Coming to terms with lexical
chunks: Identifying, using
and teaching.
Helen Osimo,
University of Haifa
Oranim Academic College of Education, Israel
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