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and because it occurs in a great many idioms ” p. 198. Accordingly, the word
take will be a good example of polysemous words to be observed. In the next phase, the meanings of the word take will be compared with the
meanings in the dictionary. The dictionary used for the comparison is the English Oxford Dictionary OED. According to Lipka 1992, the OED
is “the most comprehensive and impressive work of English lexicography” p. 27. The special
feature of the OED is it records every word in English language and gives historical information of each sense of the words. The recording includes the
spellings, uses, and meanings. In this research, the unabridged dictionary, such as the OED, is used to preserve the validity of the content. The OED employed in
this research is the online version because of the limitation of the researcher to get the printed version. However, the online version is a fully paid-up online
dictionary. It means the contents of the dictionary are arranged by an official organization, that is Oxford, and cannot be changed or updated by random people.
D. Research Objectives
Based on the questions in the research problems, the writer set the objectives of the research as follows:
1. To figure out the meanings of the word take in C.S. Lewis’ The Last
Battle as the example of polysemous word interpretations. 2.
To know the relations among the various meanings of the word take to determine the polysemous word characteristic that is having
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multiple related meanings and to facilitate the interpretation of the meanings.
3. To know how the meanings of the word take from the finding are
listed in the dictionary.
E. Research Benefits
Language learners need to master vocabulary in order to succeed in learning a language. Some words can be memorized easily; some words can be
problematic to memorize because the words have multiple meanings. Interpreting polysemous words can be difficult for language learners. The meanings can be
found in the dictionaries but some might not be found in the dictionaries and need to be interpreted merely based on the context.
This research can be the example of how to interpret polysemous words in a
certain context. It can help the readers to have better understanding of polysemous words. The meanings from the finding will be compared with the
meanings in the dictionary to help the learners to perceive the interpretation. Another benefit can be proposed for language teaching. In teaching a
language, in this case is English, one of important subjects to comprehend is vocabulary. Polysemy is one phenomenon that obviously will be encountered by
the learners and teachers in the process of teaching and learning English. Moreover, this research employs the word take as the data. The word take is
included in the most frequently or commonly words and verbs used in English. According to Norvig and Lakoff 1987 during their time of research, the word
take is among 10 or 15 most frequently used verbs. Based on the Oxford English
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Corpus, the word take is included in the list of the 100 commonest English words used. In the content word categories, take is in the ninth position of the 25
commonest verbs in English. Those facts indicate that the word take will be encountered often in language teaching and learning. The findings of this research
can be an example of how to define the meanings of polysemous words that can be used in teaching and learning process.
F. Definition of Terms
