Coming to terms with lexical

chunks: Identifying, using

and teaching.

Helen Osimo,

University of Haifa

Oranim Academic College of Education, Israel

helen.osimo@netvision.net.il

Jerusalem is lost in translation !!

Tourism officials in Israel did little to sell the city of Jerusalem as a must-see for visitors when a brochure suggested it did not exist.

The sightseeing pamphlet was translated from Hebrew to English and read:

"Jerusalem - there's no such city!",

instead of the slogan:

"Jerusalem - there's no city like it!".

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5364192.stm

Published: 2006/09/20 14:27:14 GMT (taken from Maariv)

IDIOMATIC LEXICAL CHUNKIDIOMATIC LEXICAL CHUNKILCILC

full idioms semi- transparent/

variable chunks

|____________________________________________|

kick the bucket no such city/word/person

… … a formulaic unita formulaic unit

"is no longer obliged to be grammatically regular or semantically logical"

Wray (2002:33)

IDENTIFYING ILCsIDENTIFYING ILCs

CRITERIA: an idiomatic lexical chunk is a multiword unit that is

1.grammatically irregular – at least one

component does not follow regular

grammatical rules; irregularity includes

fixedness and grammatical constraints

and/or

2. semantically opaque in

varying degrees – at least one

component in the unit does not

convey its conventional

meaning.

semantically opaque

• I’m all ears

• come to terms with

• by and large

grammatical irregularities

• tense: It’s about time you went to bed

grammatical irregularities

• tense: It’s about time you went to bed

• article: Just say the word

grammatical irregularities

• tense: It’s about time you went to bed

• article: Just say the word

• fixed tense: Come to think of it

grammatical irregularities

• tense: It’s about time you went to bed

• article: Just say the word

• fixed tense: Come to think of it

• restricted to the plural: I’m all ears

Julia and I go way back. The relationship isn’t perfect and we’ve had our ups and downs. Sometimes she makes me furious and I am ashamed to admit that once or twice I've even knocked her about a bit. What drives me crazy is the way her ‘P’ keeps getting stuck, and that now and again her shift becomes loose. I never see eye to eye with her about her messy ribbons either, nor the fact that every intimate nook and cranny is constantly clogged up with dust. But Julia and I make the best of it. After all, we've been through a lot over the years: two books, reams of journalism, and hundreds of letters. Come to think of it, we're partners because we understand each other. In the lonely business of writing, Julia is my one and only companion – for better or for worse – and her loyalty means a lot. My friends and colleagues are always making fun of me and call me an old dinosaur. They insist that sooner or later I’ll have to start using a word-processor and get rid of Julia – my faithful old typewriter!

Julia and I go way back. The relationship isn’t perfect and we’ve had our ups and downs. Sometimes she makes me furious and I am ashamed to admit that once or twice I've even knocked her about a bit. What drives me crazy is the way her ‘P’ keeps getting stuck, and that now and again her shift becomes loose. I never see eye to eye with her about her messy ribbons either, nor the fact that every intimate nook and cranny is constantly clogged up with dust. But Julia and I make the best of it: After all, we've been through a lot over the years: two books, reams of journalism and hundreds of letters. Come to think of it, we're partners because we need each other. In the lonely business of writing, Julia is my one and only companion – for better or for worse – and her loyalty means a lot. My friends and colleagues are always making fun of me and call me an old dinosaur. They insist that sooner or later I’ll have to start using a word-processor and get rid of Julia – my faithful old typewriter!

PERCENTAGE OF CHUNKS IN THE TEXT

189 words

19 ILCs (66 words)

35% of the text comprises ILCs

PERVASIVENESS OF LEXICAL CHUNKS

58.6% spoken and 52.3% written texts

(Erman & Warren:2000)

USINGUSING ILCsILCs

three structural patterns :

fixed

variable

discontinuous

Julia and I go way back. The relationship isn’t perfect and we’ve had our ups and downs. Sometimes she makes me furious and I am ashamed to admit that once or twice I've even knocked her about a bit. What drives me crazy is the way her ‘P’ keeps getting stuck, and that now and again her shift becomes loose. I never see eye to eye with her about her messy ribbons either, nor the fact that every intimate nook and cranny is constantly clogged up with dust. But Julia and I make the best of it: After all, we've been through a lot over the years: two books, reams of journalism and hundreds of letters. Come to think of it, we're partners because we need each other. In the lonely business of writing, Julia is my one and only companion – for better or for worse – and her loyalty means a lot. My friends and colleagues are always making fun of me and call me an old dinosaur. They insist that sooner or later I’ll have to start using a word-processor and get rid of Julia – my faithful old typewriter!

Julia and I go way back. The relationship isn’t perfect and we’ve had our ups and downs. Sometimes she makes me furious and I am ashamed to admit that once or twice I've even knocked her about a bit. What drives me crazy is the way her ‘P’ keeps getting stuck, and that now and again her shift becomes loose. I never see eye to eye with her about her messy ribbons either, nor the fact that every intimate nook and cranny is constantly clogged up with dust. But Julia and I make the best of it: After all, we've been through a lot over the years: two books, reams of journalism and hundreds of letters. Come to think of it, we're partners because we need each other. In the lonely business of writing, Julia is my one and only companion – for better or for worse – and her loyalty means a lot. My friends and colleagues are always making fun of me and call me an old dinosaur. They insist that sooner or later I’ll have to start using a word-processor and get rid of Julia – my faithful old typewriter!

