TSL3103WEEK 11

26TH AUGUST 2013

Lexical Approach

A New Role for Lexis

Lexical approach (Lewis, 1993)

Lexis is the basis of language. The lexical approach focuses on developing

learners' proficiency with lexis, words, and word combinations, and it is an alternative to traditional grammatical approach to second language acquisition.

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Types of Lexical Units

Taxonomy of lexical items (Lewis, 1997)

• words (e.g., book, pen)• polywords (e.g., by the way, upside down)• collocations (the fast train,fast food, a quick

showera quick meal)

• institutionalized utterances (e.g., I’ll get it; We’ll see; That’ll do; If I were you…; Would you like a cup of coffee?)

• sentence frames and heads (e.g., That is not as… as you think; The fact/suggestion/problem/danger was…), and text frames (e.g., In this paper we explore…; Firstly…; Secondly…; Finally…)

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The theory of language

Task 1Look at this version of the introduction. What do the parts printed in bold in square brackets have in common?

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Explanation:

All the parts in brackets are fixed or set phrases. Different commentators use different and overlapping terms - 'prefabricated phrases', 'lexical phrases', 'formulaic language', 'frozen and semi-frozen phrases', are just some of these terms. We use just two: 'lexical chunks' and 'collocations'.

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'Lexical chunk'

'Lexical chunk' is an umbrella term which includes all the other terms.

We define a lexical chunk as any pair or group of words which is commonly found together, or in close proximity.

The acquisition of lexical chunks (e.g. Let’s see, you’re back home) allows children to become fluent in the use of language without worrying about the structure.

All chunks are contextualized and should not be explicitly taught.

Chunks are practised through activities; not through drilling.

Grammatical structures are not explicitly taught.

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Other types of lexical chunk : 

Idiom – not in a month of Sundays Sentence heads – Do you mind if I

… Sentence tails – and so on Sentence stems – It can’t be helped Polywords - of course, as well as Multiword verbs – look after, run

out of Compounds – cash flow, check-in

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Lexical Chunks (that are collocations)

totally convincedstrong accent terrible accidentsense of humoursounds exciting brings good luck

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Collocation9

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A theory of learning

According to Lewis (1997, 2000) native speakers carry a pool of hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of lexical chunks in their heads ready to draw upon in order to produce fluent, accurate and meaningful language.

How then are the learners going to learn the lexical items they need?

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Criticism :

One of the criticisms levelled at the Lexical Approach is its lack of a detailed learning theory.

However, Lewis (1993) argues the Lexical Approach is not a break with the Communicative Approach, but a development of it.

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According to Lewis:

Language is not learnt by learning individual sounds and structures and then combining them, but by an increasing ability to break down wholes into parts.

Grammar is acquired by a process of observation, hypothesis and experiment.

We can use whole phrases without understanding their constituent parts.

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Schmitt (2000) :

Schmitt : 'the mind stores and processes these [lexical] chunks as individual wholes.' The mind is able to store large amounts of information in long term memory but its short term capacity is much more limited, when producing language in speech for example, so it is much more efficient for the brain to recall a chunk of language as if it were one piece of information. 'Figment of his imagination' is, therefore, recalled as one piece of information rather than four separate words.

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Lexical approach: Principle 1- Grammaticalised lexis

The basic principle of the lexical approach is: "Language is grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised

grammar"(Lewis 1993).

In other words, lexis is central in creating meaning, grammar plays a subservient managerial role. If you accept this principle then the logical implication is that we should spend more time helping learners develop their stock of phrases, and less time on grammatical structures.

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Example :

Chris: Hassan tells me Fiza fancies him.Chin : It's just a figment of his imagination.

Has Chin accessed 'figment' and

'imagination' from his vocabulary store and then accessed the structure: it+to be+ adverb + article + noun + of + possessive adjective + noun from the grammar store?

Or is it more likely that Chin has accessed the whole chunk in one go?

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Task 2

Complete the following sentences with as many different words as you can.

(a) The Lexical Approach has had a strong ……………. on me.

(b) Carlos and Chin …………….. me to try out the Lexical Approach.

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Explanation

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A second important aspect of the Lexical Approach is that lexis and grammar are closely related.

If you look at the examples above, you will see in (a) that 3 semantically related words - impact, influence, effect - behave the same way grammatically: have a/an impact/influence/effect on something.

In (b) verbs connected with initiating action - encourage, persuade, urge, advise etc all follow the pattern verb + object + infinitive. This kind of 'pattern grammar' is considered to be important in the Lexical Approach.

Lexical Approach: Principle 2 - Noticing

Sometimes the noticing is :

guided by the teacher i.e. the teacher directs the students' attention to lexical features thought to be useful.

‘self-directed', i.e. the students themselves select features they think will be useful for them.

explicit, e.g. when items in a text are highlighted.

implicit e.g. when the teacher reformulates a student's text (how reconstruction and reformulation can enhance noticing and practical suggestions for reformulating).

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Lexical Approach: Principle 3 - Language Awareness

Learning materials and teachers can best help learners achieve noticing of lexical chunks by combining a Language Awareness approach to learning with a Lexical Approach to describing language.

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Tomlinson (2003)

Sums up the principles, objectives and procedures of language awareness approach as:

'Paying deliberate attention to features of language in use can help learners to notice the gap between their own performance in the target language and the performance of proficient users of the language.

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( continues)

Noticing can give salience to a feature, so that it becomes more noticeable in future input, so contributing to the learner's psychological readiness to acquire that feature.

The main objective is to help learners to notice for themselves how language is typically used so that they will note the gaps and 'achieve learning readiness' [as well as independence from the teacher and teaching materials].

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( continues)

• The first procedures are usually experiential rather than analytical and aim to involve the learners in affective interaction with a potentially engaging text. [That is, learners read a text, and respond with their own views and opinions before studying the language in the text or answering comprehension type questions.]

Learners are later encouraged to focus on a particular feature of the text, identify instances of the feature, make discoveries and articulate generalizations about its use.'

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