Lexical patterning in academic talk

Pat Byrd

Georgia State University

hpbyrd@gmail.com

http://hpbyrd.com/PatByrd/

Lexical Pattern defined

Pattern = Repeated word or repeated sets of words

Repeated = Repeated by many speakers/writers in a large

corpus Repeated by many speakers/writers but hard to

find in a particular corpus Repeated by a single speaker/writer in a corpus

text…and maybe used by others but perhaps that person’s habit of speech

NOT a syntactic pattern But

A repetition of a wordOr a set of words

Types of lexical patterns Corpus studies have revealed a wide variety of often repeated

lexical patterns in all types of communication. These include

Single word formulas (thanks, okay) Two-word collocates (help & people) Multi-word sets with internal gaps (in the … place) Multi-word sets that need completion (I don’t want to….) Invariable multi-word sets (on the other hand) Phrasal verbs (look up) Prepositional verbs (agree with) Multi-word idioms (… give someone a run for … money) Names (Georgia State University) Technical terminology (degree of freedom) Phrase frames (the … of the, it is … to)

Conception of lexical patterning behind this study #1. Language made up of a large lexicon with single

words and multi-word units We pull words and sets of words from memory and

combine them using syntactic rules Word sets often overflow the traditional syntactic

boundaries of subject-predicate #2. Prospecting ahead …Sinclair and Brazil

Words are used with other words…when we choose a word then we are choosing other words that are frequent with that word

Words come with grammatical expectations. If I start a statement with “while we” then listeners expect me to continue on with some verb/predicate that flows from that starting point

What we wanted to know…

How do the prosodic chunks and the lexical patterns interact?

How much of each sample is made up of lexical patterns?

How do speakers combine the lexical patterns into longer units?

What types of lexical patterns are found in the samples? What can teachers of oral communication make use of this approach to language analysis and the results of such an analysis?

Process for indentifying lexical patterns Divided the two samples into prosodic chunks Analyzed the lexical patterning found in each of the prosodic

chunks Created a list of lexical bundles in MICASE & checked the two

lectures for appearances of any of the bundles, especially the high frequency bundles

Checked collocates based on MICASE Used chains of collocates to suggest longer patterns

Used other reference sources when MICASE data didn’t support recognized or suspected patterns COCA corpus (from Brigham Young) AWL corpus Google Dictionaries

Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners of American English Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners

Lexical patterns used by the speakers in the samples

Formulaic single words Lexical Bundles Set or semi-set multiword units that don’t rise

to the frequency level of lexical bundles in the MICASE corpus

Collocations

MICASE Lexical bundles in the sample lectures

Introduction to Biology a lot of people if you look at in the in the or something like that the rest of the to be able to

Sports in Ancient Rome a little bit of a lot of different a lot of the and then you have and this is a and you can see are a lot of as you can see at the beginning of at the end of if you look at in the case of is going to be thank you very much that this is a the beginning of the the end of the the rest of the there are a lot this is a very we were talking about you have to be you look at the

Collocation

Statistically significant relationships between 2 words

Example of collocates that come before the word theory in the MICASE corpus: a, atomic, brain, Darwin’s, economic,

evolutionary, expectancy, have, his, interactionist, my, no, of, political, quantum, etc.

Strong relationship between lexical words and function words: theory + of, theory + about

Usefulness of collocations Show relationships between words that can be

several words apart…and might not be as easy to notice as adjacent words

Suggest longer patterns as collocations could be stringing together

Suggest set patterns with special meanings and uses: my theory is ….

Suggest patterns of use for a word Source/origin: Darwin’s theory Types: brain theory, evolutionary theory Possible Idioms: my theory Possible uses in combinations: have a theory

Visualizing lexical patterns in the MICASE samples

Worksheets for the two samples Sports in Roman history: pages 4-5 in the

handout Introduction to biology: pages 6-8 in the handout

Tentative results Analysis demonstrates the importance of repetition of previously

used wording by both speakers These are not words and phrases that have never been used in

these combination but are words and phrases that many speakers of English use, especially college teachers at the beginning of terms and the beginnings of particular class sessions

Over 90% of the words in the samples were involved in lexical patterning They are not putting together their remarks by a free combination

of word to word to word but are combining widely used words and phrases to create these introductory remarks for these particular lectures

Prosodic chunks are a happy home for lexical patterns

Number of lexical patterns per prosodic chunk

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Rome Biology Average

Single

2+

Fragment

Lexical patterns & prosodic chunks A complete chunk is based on prosody rather than

on syntax Lexical patterns inside [complete prosodic chunks]

1. a single word: [okay] 2. a whole more or less fixed multi-word set: [what I wanna

do today] 3. patterns that complete other patterns to build prosodic

chunks, prospecting ahead for other patterns required by vocabulary and grammar: [While we] >>> [recover the technology] [What I wanna do today] >>>[is>>>to continue

on>>>through our rapid tour]>>>[of Roman history>>>from the foundation of the city]>>>[down to the reign of Augustus]

Next steps

Analyze the lexical patterning in the content sections of the lectures when the teachers turn to talking about ancient Rome or biology

Consider how to use lexical patterns and prosodic chunks in teaching EAP listening and speaking