12 The Lexical Approach词汇教学法

Chapter12TheLexicalApproach词汇法Background▪AlexicalapproachinLTreferstoonederivedfromthebeliefthatthebuildingblocksofLLandcommunicationarenotgrammar,functions,notions,orsomeotherunitofplanningandteachingbutlexis---wordsandwordcombinations.▪Itreflectsabeliefinthecentralityofthelexicontolanguagestructure,L2learning,andLuse,andinparticulartomultiwordlexicalunitsor“chunks”thatarelearntandusedassingleitems.SourcesoftheLA▪Linguistictheoryhasrecognizedthecentralroleforvocabularyinlinguisticdescription.E.g.,formaltransformation/generativelinguistics,whichpreviouslytooksyntaxastheprimaryfocus,nowgivesmorecentralattentiontothelexiconandhowthelexiconisformatted,coded,andorganized.▪Chomsky,thefatherofcontemporarystudiesinsyntax,hasrecentlyadopteda“lexicon-is-prime”positioninhisMinimalistLinguistictheory.Therolesoflexicalunits▪Lexicalunitsarealsoreferredto:holophrases,prefabricatedpatterns,gambits,speechformulaeandlexicalizedstems.▪ApproachestoLLthatviewvocabularyandlexicalunitsascentralinL&T:TheLexicalSyllabus,LexicalPhrasesandLanguageTeaching,andTheLexicalApproach.▪Corpuslinguisticsstudieshaveprovidedahuge,classroom-accessibledatabaseforlexicallybasedinquiryandinstruction,focusingoncollocationsoflexicalitemsandmultiplewordunits,andlexicallybasedtextsandcomputerresourcesareavailable.Approach:TheoryofLanguage▪Chomsky’sinfluentialtheoryoflanguageaboutthelexicalviewholdsthatonlyaminorityofspokensentencesareentirelynovelcreationsandthatmultiwordunitsfunctioningas“chunks”ormemorizedpatternsformahighproportionofthefluentstretchesofspeechheardineverydayconversation.▪Theroleofcollocationisalsoimportantinlexicallybasedtheoriesoflanguage.Collocationreferstotheregularoccurrencetogetherofwords.Differenttypesoflexicalunitsplayacentralroleinlearningandincommunication.Approach:TheoryofLanguage▪Lexisplaysacentralroleinlanguagelearning:–Perhapsweshouldbaseourteachingontheassumptionthatlanguageproductionconsistsofpiecingtogethertheready-madeunitsappropriateforaparticularsituationandthatcomprehensionreliesonknowingwhichofthesepatternstopredictinthesesituations.Ourteaching,therefore,wouldcenteronthesepatternsandthewaystheycanbepiecedtogether,alongwiththewaystheyvaryandthesituationsinwhichtheyoccur.(Nattinger1980:341)Approach:TheoryofLanguage▪However,whilenativespeakershavehundredsofthousandsofprepackagedphrasesintheirlexicalinventory,howL2learners,lackingthelanguageexperientialbaseofnativespeakers,approachthedauntingtaskofinternalizingthismassiveinventoryoflexicalusage?Approach:TheoryofLanguage–Massiveamountsof“languageinput”esp.throughreading–MakinglanguageclassroomalaboratoryforL2Learnerstoexplore,viacomputerconcordancedatabases,thecontextsoflexicaluseoccurringindifferentkindsoftextsanddata–Contrastiveapproachtolearninglexicalchunks(theteachingoflexicalcollocationsshouldconcentrateonitemswhichthereisnodirecttranslationalequivalenceintheTLandthenativelanguage)Approach:TheoryofLanguage▪Regardlessofthelearningroutetaken,amassivelearningloadseemsanunavoidableconsequenceofalexicalapproachinL2instruction.Approach:TheoryofLearning▪Differenttypesoflexicalunitsarethoughttoplayacentralroleinlearningandincommunication,whichhasbeenprovedbythestudiesbasedonlarge-scalecomputerdatabasesoflanguagecorporaasinthreeimportantUK-basedcorporaCOBUILDBankofEnglishCorpus,theCambridgeInternationalCorpus,andtheBritishNationalCorpus.Approach:TheoryofLearning▪Lewisacknowledgesthatthelexicalapproachhaslackedacoherentlearningtheoryandattemptstorectify(纠正,矫正)thiswiththefollowingassumptionsaboutitinLA:–Encounteringnewlearningitemsonseveraloccasionsisanecessarybutsufficientconditionforlearningtooccur.–Noticinglexicalchunksorcollocationsisanecessarybutnotsufficientconditionfor“input”tobecome“intake”.Approach:TheoryofLearning–Noticingsimilarities,differences,restrictions,andexamplescontributestoturninginputintointake,althoughformaldescriptionofrulesprobablydoesnothelp.–Acquisitionisbasednotontheapplicationofformalrulesbutonanaccumulationofexamplesfromwhichlearnersmakeprovisionalgeneralizations.Languageproductionistheproductofpreviouslymetexamples,notformalrules.–Nolinearsyllabuscanadequatelyreflectthenonlinearnatureofacquisition.Design:Objectives▪Seekingtodevelopproposalsforsyllabusdesignandlanguageteachingfoundedonaviewoflanguageinwhichlexisplaysthecentralrole.▪Reflectingabeliefinthecentralityofthelexicontolanguagestructure,secondlanguagelearning,andlanguageuse,andinparticulartomultiwordlexicalunitsor“chunks”thatarelearnedandusedassingleitems.Design:Thesyllabus▪TheLexicalSyllabus(Willis1990)andTheCollinsCOBUILDEnglishCourserepresentthemostambitiousattempttorealizeasyllabusandaccompanyingmaterialsbasedonlexicalratherthangrammaticalprinciples.Design:Thesyllabus▪WillisnotesthattheCOBUILDcomputeranalysesindicate“the700mostfrequentwordsofEnglishaccountforaround70%ofallEnglishtext.”Thisfactledtothedecisionthat“wordfrequencywoulddeterminethecontentsofourcoursewithdifferentlevels”.▪Willisstresses,however,“thelexicalsyllabusnotonlysubsumesastructuralsyllabus,italsoindicateshowthest