Semantics is the study of meaning of words and other parts of the language (Williamson, 2009). Moon (1997) defines lexicon as the knowledge that a native speaker has about a language, for example, the appropriate usage of words and phrases and the categorization of words. In this passage, there are several words with different semantic meanings; therefore, this essay analyzes the form, meaning and use of the following words in the passage.

1. Dumbing down: The phrase comes from the word “dumb” which literary means the lack of ability to hear. In the sentence, it is used figuratively to mean that members of the society are gradually losing the reading culture. This is an informal language based on the context of the passage. It is also an inflection from the word “dumb” and is meant to bring a grammatical variation in this informal context. It is a connotative form in the semantic field.
2. Reading: This is an inflection from the verb; read, in this context it is used to mean the continuous act of the reading culture in the society. It is a formal word, and in this context it is used to mean to the continuous process of the reading culture of the society. It belongs to the word class of verbs.
3. Sales: In this context, the word is used to refer to the number of books (digital and physical) that were acquired by readers. It has a collocative meaning because it acquires its meaning from the words that co-occur with it in the sentences.
4. Increased by: This phrase is derived from a formal verb “increase”. It also has a collocative meaning as it derives its meaning from the subsequent sentences. In the paragraph, it is used to show that the amount of digital books that have been sold has gone up or improved by six percent.
5. Compared to: This phrase is used to relate the amount of digital books that were sold between the previous and the current year. It has a collocative meaning because it relies on other sentences to acquire meaning.
6. Digital fiction books:    This is a phrase with a reflective meaning because it is used to communicate a meaning through association with other expressions. The term digital fiction book has the same meaning with other expression, for example, EBook; which is an electronic book.
7. Physical book: This is the normal tangible book that people are used to. In this context, it refers to the common book composed of leaflets/pages because there are digital/eBooks which exist in electronic format.
8. EBook: this is also another form of a book. It is an inflection of the noun; book, and the prefix “e” changes it to an electronic book because it exists in digital electronic format. It has a collocative meaning because it derives its meaning and is associated with the digital and physical book.
9. The death of bookshops: This is an idiomatic expression used figuratively in this context to mean the actual end of bookshops that distribute physical books to readers.
10. Launches: This word is derived from the verb “launch”. It derives its meaning from the context and other words in the sentence; therefore, it carries a collocative meaning. It is a formal word and is used to mean the start of the initiation of a project, and in this case, the selling of digital books.
11. Talking books: This is an informal expression that has been used by the writer to mean books that are able to produce audio output. It is derived from the verb “talk” and is used figuratively to relate to the human action of speaking.
12. Publisher: The conceptual meaning of this word is an individual or organization that prints a book. The suffix “-er” gives a variant meaning to the word “publish”, which is the act of printing books. The book may either be in physical or digital format.
13. E-reader: This is a recent derived term because it is an inflection of the word “read”. It is used by the writer to refer to individuals who read electronic books.
14. EBook Manufacturers: This is a phrase that has been coined up by the writer in accordance to the context of the passage. It is an inflection of the noun “book”. The conceptual meaning of the phrase has the same meaning as publisher.
15. Those with sight loss: This is a pre-fabricated phrase that the writer has used to refer to blind individuals.
16. Reaches: This is a collocative word because its meaning is determined by other words in the sentences. The conceptual meaning of this word is to get to particular destination, however, in this context; it means the accessibility of EBooks. It has been used to declare that 40000 people are able to access eBooks.
17. Subscribers: The conceptual meaning of this word is the individual who through some formal registration have agreed to receive the talking CDs that are distributed.
18. Text to speech functions: This clause is used to refer to the ability of a blind individual to comprehend information that has been either put in text format or audio.
19. EBook reading devices: These are gadgets that are used to access and disseminate information that is contained in eBooks.
20. Carry the function: This is a statement clause used in the passage to mean the ability to do something. In this context, it refers the eBook reading devices, for example, Apple iPad.

Appendix 1 (Commentary)

In different languages, there are notable difference in grammar, words and concepts that these words express (Sowa, 2005). According to Williamson (2009), in language, there are several meanings to semantics, namely: conceptual meaning which is usually derived from definitions we find in dictionaries and the appearance of these lexical items. Connotative meaning, which is the real world value a speaker associates with an expression. It is also the meaning above the conceptual meaning, and it may vary according to culture, background or society. Connotative meaning can be subjective or unstable because of the association that people make in mind of what these lexical items represent. Stylistic meaning is the social meaning of a word.  Affective meaning is what is communicated of feeling or attitude of the speaker towards a subject. Reflected meaning is what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression. Collocative meaning is the associated meaning a word acquires in line with the meaning of words which tend to co-occur with it. It concerns itself with how the order of words spoken affects the meaning that is entailed.

PART TWO

A lexical type is a category of lexical items that share certain characteristics (The Personal Lexical.com, 2013). In the above list, my learners could probably have a problem with the group of idioms and expression. The major problem they could have with this group is to do with conceptual and the connotative meanings of lexical items (idiom and expressions) in this group.

In order to bring the attention of my learners to these features, I would do the following. Firstly, I will set a whole class session once a week whereby as the teacher, I will lead the class in reading of passages in order to identify the various use of idioms, phrases and expressions. After identifying these lexical items, I would lead the class in discussion in order to figure out the stylistic meaning and the connotative meaning of these words as used in the context. Connotative meanings will help the learners understand the real word value that the writer associates with an expression.  The stylistic meanings will help them understand how the expressions have been used in a figurative manner to describe items according to the context. Another task I would take to bring these features to the attention of my learners is by grouping them and then giving them assignment to go forth and identify various expressions and idioms used in the passages I allocate to them, in which they are to explain both stylistic and connotative meaning of the lexical items.