Chapter 1 lexicology as a part of linguistics: types and approaches

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

LEXICOLOGY AS A PART OF LINGUISTICS: TYPES AND APPROACHES

Lexicology is the branch of Linguistics that gives theories and methods for comprehending the difficult phenomena of words and allows us to answer all of our inquiries about words. The phrase initially arose in the 1820s, though there were lexicologists much before that. The name "lexicology" is made up of two Greek morphemes: "lexis," which means "word," and "logos," which means "learning a branch of knowledge." Consequently, the literal meaning of the term "lexicology" is "word science." Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that studies the characteristics of words and word groupings. It develops vocabulary through the history of a language. In other words, lexicology is the systematic study of a language's word stock or vocabulary, encompassing all characteristics of the word.
Lexicology, as a language subject, poses both general and specific research issues. As a result, we must distinguish between general lexicology, a branch of general linguistics, and special lexicology, which investigates the vocabulary of a specific language. Lexicology is the field of linguistics that studies a language's lexicon. A word is the smallest meaningful unit of a language that can stand alone. It is composed of small components known as morphemes and even smaller pieces known as phonemes, or distinctive sounds. Lexicology investigates all aspects of a word, including its development, spelling, origin, usage, and meaning (Babich, Galina Nikolaevna, 2016:1).
Interestingly, the term lexicology does not appear in most medium-sized dictionaries, handbooks (e.g. LYONS 1977), or English grammars (with the exception of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDCE) 1987 and Quirk et al. 1985). Only lexicography is frequently discussed, which is defined as "dictionary-making" or "the writing and producing of dictionaries." This situation appears to be evolving.

Hence, one of the focuses of general lexicology is the relationships of synonymy and antonymy in language, whereas special lexicology deals with the unique aspects of synonyms and antonyms of a certain language. In this case, we must deal with the English term, as well as the lexicon of the English language.

Both general and specific vocabulary difficulties can be evaluated from many perspectives based on the theoretical and practical goals established by this or that research. Synchronic and diachronic methods to the analysis of linguistic materials have long been developed.
The synchronic approach is concerned with lexical phenomena that coexist within the confines of a certain time period. For example, consider the study of the Modern English term. The primary goal of Descriptive Lexicology is the synchronic study of Lexis (vocabulary).
The second approach-diachronic works with the historical history of the language in terms of meaning and structure, with the goal of showing changes in both. This method is typical of Historical Lexicology.
It goes without saying that the two techniques of lexicological examination should not be compared with one other because they only represent two different research goals. It is also important to note that every synchronic condition for a linguistic system is the outcome of earlier historical development. (Ginzburg et al, 1979:8).
The importance of English lexicology stems not from the amount of its vocabulary, however large it may be, but from the fact that it is now the world's most extensively spoken language. "A Grammar of Current English," by R. Quirk, S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik (1978), is one of the most basic books on the English language of the present. It is spoken as a first language by almost 300 million people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and a few more countries (Arnold I. V., 1986:12).
Lexicology also investigates word connections such as monosemia, polysemy, synonymy, antonymy, and the freedom or dependency of word meanings. When vocabulary is viewed as a system, it is thought that a word's meanings and concepts are interconnected.
The study of structural and systemic aspects of lexical riches, patterns of growth, and its interaction with other levels of language is the subject of lexicology. Lexicological tasks include:
a) studying the processes of obsolescence and updating of a specific language's vocabulary, as well as the involvement of linguistic and non-linguistic factors in these processes;
b) providing a functional and semantic description of lexical units, identifying obsolete, new, and modern layers, thematic groups, and microsystems, and identifying linguistic and methodological features.
c) provide students with theoretical vocabulary knowledge and abilities in lexico-semantic analysis

What matters most is that in lexicology, the stock of words or lexical items is not merely considered as a collection of isolated components. Lexicologists look for generalizations and regularities, as well as relationships between components. Lexicology is thus concerned with structures rather than just a collection of words (Jackson 1988: 222)

Lexicology examines words in relation to one another rather than individually. Lexicology shares many similarities with other linguistics fields, including lexicography, phraseology, semantics, etymology, stylistics, the study of word production, etc. The word's status as a separate linguistic unit is one of the major issues with lexicology. Lexicology also examines universal themes pertinent to the growth of the lexical diversity of all languages as well as the lexical diversity of some derived languages.
Altogether lexicological studies can be approached two ways: synchronic or descriptive diachronic or historical. The focus of descriptive lexicology is the vocabulary of a language at a certain stage of development. It examines how words work and how they are structured as a fundamental aspect of the system. The morphological and semantical structures of the English word are examined, together with their relationship to one another, in the descriptive lexicology of the English language.
Descriptive lexicology focuses on a language's vocabulary during a certain stage in its development (Popescu Floriana, 2019:19-20). It investigates the purposes of words and their unique structures as a property of the system. The aforementioned field of study in the English language is focused on the English word and its morphological and semantic structures, exploring the relationship between these two facets. By comparing the nature and arrangement of their constituent parts, these structures may be recognized and distinguished. Historical lexicology focuses on the origin, development, and evolution of words as well as the evolution of any vocabulary (Halliday, M. A. K., 2007: 56–57).
The vocabulary of a certain language at a particular stage of development is the focus of descriptive lexicology. It focuses primarily on word functions and structure.
The words “to beg” and “beggar” provide a useful illustration of both the differences between the two techniques and their connections. The noun "beggar" is the derived member of the pair, and the words "to beg" and "beggar" are related synchronically as a simple and derived word. This derivative correlation exists between the two words in the same way that it does between the words "to sing" and "singer," "to teach" and "teacher," etc. However, when we approach the issue diachronically, we discover that the noun "beggar" was borrowed from Old French and only assumed to have been derived from a shorter word, namely the verb "to beg," as agent nouns in the English language are frequently derived from verbs with the aid of the agent suffix -er.
Synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, semantic fields, and other semantic interactions are all studied in lexicology. Semantics, the study of meaning that has application to both lexicology and grammar, deals with meaning interactions as a whole. The difference between the two fundamentally different ways that language may be viewed, the historical or diachronic and the descriptive or synchronic, is a methodological distinction, a difference of approach, artificially separating for the purpose of study what in real language is inseparable, because in reality every linguistic structure and system exists in a state of constant development. Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss philologist, is responsible for the distinction between a synchronic and a diachronic method (1857-1913).
Although the crucial distinction between a linguistic and an extralinguistic approach, as well as between a diachronic and synchronic approach, must always be kept in mind, it is crucial for the student to understand that in language reality all the aspects are interdependent and cannot be understood one without the other. Every linguistic study needs to establish a fair balance between the two. Therefore, although having goals distinct from those of its historical counterpart, the lexicology of modern English cannot be separated from those of the latter. The discussion that follows is not limited to the current state of the English lexicon; rather, it also considers the problem's historical component, including patterns and trends (Arnold, I. V., 1986:11).
There are 5types of lexicology:

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