Diction

这是一篇关于Diction的思维导图，An idiom is a set expression made up of two or more words.

Diction

• Words
  • Types of Meaning
    • Grammatical Meaning 语法义
      • The part of meaning that varies from one inflectional form to another (as from plays to played to playing) girls, winters, tables, joys (the grammatical meaning of plurality) forget, forgets, forgot, forgotten, forgetting (Conjugation: tense, aspect, voice)
    • Lexical Meaning 词汇义
      • Lexical meaning is the meaning of an isolated word in a dictionary. This component of meaning is identical in all the forms of the word. go, goes, went, gone, going
      • Conceptual Meaning 概念义
        • Conceptual meaning (denotative meaning / denotation) is the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word meaning.
        • The denotation of red is the color (or, from the viewpoint of physics, light of a certain wavelength) sun: a heavenly body which gives off light, heat, and energy
      • Associative Meaning 联想义
        • Associative meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It is open-ended and indeterminate, liable to the influence of such factors as culture, experience, religion, geographical region, class background, education, etc.
        • Connotative Meaning Connotation 涵义
          • It refers to the overtones or associations suggested by the conceptual meaning.
          • Connotation is the secondary meaning (or meanings), associated with but different from the denotation.
          • Connotative meaning is peripheral and relatively unstable, varying considerably according to culture, historical period, and the experience of the individual.
        • Stylistic Meaning 文体义 Levels of Words
          • Many words have stylistic features, which make them appropriate for different styles.
        • Affective Meaning 情感义
          • Affective meaning expresses the speaker’s attitude towards the person or thing in question.
        • Collocative Meaning 搭配义
          • It is that part of the word meaning suggested by the words with which it co-occurs.
  • Sense relation: General and specific words
    • The relations of meaning between words, as expressed in synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy.
    • Synonym
      • In linguistics, hyponymy refers to the semantic relation between two words, in which the meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of the other word.
      • 在语言学中，上下位关系是指一个子类型的下位词（hypernym）与一个父类型的上位词（hyponym）之间的语义关系。
      • Use of Hyponyms
        • More vivid, concrete and expressive
          • Trees surround the water near our summer place.
          • cf.
          • Old elms surround the lake near our summer cabin.
        • Cohesion by hyponymy
          • There was a fine rocking-chair that his father used to sit in, a desk where he wrote letters, a nest of small tables and dark, imposing bookcase. Now all this furniture was to be sold, and with it his own past.
    • Antonym
    • Hyponymy
• Idioms
  • Definition
    • An idiom is a set expression made up of two or more words.
    • It functions as a unit of meaning which cannot be predicted from the literal meaning of its component words.
  • Characteristics
    • . Semantic unity
      • The meaning of an idiom is very often not the total sum of the meanings of the constituent words.
      • 1.2 The semantic unity can also be shown in the illogical relations between the literal meanings of the constituent words and the meaning of the idiom (semantically inexplicable).
    • . Structural stability
      • The structure of an idiom usually remains unchangeable.
      • The grammatical form of an idiom is invariable and fixed.
      • The constituents of idioms cannot be changed or replaced.
      • The constituents of an idiom cannot be deleted or added to, not even an article.
      • The word order cannot be inverted or changed.
      • Many idioms are grammatically unanalyzable
  • Classification
    • 1) Nominal idioms
    • 2) Adjectival idioms
      • cut and dried 已成定局的; 不可改变的
        • The plan is cut and dried.
      • off the mark / wide of the mark 不正确的；不准确的
        • His guesses were all very wide of the mark.
      • up in the air 悬而未定的
        • The plan is still up in the air.
    • 3) Verbal idioms
      • a) verb + preposition
        • look after, look into, dig into, pick up
      • b) verb + particle*
        • look up, put off, turn on, put on
      • c) verb + particle + preposition
        • come up with, live up to, get away with
    • 4) Adverbial idioms
      • tooth and nail 竭尽全力地，坚决地
        • We will work tooth and nail.
      • heart and soul
        • We will serve people heart and soul.
      • in nothing flat 立刻
        • We will go there in nothing flat.
      • through thick and thin 历尽千辛万苦
        • We made it through thick and thin.
    • 5) Sentence idioms
      • Never do things by halves.
      • All is not gold that glitters.
      • Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
  • Stylistic Features
    • Inappropriate for formal setting.
    • Occasionally extremely formal and used only in frozen style.
    • A phrase or expression that uses words in a figurative way rather than in a literal way.
• Figures of Speech
  • A phrase or expression that uses words in a figurative way rather than in a literal way.
  • simile (a comparison, usually indicated by “like” or “as”)
  • metaphors (implied resemblances)
  • personification (giving human qualities to animals or objects )
  • metonymy (using the name of one thing for another closely related to it)
  • synecdoche (use of a part to imply the whole)
  • euphemism (using a mild word or group of words instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive)
  • irony (wherein the real meaning of a statement is concealed or contradicted)
  • hyperbole (deliberate exaggeration for the sake of effect)
  • alliteration (the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables)
  • ...