#TeamEnglish@CMS_Kottayam: The learner in me, hand in hand with the teacher in you!

Italy is a European country that lies on the Mediterranean Sea. Here we have the beautiful city of Venice, which was always a place for trade and business, especially using ships. The Republic of Venice, a sovereign state, was powerful here from the 7th to the 18th century. William Shakespeare takes us to a story that is set mainly in Venice, and also in Belmont, a spot that is imagined to be near Venice. Thus he gives us one of his well-known comedy plays: “The Merchant of Venice”. Act IV, Scene i (The Court Scene) An Introduction and Summary: (This may be used as response to essay type questions . Answers to other questions may be taken from this essay.) “The Merchant of Venice” is a brilliant play by William Shakespeare. It gives to us stories of love, hate, greed and generosity. The play is mainly about Antonio, a rich merchant of Venice, and Shylock, a Jew who tries to destroy Antonio. On one occasion, Antonio had to borrow money from Shylock. Shylock made Antonio sign a bond, whi...

 Synonymy Synonymy refers to the phenomenon of "more than one form having the same meaning". Eg: "Prison" and "jail" are synonymous. Polysemy   Polysemy refers to the phenomenon of the "same form having more than one meaning". Eg: "Eye" refers to a part of animal body and to the hold of a needle. Homonymy   Homonymy is the likeness of different words. Two words are homonyms because they are pronounced and spelt alike. Eg: "Bank" (the side of a river) and "bank" (financial institution). Homophones Homophones is when words are pronounced alike but spelt differently. Eg: "Quay" and "key"; "sweet" and "suite". Homographs Homographs are words which spelt alike but pronounced differently. Eg: "Lead"(verb) and "lead"(noun) - a metal. Metaphor Metaphor illustrates how a particular meaning feature of a word is extended to refer to the quality feature of another refer...

 The meaning relations that exist among different words John Lyons has proposed a classification which simplifies the seven way distinction of Geoffrey Leech. Lyons classifies meaning as follows: Descriptive meaning Expressive meaning Social meaning Social meaning refers to the use of language to establish and maintain social roles and social relations. This kind of meaning is called phatic communion which means "communication by means of speech". Eg: Greeting like "Good morning" do not provide any information, they just establish a rapport between interlocution. Expressive meaning refers to what is reflected as the speaker's feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personality. This meaning includes emotive meaning. Eg: When we associate "compassion" and "sacrifice" with the "mother", what we have is the expressive meaning. Descriptive meaning refers to propositional or experiential meaning. The experience may be real or imaginary. Eg: ...

Different Sources of Meaning The major part of the meaning of what we say or write is located in the words we use. This type of meaning is called lexical meaning . The choice and organization of grammatical items also contribute to the meaning of a sentence. This type of meaning is called grammatical/syntactic meaning . When we utter a sentence, we use a specific intonation pattern to go with it. The meaning encoded by intonation is called intonational meaning . In writing, punctuation reflects intonational meaning to a large extent. When we use language we draw upon the Socio cultural meaning which we share with other masters of the speech community. Sociocultural meaning has its source in the order (language user). The minimal unit of code based meaning is called sememe. The  minimal unit of coder based meaning is pragmeme. Eg: MAN                         WOMAN              ...

Leo Tolstoy is a Russian writer. This story is a realistic portrayal of life. It was written and published in 1886. This story represents the corruptive power of greed. It tells us that man's quest for materialistic pleasure can never be quenched. Plot Pahom, a peasant, is the protagonist of the story. He lives with his family and is occasionally tempted by the Devil. One day, Pahom was visited by his wife's elder sister.  The elder sister was married to a tradesman and lived in the city. She boasted about the life in the city. The way they dressed, ate and about its theatres. The younger sister was always content with life in the village. She said that the villagers are spared from anxiety. They earn for their necessities. They may never grow rich but shall have enough to eat. The elder sister sneered at the younger sister. The peasants doesn't know anything about the elegance or manners which may end their life on a dung heap. The younger sister retorted. The peasant fol...

SEMANTICS Semantics may be defined as the "study of meaning". The word "semantic" is derived from the Greek noun "sema" ("sign, signal"), and the verb "semaino" ("signal", to mean/signify) and from the French word "semantique" which is related to the connotation of the words "semaino" and "sema". In other words, it is that aspect of linguistics which deals with the relation between referent (names) and referends (things) - that is, the linguistic levels (words, expressions and phrases) and the objects, concepts or idea to which they refer. This field of study occurs in two aspects: diachronic and synchronic. Diachronic or historical semantics studies the semantic changes during the ages. Synchronic or descriptive semantics deals with the application of appropriate word selecting from synonyms in order to make the expression right and forceful. It also studies the way of paraphrasing, transformatio...

Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) The Writer Shakespeare needs little introduction! A writer of plays - tragedies, comedies, and histories, and also the composer of poems and sonnets. He lived in Elizabethan England, in the sixteenth century. But he belongs not to any particular place or time. As his friend and contemporary writer Ben Jonson puts it: “He was not of an age, but for all time!” A Shakespearean drama, according to the Elizabethan convention, is divided into five Acts. Each Act may have a number of scenes. The Elizabethan stage had no curtains in the front. Hence, the writers arranged each section in a way all characters left the stage at the end of a scene. Even if there is a dead body, there will be someone to carry it away. Because there is no back curtain depicting any scenery or background, the plays will have lots of descriptions explaining what all can be seen. The Play “Romeo and Juliet” is one of the early plays from Shakespeare. The plot is develo...