Lexical Phrases in Syllabus and Materials Design

Writer(s): 
Dave Willis, Centre of English Language Studies, University of Birmingham, England

One of the problems of syllabus design is deciding what the units of a syllabus should be. Traditionally units have been seen in terms of clauses and sentences. We teach students to produce and understand pattern sentences illustrating verb tenses, conditionals, the use of the articles, and so on. Basically, we teach sentence frames and students then manipulate those frames in particular ways to achieve particular meanings.

Sinclair (1991) draws attention to two principles of language organization. The first principle, which Sinclair calls the open choice principle, relates to the model of language I have just described. It is based on the belief that we manipulate sentence frames:

It is often called a "slot and filler" model, envisaging texts as a series of slots which have to be filled from a lexicon which satisfies local constraints. At each slot virtually any word can occur. Since language is believed to operate simultaneously on several levels, there is a very complex pattern of choices in progress at any one moment, but the underlying principle is simple enough. (p. 109)

Sinclair, however, challenges this view of grammar by drawing attention to what he calls the idiom principle:

The principle of idiom is that a language user has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analysable into segments. (p. 110)

It is not difficult to identify the kind of item Sinclair has in mind. Sinclair himself cites as an example the "simultaneous choice" of the two words of course, which he says is now the equivalent of a single lexical item in the same way as single words which started life as two separate items--maybe, anyway, another, cupboard. He then goes on to list semi-preconstructed phrases of different kinds. Some phrases allow some lexical variation: in some cases; in some instances. Some are fixed lexically but allow lexical syntactic variation: it is not in his nature to. . . ; it was hardly in her nature to. . . . Groups of this kind are variously referred to in the literature as lexical phrases, multi-word units, fixed phrases, formulaic phrases, chunks, preassembled chunks, prefabricated units, holophrases, and so on. I will refer to them as lexical phrases.

This view is reinforced by Widdowson (1989). Widdowson argues that a knowledge of lexical phrases or idioms is central to the communicative competence of any language user:

. . . communicative competence is not a matter of knowing rules for the composition of sentences. It is much more a matter of knowing a stock of partially pre-assembled patterns, formulaic frameworks, and a kit of rules, so to speak, and being able to apply the rules to make whatever adjustments are necessary according to contextual demands. Communicative competence in this view is essentially a matter of adaptation, and rules are not generative but regulative and subservient. (p. 135)

Here again the implication is that the grammar of idiom is dominant and that the grammar of open choice operates simply "to make whatever adjustments are necessary."

Although this view was put by Bolinger (1975) over twenty years ago, and has been restated at intervals (Pawley & Syder, 1983; Sinclair, 1991, etc.), it has not up to now been influential in EFL syllabus and materials design. Up to now descriptions of language have rested almost exclusively on the open choice principle. It is not surprising, therefore, that most views of language acquisition and most pedagogic procedures are also based on this principle. Language learning is largely viewed as a problem-solving enterprise, indeed, it is often described as a process of hypothesis formation and revision. The principles which lie behind open choice present the learner with a challenge--a puzzle. The process of learning a language involves, more than anything else, finding an answer to this puzzle. As learners receive more input they gradually revise their model of the language so that it conforms to the system of rules which govern the selection of items and the ways in which those items may be combined to produce grammatical sentences. But if we relegate the grammar of open choice to a secondary place in the scheme of things and accept that text is largely formed by the application of the idiom principle this entails a review of many of the theories on which our pedagogic procedures are based, and therefore entails a review of those procedures. We need to take account not only of the open choice principle, but also of the idiom principle, we need to concern ourselves not only with sentence patterns, but also with units like lexical phrases.

Lexical phrases of a particular type are particularly common in academic discourse. If, for example, you are reading medical research articles and preparing to teach your students to read these articles, you may well be struck by the frequency of the phrase in patients with. This phrase is very frequent indeed. It is often followed by a medical complaint:

 

In patients with septicaemia . . .

or by a symptom:

 

In patients with high blood pressure . . . .

The phrase is used very, very commonly to identify one particular group of patients as opposed to others.

You will also be struck by the frequency of phrases in the passive which are used to report work by other researchers. In particular, you may notice the frequent use of the present perfect passive:

 

It has been shown that . . .

. . . have been shown to . . . .

Whereas the verb is active, you may notice that the subject of the verb is not, as you might reasonably have expected, a person, but a study, data, or evidence:

 

Preliminary data from our study suggest that . . .

There is evidence to suggest that . . .

Almost certainly you will be struck by the number of complex noun phrases in these articles. If you look at noun phrases featuring the preposition of, you will find that several of them are to do with cause and effect:

 

. . . the effect of steroid supplementation in this clinical situation . . .

Many others feature a noun formed from a verb:

 

. . . the release of corticotropin . . .

. . . analysis of cortisol levels . . .

. . . treatment of long-term smokers . . .

Yet others involve a noun which means "occurrence" and which may be marked to show whether that occurrence is or is not frequent:

 

occurrence

prevalence

. . . the presence of . . .

absence

incidence

or to show whether that occurrence is or is not likely:

 

possibility

. . . the probability of

chance

likelihood

It seems, therefore, that a good deal of the complexity of this kind of medical discourse lies not in sentence structure, but in the complex phrases that make up the sentence. It seems also that many of these phrases are recurrent and predictable.

This suggests very strongly that we should look very carefully at recurrent phrases, or at what Sinclair calls "the idiom principle." The more we can predict about the structure and patterns of occurrence of phrases like this, the more we will be able to prepare our students to deal with them. It is not difficult to do as I have done here and give a quick indication of the importance, indeed the centrality of these phrases in certain forms of academic discourse. But if we take account of Widdowson's words we will recognize that phrases are an important part not only of highly specialized texts, but of basic communicative competence. We do not in our daily spoken discourse produce strings of complex noun phrases, but we do depend on prefabricated phrases of all kinds. If you look at a stretch of spoken discourse, it is not difficult to identify such phrases (you see; you know what I mean; sort of; as a matter of fact, etc.). And just as we can make out a strong case for the inclusion of lexical phrases in specialised discourse, it is not difficult to take out a similar case for the inclusion of such phrases in general English programmes. It is time to take account in our teaching not only of the principle of choice, but also of the principle of idiom.

 

References

Bolinger, D. (1975). Aspects of language (2nd Edition). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Pawley, A., & Syder, F. (1983). Two puzzles for linguistic theory. In J. Richards & R. Smith (Eds.). Language and communication. London: Longman.

Sinclair, J. M. (1991). Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.