Unit 2: Lexis

The study of lexis is related to that individual, or sometimes groups of words (units of vocabulary) that have a specific meaning within a language. It should be kept in mind that all words have different kinds of meaning. The term lexis was mostly used by linguists in the past, but nowadays it is used by many people and can be found in common sources such as textbooks.
First, we have the “denotative meaning”. As it can be seen in unit 2, this refers to the description of the idea behind the vocabulary item. For example, a car is a mean of transportation in which you can travel or move around the city. Then we have the figurative meaning (which comes from the previous one but in a different form), and the meaning from context (the different situations in which we use a word). There are words that can get its meaning from its form (by adding prefixes or suffixes, and compound words), words that occur together (idioms and collocations), and words that we usually learn as one piece with a specific definition (chunks), e.g., my name is, may I go to, etc.
I also learned that words can have different relationships to one another which is the case of synonyms (similar meaning), antonyms (different meaning), lexical set (words that belong to the same topic), and word family (originated from the same base word). There are also words that create confusion at the moment of getting the meaning (false friends and varieties of English) because they seem to be similar but have different meanings in two languages. “If the only language you speak is English, you might be surprised to learn that you already know dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of words in several other languages” (Roberts & Kreuz, 2015).
As these kinds of words are not so easy to teach, I would show videos about the difference of them in different languages and after my students understand, I would give them more specific examples in English. 
Bibliography
Selivan, L. (2011, September 1st). Grammar vs lexis or grammar through lexis? Retrieved from TeachEnglish.org:  https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/grammar-vs-lexis-or-grammar-through-lexis

Roberts, Richard M., and Roger J. Kreuz. (2015). Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language. Retrieved from  ProQuest Ebook Central: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uta-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4093095.

Wanted Adventure. (2017, May 14th). 6 FALSE FRIENDS in German and English!!. [Video file]. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3fI0Pd2Elc


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