Language in Use 103-104
In our everyday language many words come to carry meanings particular to the
home, or community, or part of the country where we live. The aim of this
unit is to explore the degree to which our interpretation of everyday words
is very often derived from the context of our particular experience.
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[1] Choose three everyday words such as 'tea', 'ticket' or 'going out',
and ask the class what they understand by them. Build up on the board a picture
of the variation in meaning that these reveal. In discussion, explore the degree
to which
(a) a broadly understood common meaning can cover a very wide range of particular
variations
(b) the same word can come to mean radically different things to different communities
Writing about home and family can be a useful source of words which will reveal in a particular class the range of variation that is needed by the session.
[2] The aim of this session is to show how we avoid the uncertainty
of meaning inherent in many common language words by using defining epithets.
Let the class work in small groups and ask each group to make up a list of five
everyday words like 'table', 'day', 'car', 'shop', 'tree', and then write down
ways of making each word more specific by adding an epithet: thus 'pin table',
'time table', 'dining table', 'water table'. Circulate the lists and in discussion
consider:
(a) the range of widely different meanings which such epithets can bring to
one common word
(b)the type of misunderstanding that can arise, because people get into the
habit of not using the relevant epithet.
Time should be reserved at the end of this session for planning the field work that provides the raw material for session [3].
[3] The aim of this session is to look at what people take for granted,
and how this determines their interpretation of what others say. Working in
the same groups, the class should design a short questionnaire In which people
are asked to complete a set of sentences like the following:
(a) We eat at. . .
(b) In summer we always ...
(c) We only watch ...
(d) If I were going to. . . , I would use ...
(e) I never wear.. .
(f) On a long journey, I always read ...
(g) On Sundays, I would never ...
The work of the session is to build tip, on the board, a picture of the pattern of the replies and discuss with the class the kind of expectations and assumptions that they reveal.