Chapter-12-The-Lexical-Approach

Chapter12TheLexicalApproachBackground•AlexicalapproachinLTreferstoonederivedfromthebeliefthatthebuildingblocksofLLandcommunicationarenotgrammar,functions,notions,orsomeotherunitofplanningandteachingbutlexis---wordsandwordcombinations.•LexicalapproachesinLTreflectabeliefinthecentralityofthelexicontolanguagestructure,L2learning,andLuse,andinparticulartomultiwordlexicalunitsor“chunks”thatarelearnandusedassingleitems.SourcesoftheLA•Linguistictheoryhasrecognizedthecentralroleforvocabularyinlinguisticdescription.Eg,formaltransformation/generativelinguistics,whichpreviouslytooksyntaxastheprimaryfocus,nowgivesmorecentralattentiontothelexiconandhowthelexiconisformatted,coded,andorganized.•Chomsky,thefatherofcontemporarystudiesinsyntax,hasrecentlyadopteda“lexicon-is-prime”positioninhisMinimalistLinguistictheory.Therolesoflexicalunits•L1&L2languageacquisitionresearchhasstressedtheroleofLexicalunitsbeingreferredtobymanydifferentlabels:holophrases,prefabricatedpatterns,gambits,speechformulaeandlexicalizedstems.•ApproachestoLLthatviewvocabularyandlexicalunitsascentralinL&T:TheLexicalSyllabus,LexicalPhrasesandLanguageTeaching,andTheLexicalApproach.•Corpuslinguisticsstudieshaveprovidedahuge,classroom-accessibledatabaseforlexicallybasedinquiryandinstruction,focusingoncollocationsolexicalitemsandmultiplewordunits,andlexicallybasedtextsandcomputerresourcesareavailable.Approach:TheoryofLanguage•Chomsky’sinfluentialtheoryoflanguageaboutthelexicalviewholdsthatonlyaminorityofspokensentencesareentirelynovelcreationsandthatmultiwordunitsfunctioningas“chunks”ormemorizedpatternsformahighproportionofthefluentstretchesofspeechheardineverydayconversation.•Theroleofcollocationisalsoimportantinlexicallybasedtheoriesoflanguage.Collocationreferstotheregularoccurrencetogetherofwords.DifferenttypesoflexicalunitsplayacentralroleinLandC.•LexisplaysacentralroleinLL:–PerhapsweshouldbaseourTontheassumptionthatlanguageproductionconsistsofpiecingtogethertheready-madeunitsappropriateforaparticularsituationandthatcomprehensionreliesonknowingwhichofthesepatternstopredictinthesesituations.OurTthereforewouldcenteronthesepatternsandthewaystheycanbepiecedtogether,alongwiththewaystheyvaryandthesituationsinwhichtheyoccur.(Nattinger1980:341)•However,whilenativespeakershavehundredsofthousandsofprepackagedphrasesintheirlexicalinventory,howL2learners,lackingtheLexperientialbaseofnativespeakers,approachthedauntingtaskofinternalizingthismassiveinventoryoflexicalusage?–Massiveamountsof“languageinput”throughreading–MakingLCalaboratoryforLLernerstoexplorethecontextsoflexicaluseoccurringindifferentkindsoftextsandLdata–Contrastiveapproachtolearninglexicalchunks•Regardlessofthelearningroutetaken,amassivelearningloadseemsanunavoidableconsequenceofalexicalapproachinL2instruction.Approach:Theoryoflearning•Differenttypesoflexicalunitsarethoughttoplayacentralroleinlearningandincommunication,whichhasbeenprovedbythestudiesbasedonlarge-scalecomputerdatabasesoflanguagecorporaasinthreeimportantUK-basedcorporaCOBULDBankofEnglishCorpus,….•LewisacknowledgesthattheLAhaslackedacoherentlearningtheoryandattemptstorectify(纠正,矫正)thiswiththefollowingassumptionsaboutitinLA:–Encounteringnewlearningitemsonseveraloccasionsisanecessarybutsufficientconditionforlearningtooccur.–Noticinglexicalchunksorcollocationsisanecessarybutnotsufficientconditionfor“input”tobecome“intake”.–Noticingsimilarities,differences,restrictions,andexamplescontributestoturninginputintointake,althoughformaldescriptionofrulesprobablydoesnothelp.–Acquisitionisbasednotontheapplicationofformalrulesbutonanaccumulationofexamplesfromwhichlearnersmakeprovisionalgeneralizations.Languageproductionistheproductofpreviouslymetexamples,notformalrules.–Nolinearsyllabuscanadequatelyreflectthenonlinearnatureofacquisition.Design:Objectives•Seekingtodevelopproposalsforsyllabusdesignandlanguageteachingfoundedonaviewoflanguageinwhichlexisplaysthecentralrole.•Reflectingabeliefinthecentralityofthelelxicontolanguagestucture,secondlanguagelearning,andlanguageuse,andinparticulartomultiwordlexicalunitsor“chunks”thatarelearnedandusedassingleitems.Design:Thesyllabus•TheLexicalSyllabus(Willis1990)andTheCollinsCOBUILDEnglishCourserepresentthemostambitiousattempttorealizeasyllabusandaccompanyingmaterialsbasedonlexicalratherthangrammaticalprinciples.•WillisnotesthattheCOBUILDcomputeranalysesindicates“the700mostfrequentwordsofEnglishaccountforaround70%ofallEnglishtext.”Thisfactledtothedecisionthat“wordfrequencywoulddeterminethecontentsofourcoursewithdifferentlevels.•Willisstresses,however,“thelexicalsyllabusnotonlysubsumesastructuralsyllabus,italsoindicteshowthestructureswhichmakeupsyllabusshouldbeexemplifiedfromthethecommoneststructuralpatternsinwhichwordsareused.•Nation(1999)reviewsavarietyofcriteriaforclassifyingcollocationsandchunksandsuggestsapproachestoinstructionalsequencingandtreatmentfordifferenttypesofcollocations.•NattingerandDeCarricoproposeusingafunctionalschemafororganizinginstruction:–distinguishinglexicalphrasesassocialinteractions,necessa