article or from the lecture and discuss how you might adapt it for ELLs. (2
paragraphs).
Teaching metaphor is definitely not an easy task, I think. However, I have to recognize that
asking the students to plainly memorize information about any concept is boring, if not ineffective
for the students. I like the activity to give the students a different section of the newspaper to have
them identify and circle each metaphor in a set article. This will give them a good understanding of
what a metaphor is. The method of teaching is inductive and it allows the student to avoid rote
memorization of literary figures of speech.
I also liked the idea of having the students utilize daily conversations they hear and from
there identify the metaphors. This can be more relatable to some students because they will be
talking about something that they are familiar with.
For the purpose of an ELL class, I will use a poem about being new in a city/town/country or
the lyrics of a song that portrays a person that is just encountering something new. I observed a
class where the teacher utilized a poem full of metaphors about immigrations and what it means to
“belong” to a new society, while never truly belonging and considered an outsider. This poem
successfully introduced metaphors and similes. A lot of students identified with the poem and
hence understood more the point of view of the writer.
5. Fieldwork: Prototype Analysis
Do a prototypical analysis of the word read. Although all of the examples below are
examples with the word read, some are better examples than others of what people think of
first when they think of the work read.
As an example, take the word “green”. Close your eyes and imagine a true green. Now
imagine an bluish green…imagine a yellowish green. Although you might still call all of
these “green”, they are not as good examples of green…as the “true” green. In short, some
greens are more prototypically green than others. The same is true for other categories, i.e.,
dogs. Some dogs are though of as more typical dogs than others. The retriever is more
typical than the Pekinese.
Use the worksheet below to survey 10 native speakers of English to get their ratings of the
sentences. Summarize and explain your results in 1 page (typed and double-spaced): Which
sentences received the highest rating? The lowest? Why do you think your respondents
organize the definitions in the ways that they did? Explain what features seem to
characterize the most prototypical examples.
Survey worksheet on word meanings
Please rate on a scale of 1 to 5 the following sentences as best examples of the category READ.
(1 is best, 5 is least good).
1=best, or closest match with the original or usual meaning of “read.”
2=pretty good match with the original or usual meaning of “read.”
3=acceptable match with the original or usual meaning of “read.”
4=not very good match with the original or usual meaning of “read.”
5=poor match with the original or usual meaning of “read.”
Sentence
1. He read the story to his kids.
2. Joes’ wife could read him like a book.
3. He read the music on the stand.
4. He read the newspaper while eating breakfast.
5. He read law at the University.
6. The deaf woman read the lips of her friend.
7. Tom had his fortune read yesterday.
8. He read the degrees on the thermometer.
9. He read the “stop” sign just before it was too late.
10. He read the novel War and Peace in four days.
Circle your
answer (1 is best
example, 5 is
worst example)
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
I completed this survey at my job with my workers and some of my friends too. I collected
my findings in a separate page, but I hope to give you a clear, understandable synopsis in this
response. I noticed the highest ratings were received in sentence #10 “He read the novel War and
Peace in four days” and also sentence #1 “He read the story to his kids.” The lowest ratings were
received in sentence #5 “He read law at the University” and sentence #8 “He read the degrees on
the thermometer.”
In my opinion, the results yielded in this survey have to do with the regularity this word is
used verbally. The most common use of the word “read” is the action performed by the person
when looking and comprehending the meaning of a written or printed matter. Other uses, of course,
can be given to this word according to the context of the sentence.
I feel like the most common uses of the word read are seen when in conversations or at
least those uses are the ones that people in general tend to remember. That is precisely how
language evolves and changes so much over the years. The most common uses of a word like
“read” are the ones that survive while the others die out with time and become archaic. I personally
do not think the uses of the word “read” in the sentences are incorrect, but I definitely think not all
the uses are as common. Consequently, the survey’s results are so different and biased.
HW#4 Rubric
1. Semantic relationships
Able to find examples of Homonyms, Homophones
Homographs, Heteronyms, Synonym pair, Antonyms
pairs, Polysemes, and Capitonyms
Exceeds
5
Meets
3-4
Approaches
1-2
Exceeds
5
Meets
3-4
Approaches
1-2
Exceeds
9-10
Meets
7-8
Approaches
1-6
Exceeds
9-10
Meets
7-8
Approaches
1-6
Exceeds
9-10
Meets
7-8
Approaches
1-6
2. Teaching semantic concepts
Activity demonstrates thorough understanding of the
concept and how to present it to students in a meaningful
way.
3. Semantic Teaching Strategies
Lesson activity demonstrates understanding of the
strategy, is appropriate for students’ age and level,
incorporates visuals, and contextualized use of language.
4. Teaching about metaphors
Lesson activity demonstrates understanding of how to
teach the concept of metaphor in a way that is
appropriate for ELLs.
5. Prototype analysis
Able to gather data from 10 respondents regarding
interpretations of the word “read” and provide meaningful
analysis of results in 1 page.
TOTAL (40)
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other English two-letter
word, and it is "up".
It's easy to understand up, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we
awaken in the morning, why do we wake up?
At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up and why are the officers up
for election and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report?
We call up our friends and we use it to brighten up a room, polish up the silver, and we
warm up the leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and some guys fix up the
old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir up trouble, line up for
tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed up is extra special. Another use of up is
confusing as a drain must be opened up because it is stopped up.
We open up a store in the morning but we close it up at night. Do you have the impression
that we seem to be pretty mixed up about up?
To be knowledgeable of the proper uses of up, look up the word in the dictionary. In a desk
size dictionary, the word up, takes up almost 1/4th the page and definitions add up to about thirty.
If you are up to it, you might try building up a list of the many ways up is used. It will take up
a lot of your time, but if you don't give up, you may wind up with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding up. When the sun comes out we say it is
clearing up. When it rains, it wets up the earth. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry up; as a
result, they can even heat up. According to some British speakers and writers, things can even
"hot up".
We could go on and on, but I'll wrap it up, because now my time is up; so, I'll shut up.
Taken from http://wordinfo.info/unit/3039/s:a%20word