Julia and I go way back. The relationship isn’t perfect and we’ve had our ups and downs. Sometimes she makes me furious and I am ashamed to admit that once or twice I've even knocked her about a bit. What drives me crazy is the way her ‘P’ keeps getting stuck, and that now and again her shift becomes loose. I never see eye to eye with her about her messy ribbons either, nor the fact that every intimate nook and cranny is constantly clogged up with dust. But Julia and I make the best of it: After all, we've been through a lot over the years: two books, reams of journalism and hundreds of letters. Come to think of it, we're partners because we need each other. In the lonely business of writing, Julia is my one and only companion – for better or for worse – and her loyalty means a lot. My friends and colleagues are always making fun of me and call me an old dinosaur. They insist that sooner or later I’ll have to start using a word-processor and get rid of Julia – my faithful old typewriter!

Julia and I go way back. The relationship isn’t perfect and we’ve had our ups and downs. Sometimes she makes me furious and I am ashamed to admit that once or twice I've even knocked her about a bit. What drives me crazy is the way her ‘P’ keeps getting stuck, and that now and again her shift becomes loose. I never see eye to eye with her about her messy ribbons either, nor the fact that every intimate nook and cranny is constantly clogged up with dust. But Julia and I make the best of it: After all, we've been through a lot over the years: two books, reams of journalism and hundreds of letters. Come to think of it, we're partners because we need each other. In the lonely business of writing, Julia is my one and only companion – for better or for worse – and her loyalty means a lot. My friends and colleagues are always making fun of me and call me an old dinosaur. They insist that sooner or later I’ll have to start using a word-processor and get rid of Julia – my faithful old typewriter!

IDIOMATICLEXICAL CHUNKS

FIXED

VARIABLE(verb tense,

pronoun,negation)

DIS-CONTINUOUS

(+ lexical items)

The fixed patternThe fixed pattern

• once or twice • nook and cranny • come to think of it • each other • over the years

The variable patternThe variable pattern

[see] eye to eye saw eye to eye have never seen eye to eye

didn’t see eye to eye

[Make] the best of [it]

The discontinuous patternThe discontinuous pattern

keeps getting stuck which would be represented

keeps getting [ADJ] keeps getting lost/sick/tired/bored

She kept getting sick

They keep getting lost

represented thus:

[keep] getting [ADJ]

ILCsgrammatically irregular and/or

semantically opaque

FIXED

once or twice each other

VARIABLE

[see] eye to eye

DIS-CONTINUOUS

[keep] getting [ADJ]

TEACHING ILCsTEACHING ILCs

Should we teach them?

Which chunks should we teach?

Who should be taught?

How should we teach them?

TEACHING ILCsTEACHING ILCs

text-oriented approach

goal-oriented approach

practice tasks

organisational frameworks

CATEGORIESCATEGORIESas an organisational frameworkas an organisational framework

speech acts

modal verbs

delexicalised verbs (make, get, have)

binomials

BINOMIALSfixed multiword units usually composed of two

lexical items joined most frequently by and, or, but

ups and downs

once or twice

now and again

nook and cranny

one and only

for better or for worse

sooner or later

They often have synonyms:

sooner or later = eventually

They sometimes repeat the same word:

again and again

little by littleThey often start with the same letters or sounds:

first and foremost

last but not least

born and bred

some rhymewear and tearwine and dine

similar in Hebrew but not the same sooner or latermore or lessfor better or for worse

no Hebrew equivalentback to front

the same in Hebrew one and only

DELEXICALISED VERBS

MAKE

[make] [me] [ADJ] (furious, happy, upset, curious …)

[make] the best of [it/them]

[make] fun of [me]

add chunks from the same category

[make] sure

[make] up [your] mind

[can’t] make head or tail of

A HEADWORD THAT OCCURS FREQUENTLY IN CHUNKS way a very frequent idiomatic intensifier

[go] way back

other examples of way as an intensifer

way above,

way below,

way beyond,

way too long,

way out of reach

For HETEROGENEOUS CLASSES

Add chunks with the same headword

by the way

[pave] the way for

set in [his] ways

[rub] [NP] up the wrong way

VOCABULARY UNITVOCABULARY UNIT chunks which share meaning

agree – [see] eye to eye

occasionally – once or twice now and again

add chunks with similar meanings

on and off; now and then; once in a while; once in a blue moon

GRAMMAR UNITGRAMMAR UNIT

present simple tense with

temporals - sometimes

+ ILC - now and then

IDENTIFYINGIDENTIFYING A CONTINUUM OF IDIOMATICITY

1. Is it grammatically irregular ?

and/or 2. Is it semantically opaque ?

USINGUSING THREE STRUCTURAL PATTERNS

FIXED

VARIABLE (verb tense, pronoun, negation)

DISCONTINUOUS (+ lexical items)

TEACHINGTEACHINGTWO APPROACHESTWO APPROACHES

Text-orientated goal-orientated

↓ ↓↓ ↓

categories

head words

shared meaning …

Be aware !!

Idiomatic chunks are

all over the place

Thank you for

Thank you for

[bearing] with [me]

helen.osimo@netvision.net.il