The Connotation Dictionary: ‘Problems’ at Work
| This entry is part of a series about connotations.
This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class. |
|
 |
|
After talking about what a connotation is, it’s hard to learn to use a connotation. After all, speaking English masterfully means using the language not just to convey meanings, but to convey feelings.
How can you learn these feelings?
I’ll get into general answers in a bit (that’s a code for: I have some ideas, but none of them are really good), but there’s something I’ve started doing for my students and that I want to share here: my connotation dictionary. (Downloadable as a PDF)
Today, we’re going to discuss problems.
We all have problems at work, but what are the other words you can use? What feelings do they convey? Is there a difference if you say that. . .
- I have a problem at work.
- The situation at work is difficult now.
- We face a few challenges at work.
These are all things you can read and learn about in the first installment of the connotation dictionary: ‘work problems.’
Note: I know that there are a few English teachers who read my blog. I’d be thrilled if you gave me some feedback on this. How do you convey connotations? Is a resource like this useful? What do you think of the ’story format?’
You might also be interested in:
February 12th, 2010 at 20:53
Hi Toby, don’t think it makes sense to separate cultural knowledge and meaning. I’d focus on context. ‘Work’ changes in meaning, depending: “Sounds like work!” is very negative, “You can reach me at work” is factual, and “Let me work this out” sounds like someone’s looking forward to it.
February 13th, 2010 at 09:40
Anne. . .
How do you teach things like this? I think I do an okay job of teaching what comes up (I just talk the way I talk, and sometimes stop to explain a phrase, or explain why something they said might not mean what they want to say), but I don’t have a system to really teach ALL of this.
What do you do? I’m still learning and improvising.
-Toby
February 13th, 2010 at 13:28
It sounds like you’re thinking about a very specific set of connotations. In that case I’d provide more instances of authentic use in context and compare. You’re talking about cultural dimensions of langage, and the only way to learn them is in context, not just connected to your immediate student-teacher relationship or to the short definitions in a dictionary. I’d provide authentic instances of language use and let students puzzle things out. In fact, if they’re puzzled that’s the way in, and it’s our job to keep them curious rather than frustrated.
If you’re just looking for individual sentences to compare and contrast: Have you discovered corpus linguistics? I use sites like http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx all the time.