Outline

1. The Meaning of Lexicology.
2. Methods of Investigation in Lexicology.
3. A Word as an Object of Investigation.
3.1. Wordbuilding. Common Ways.
3.2. Wordbuilding. Secondary Ways of Worfbuilding.

Conclusion
References

1. The Meaning of Lexicology

To begin with, it is necessary to mention that the term Lexicology is not very old. For the first time it appeared in the 1820s, though there were lexicologists in essence before the term was coined.
Lexicology is a branch of linguistics, the science of language. The term is composed of two Greek morphemes: lexis meaning ‘word, phrase’ and logos which denotes ‘learning, a department of knowledge’. Thus, the literal meaning of the term “Lexicology” is ‘the science of the word’, however, it gives only a general notion of the aims and the subject-matter of this branch of linguistic science, since all its other branches also take account of words in one way or another approaching them from different sides. [1; 2; 5]
Phonetics, for instance, investigating the phonetic structure of language (its system of phonemes and intonation patterns) deals with the study of the outer sound form of the word.

References

1. Арнольд И. В. Лексикология современного английского языка: Учеб. для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. – 3-е изд., перераб. и доп. — М.: Высш. шк., 1986. – 295с.
2. Атрушина Г. Б., Афанасьева О. В., Морозова Н. Н. Лексикология английского языка: Учеб. пособие для студентов. – М.: Дрофа, 1999. – 288с.
3. Гинзбург Р.З., Хидекель С.С., и др. Лексикология английского языка. – 2-е изд., испр. и доп. – М.: Высш. школа, 1979. – 269 с.
4. Смирницкий А.И. Так называемая конверсия и чередование звуков в английском языке // Иностранные языки в школе, 1953, № 5. – С. 21-31.
5. Широких В.М., Кудреватых Л.П. Теоретические материалы по лексикологии современного английского языка. – Глазов, 2004. – 106с.
6. An outline of English Lexicology: lexical structure, word semantics, and word-formation / Leonhard Lipka. – 2nd ed. – Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992. – 210p.
7. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. – p.118.

Conclusion

In this report we touched upon one of the important fields of the English Language investigation – the science called Lexicology, which came out of Linguistics as its branch. Lexicology studies words: its structure, formation, usage, place in the system of language. It uses different ways of investigation and plays an integral part in the language development.