Teach Secondary Issue 14.7

DICTIONARY DEEP DIVE Join David Voisin on a rich, and sometimes surprising journey through the points at which literacy, language and vocabulary intersect... SAME ROOT, DIFFERENTWORDS PARDON MY FRENCH How many people realise that ‘flamboyant’ and ‘flame’ stem from the same root? A flamboyant fireworks display figuratively means ‘colourful’ and literally ‘on fire’. In cooking jargon, to flambé a dish means to ignite it with a liquor, such as brandy, to add depth and sweetness to its flavour. In the same semantic field, a crème brûlée literally means ‘a burnt cream’, due to its upper layer of caramelised sugar. LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS How many words does one know? Well, it depends how we define ‘words’ and ‘know’. Specialists identify four depths of word knowledge. As for the number of words, are we talking about lemma (words represented in all their inflected forms, such as ‘go’, ‘goes’, ‘going’, ‘went’, ‘gone’)? Do we count compound words as singular entities? Are we including archaic words? We can dissociate receptive vocabulary (all the words we recognise) from productive vocabulary (those which spring to mind and can be readily used for speaking or writing). The latter could be less than half of the former. Most toddlers will know more English words than the number of foreign words an MFL learner excelling at GCSE level would recognise. According to Emeritus professor of linguistics David Crystal, a 13-year-old may know 30,000 words, while an adult with a respectable vocabulary range could know twice as many. A professional linguist, such as a journalist or author, could know as many as 100,000, which would still only constitute less than 10% of all English words! And let’s not forget that certain fields of knowledge, such as horticulture, science or mechanics, can generate huge subject-specific jargons of their own... TEACHING TIP: ACCENTS Most teachers understand that accent and identity are strongly linked, and many of us have tried to raise awareness about accent discrimination. Luckily, we’re now moving away from the idea of RP or ‘standard pronunciation’. As the linguist Professor Jane Setter puts it, “ Anybody who uses a spoken language speaks it with an accent ”. And yet, studies show that the way we talk can be perceived in many different ways. Thus, even within the native British population, some accents may be associated with positive or negative stereotypes, and occasionally be associated with concepts of agreeableness, credibility or even intelligence. There is also the unavoidable ‘class’ association. Of course, it’s part of our job to combat such biases, but there’s another, very pernicious form of bias – low expectations, leading to low rates of success. In psychology, this is called the Golem effect. Some EAL students may have a strong foreign accent and/or a limited repertoire when it comes to vocabulary, making it very important for educators to not form hasty conclusions regarding their linguistic abilities or literacy levels. A foreign accent isn’t necessarily representative of a lower lexical ability in English – Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand all spoke with strong accents. It’s also worth noting that foreign students with a limited English vocabulary may have advanced writing or reading skills in their own language, or simply be reluctant to speak while being proficient listeners. EAL students’ rates of progress can also be impressive to the point of outperforming those of native speakers, even in English exams. By getting to know these students well, teachers can provide them with appropriate opportunities for developing linguistically, socially and culturally. David Voisin is a head of MFL A uni cycle has only one wheel ‘ Uni corn’ literally means ‘one horn’ Uni que means ‘only one’ 11 teachwire.net/secondary

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