A Contrastive Study Of English Vocabulary And French Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a basic part in the study of a language and it is also the key part which is the basis to learn other branches of a language.There exists a close relationship between English and French,which is also reflected on their vocabularies.For those who major in English taking French as their second foreign language or those who major in French but they have learned English more or less in the past,they are always confused by the complex relations and usages between English vocabulary and correspondent French vocabulary.Therefore,this thesis is conducted to study and explore English vocabulary and their French counterparts in a systematical way.Contrastive Study is adopted in this thesis.Based on the vocabulary of TEM-4,this thesis aims at finding out words in French corresponding to those in English through analyzing their spelling characteristic,meaning changes and so on.Word spelling,word class and word meaning are three main factors which are the bases to analyze words in detail.And then,according to obvious characteristics existing betweenEnglish vocabulary and their French counterparts,words are divided into different classifications and similarities and differences of vocabulary between English and French are interpreted.Through studying words in English and French,it is found that there are lots of words in English having correspondent French words,both of them sharing the same word spelling,word class and word meaning.And there are still a number of words in English corresponding to those in French but there exist spelling discrepancies between them which may occur at the beginning,in the middle,at the end of words or in any part of word.Moreover,some words in English share the same word spelling with those in French but their meanings are totally different;they are called "false friends".Meanwhile,there are some words in French borrowed from English,which keep the same word spelling and relatively the same word meaning with those in English.Other words studied in this thesis are those of other origins without any correspondent French words.Taking the results of this thesis into consideration,it can help learners facilitate their learning.On the one hand,it is really beneficial for learners who learn English and French to recite and understand words in these two languages easily with little effort at the same time.On the other hand,words studied in this thesis are classified according to their obvious characteristics and disciplines existing in word spelling,class or meaning,which can help learners to recite words easily,to enhance their understanding and to enlarge their vocabulary both in English and French.