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5
BOOK I
PART I
WORD POWER (VOCABULARY STUDY)
SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION TO WORD POWER (WP)
WP is about words and word knowledge
It has been estimated by some researchers (Nagy and Herman, 1984)* that a native speaker of English who
has completed 12 years of school encounters approximately 88,500 distinct word families with upwards of
100,000 distinct meanings in reading in English. According to Nagy and Herman, if materials for higher grades
and for adults were included, then these figures would be substantially higher. In their view, the best way to
acquire this necessary vocabulary is by reading, reading and more reading! While it may be an unrealistic goal
to expect to acquire all the words one needs within the framework of one course or even two, it is possible to
improve one's word acquisition strategies and one's knowledge of and about words. This is the purpose of this
unit.
* Nagy, William E. and Herman, Patricia A. (1984)
«Limitations of Vocabulary Instruction» Technical Report No. 326 Center for the Study of Reading University of Illinois Urbana-
Champaign.
Which words you learn is up to you. You, the learner, have to build your own personalized vocabulary based
on what you feel is important to you. The information and exercises included in the WP unit, along with the
texts you read in the EFL course and the readings in English on the bibliographies for your other courses, will
increase your English vocabulary. We hope all this will also improve your word knowledge (i.e. what you
know about how words are formed and how to figure out what new words probably mean). Ultimately, we hope
it will give you a feeling of word power (WP).
GOOD LUCK!
SECTION II
WORDS ON WORDS
(Some Thoughts About How, and What, Words «Mean»)
Text A. (from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll «Humpty Dumpty» — Chapter VI)
«When I use a word,» Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, «it means just what I choose it to
mean — neither more nor less .»
«The question is,» said Alice, «whether you can make words 5 mean so many different things.»
«The question is,» said Humpty Dumpty, «which is to be master — that's all.»
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. «... I can
manage the 10 whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!»
«Would you tell me, please,» said Alice, «what that means?» «... I meant by "impenetrability" that we've
had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I
suppose you don't mean to stop here 15 all the rest of your life.»
«That's a great deal to make one word mean,» Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
«When I make a word do a lot of work like that,» said Humpty Dumpty, «I always pay it extra.»
Text B. (from Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic, quoted on p.269 of The Annotated Alice, ed. Martin Gardner)
...I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorized in attaching any meaning he likes to any word or
phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, «Let it be understood that by
the word "black" I shall always mean "white", and that by the word "white" I shall always mean "black,"» I
meekly accept this ruling, however injudicious I may think it.
Text C. (from «The Philosopher's Alice in Wonderland,» by Roger W. Holmes, in the Antioch Review,