CONTENT WORDS VERSUS FUNCTION WORDS

Vocabulary

◈ BACKGROUND

 

▶ CONTENT WORDS VERSUS FUNCTION WORDS

 

 

■ The distinction between content words and function words is a useful one in analyzing vocabulary.

 

 

 

■ Most vocabulary items are content words and belong to the large, open word classes ( i.e., word classes that readily accept new words and discard old ones that are no longer useful: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs). Function words are those vocabulary items that belong to closed words classes.

 

 

 

■ Conventional wisdom suggests that function words should be taught as part of grammar and content words as part of vocabulary, but this a somewhat spurious distinction since what is handled by the grammar of one language may be the vocabulary of another hence we are attracted by Halliday's composite term “lexicogrammar,” which we find quite useful for describing a language resource continuum.

 

 

 

▶ HOW MUCH VOCABULARY FOR EACH SKILL! 

 

■ Concerning the four language skills, the fewest vocabulary items are needed for speaking, while more words are needed for writing and listening comprehension, with the most significant number of words needed for reading. 



■ However, while listening and reading require a receptive understanding of vocabulary, speaking and writing require productive use of vocabulary. In other words, in addition to knowing the general meaning of words and phrases in a text – which is often sufficient for the listener or reader to comprehend the gist of a message the speaker or writer must know each word's pronunciation or spelling, its part of speech, its syntactic restrictions, any morphological irregularities, its common collocations, and its familiar contexts.