HOW MUCH TIRED ARE YOU? APPROACHES TO VOCABULARY COMPREHENSION

Abstract

This paper presents one radically semantic and one radically pragmatic approach to vocabulary comprehension. As a means of illustrating the workings of the respective approaches – the Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Relevance Theory – one lexical field has been selected for analysis. The aim is to provide an objective assessment of the different approaches to lexical meaning in use by encouraging the reader to derive his/her own implications regarding potential merits and demerits of the theories. Most of all, the reader is prompted to engage in the contemporary discussion of the semantics/pragmatics interface, especially at the level of lexis, by understanding the rationale behind the two extreme positions.