When and Where I Found It: As I have been reviewing the Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III for research to support projects I am working on in my two classes, I came across the journal article Vocabulary Processes by William E. Nagy and Judith A. Scott (2000). This article discusses “the complexity of word knowledge” and one of the five aspects of this is “polysemy” (p. 270).
Nagy, W. E. & Scott, J. A. (2000). Vocabulary Processes. In M.L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.). Handbook of reading research: Volume III (pp. 269-284). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Meaning: Nagy & Scott (2000) assert that polysemy is an important aspect of word knowledge to consider when discussing how students’ vocabularies grow. The authors state that polysemy means that “words often have multiple meanings” (p. 270). They further explain “the more frequent a word is in the language, the more meanings it is likely to have” (p. 271).
Level of Familiarity: I was not familiar with this word at all, I may have heard it before but did not recognize it at all in print. While I had no familiarity with the actual word, I have a high level of understanding of this particular concept. When reading about the complexity of word knowledge, this was the aspect with which I was most familiar despite having know recollection of the term “polysemy”.
Do I Want to Know This Word Well? Why? I do want to know this word well. As Nagy & Scott (2000) state, “if vocabulary instruction is to address this aspect of the complexity of word knowledge, students must not only be taught to choose effectively among the multiple meanings of a word offered in dictionaries, but to expect words to be used with novel shades of meanings” (p. 271). I need to be able to teach my students the difference between ‘baby’ as an infant, and ‘baby’ as taking special care of your arm so that it does not get hurt. Another example of polysemy that I will need to be able to teach in my classroom is when words are used as symbols, such as in the statement he painted a picture with his words. Students need to be taught that an actual picture was not painted, but that the word painted here indicates how vivid the speaker’s language must have been. Polysemy covers nuances of words as well, a concept I need to be able to teach well as a literacy educator.
Do I Want Others to Know this Word Well? Who and Why? All literacy education teachers should know this word well. Literacy specialists need to both be able to use this word as well as teach the implications of this word to other teachers. While it does not seem necessary for general educators to be able to use the word polysemy well, I do think they need to understand its implications. Content area teachers would benefit from being able to teach multiple meanings, or at least be aware of the multiple meanings of words, when giving vocabulary instruction.
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